The Dungeon aka Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death

The Dungeon,  also known as Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death  directed by James Wood, was originally released in 1979 via video distribution company Magnum Entertainment.

This very unusual film, which comically combines martial arts and horror, is surprisingly very entertaining. James Mathers, who plays the grandson of the original Dr. Jekyll, delivers the role of a mad scientist very convincingly with his at times, unexplainable performance. His acting skills won me over; I genuinely thought that James Mathers was a nutter, especially when in one scene he attacked an ice bucket without reason screaming “Ice, Ice, Ice” as if he was a macabre version of Vanilla Ice. Or when he pathetically fondles his heavily sedated female prisoner Julia, begging her to love him with almost contradictory cartoon puppy dog eyes.

The plot is schizophrenically influenced by two varieties of late seventies popular culture, which makes it really weird. Dr. Jekyll creates a super steroid aggression serum using his grandfather’s research, he then injects the drug into the necks of various no hope serial killers and prison volunteers, before observing the cock fight. Jekyll will blame a victory on years of suppressed aggression if the fighter is of African heritage, or lack of opportunity in a male dominated world if the winner is female.

There is no obvious reason or justification within the dialogue to explain why these experiments are being carried out; there is no sense of progression within the narrative at all. Jekyll has his mentor’s daughter tied up in his bedroom and molests her whilst her father is in the next room visiting for her funeral. Jekyll’s sister touches herself up when anything violent happens, but this may be due to the fact that she has been lobotomized for some reason. It’s like Hammer House of Horror meeting Karate Kid, but they have a chat and a cup of tea and get on really well….. and then the film ends without a satisfying resolution and without any martial arts experts squaring off against any mad scientists.

The film was good because it was bad, because it didn’t really make much sense and because James Mathers is a nutcase.    

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