Basic, plodding and lacking any actual horror: Doctor Jekyll reviewed

Tis the season of horror, as it’s Halloween, which we celebrate in this house by turning off all the lights and pretending not to be in. (We look forward to it every year. It’s nice occasionally to go bed at around 5 p.m. and pretend not to be in.) But I thought I’d show willing by at least reviewing a horror film so it’s Doctor Jekyll, starring Eddie Izzard. It’s the latest from Hammer, which you didn’t know was still around, but is.

I have a fondness for these films as they were always on TV during my teenage years, with Peter Cushing creeping around some crypt, hammy and campy – ‘Good heavens, man! The lady you saw has been dead for 300 years!’ – rather than terrifying. Doctor Jekyll, however, is so basic and plodding that even I, squeamish as I am, was hoping a bludgeoning would happen soon. 

Hammer has changed hands quite a few times since its Vincent Price/Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee heyday – ‘I won’t be back…but something will!’ – and is now owned by the suitably named theatre impresario John Gore. Directed by Joe Stephenson, the film stars Scott Chambers as Rob, an ex-junkie who has just done time for a burglary. He has a baby daughter whom he has never seen, as she was born when he was in prison, and is sick in hospital, perhaps terminally.

You think the penal system is too soft in this country? Get this: one of the conditions of his parole is that even though his daughter may well be dying (leukaemia), he can’t visit her unless he has a stable job. This is why he is desperate to find work and hang on to it, and ends up as a carer for Dr Nina Jekyll.