For our first episode of 2026, we’ve got four new releases and one oldie for you. We’ll open on “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” and “Influencers,” a couple of sequels. Two that aren’t sequels are “Keeper” and “Wormtown,” all from 2025. Finally, we’ll watch “Experiment in Evil,” an oldie from 1959
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Mainstream Films:
2025 Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Directed by: Emma Tammi
Written by: Scott Cawthon
Stars: Josh Hutcherson, Piper Rubio, Elizabeth Lail
Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A year after the first movie, the survivors are back with some fresh faces, and there’s another Freddy’s location with intact animatronics plus a new creepy puppet. As you might guess, the problem wasn’t completely solved after the first movie, so there’s another bout of death and destruction. We liked the first one and thought this one was equally entertaining. It’s a bit abrupt in the ending and very obvious there’s going to be a third movie.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on an arcade and a fun place with lots of kids playing. One little girl just sits and waits for the animatronic show. The sad girl, Charlotte, watches as a little boy goes into the back room with the big rabbit. She goes in after him but gets stabbed in the process. Credits roll. “Girl Dies in Fazbear Accident” says the headlines. We also see a marionette, a character who was not in the first film.
Twenty years later, little Vanessa has grown up and still remembers all those events. Mike calls; he and Abby have a house now. Mike’s got an upcoming date with her, but his friend says she has crazy eyes after that incident with the killer bear. Abby, on the other hand, tells her story repeatedly at school. No one ever found the real killer, William Afton.
Abby’s class is learning about robotics at school, and there’s going to be a science fair. Mr. Berg, the teacher, doesn’t like Abby. Could she fix up the old robots at Freddy’s? Maybe she could. Mike has promised to fix them for years, but he never really does it. The dead-children possessed the robots there, and they were her friends.
Mike and Vanessa go on a date, and she’s still messed up from her experiences before. When he gets home, he finds a note from Abby saying she’s gone to Freddy’s to fix up her friends. They go inside to find nothing– the animatronic animals are gone now. She finds a FazTalker, some kind of talking toy, on the floor and keeps it.
Elsewhere, a trio of ghost-chasers arrives at Freddy’s; Mike may have invited the “Spectral Scoopers” to investigate. The new security guard is Michael, not the Mike we already know, and he lets them inside. This isn’t the same location as the one Mike and Abby were just in, this one is much cleaner; it’s the original location. The Marionette was unique to this location as well. This one still has the animatronics inside. Lisa, Rob, and Alex explore the place, recording everything for their show. They all die painfully as Michael smiles evilly. Except, Lisa is now possessed by Charlotte.
Meanwhile, Vanessa, at Spin Class, hallucinates Afton/The Yellow Rabbit yelling at her, and she’s not all the mentally well. Afton was her father, and he left an impression. She still has nightmares about him.
The FazTalker talks to Abby, asking for help. She rides to the other FazBears, where we saw the bad stuff happening. Chica is there, and she’s happy to see Abby.
The next day, Vanessa comes over and sees Abby’s robotics project; she says Freddy and Chica helped her build it. This leads to Vanessa and Mike breaking up.
Vanessa goes to Freddy’s and talks to Charlotte’s ghost, who wants to get out of this place so that she can hurt people. None of the animatronics can leave, but Charlotte thinks Abby can help her break that limitation. Charlotte/Marionette then capture Vanessa.
At the science fair, Mr. Berg breaks Abby’s project, so she goes back to Freddy’s to be with her friends. Chica volunteers to be the new science project, but she can’t leave the building until Abby enters the passcode. The other animatronics arrive just as the lock shuts down. Abby and Chica then take an Uber to the science fair.
Mike goes to see Charlotte’s father, who still hasn’t gotten over his daughter’s death twenty years ago. They complain about the “FazFest” that’s coming to town. Mike learns that there was more than one Freddy’s location. The father gives Mike a music box that Charlotte used to like.
Mike rushes to Freddy’s, breaks in, and walks right past Lisa’s dead body on the way inside. He does eventually find Vanessa locked in a closet. Vanessa explains it all, but Mike is still skeptical. The only ghost here is Charlotte, not all those other kids.
Chica and Abby go to the science fair, and Mr. Berg doesn’t approve. Chica takes care of everything.
Vanessa explains that Charlotte is remote-controlling the animatronic to get revenge for her own death. Meanwhile, all four big robots are out and about. Freddy is at the FazFest carnival. When Mike starts hacking into the system Charlotte activates the nasty looking prototypes in the back room.
Mike and Vanessa each encounter the prototypes, but they aren’t very smart. Meanwhile, the intact robots are out killing bad parents. As everything starts getting crazy, Mike turns off the wifi and everything stops. Only the one with Charlotte is still active, and it’s at Mike’s house.
At home, Abby sees Chica pop open, and the Marionette comes out. When Vanessa reports that the WiFi has come back on, Mike goes to Freddy’s and begs the ghosts of the dead children for assistance.
Vanessa gets there first and finds that the Marionette/Charlotte has possessed Abby. Just as she’s about to kill Vanessa, Mike shows up with the music box and puts Charlotte to sleep.
The robots then attack again along with Michael, who turns out to be Vanessa’s secret brother. “I’m here to continue Afton’s legacy, just in time for FazFest.” The Animatronics start to attack Vanessa and Mike, but then, out of the blue, the old animatronics, possessed by the dead children, arrive to save the day.
One of the ghost boys appears and says they all have to move on, but once they are gone, they “can’t hold him in anymore,” setting us up for a third film. Mike doesn’t want anything to do with Vanessa, who has lied to him repeatedly. Then, the Marionette possesses Vanessa…
During an end credit scene, we cut to some looters breaking into Freddy’s before the scheduled demolition tomorrow. They find the yellow rabbit from the first film, the one with Afton inside…
Brian’s Commentary
This is obviously a sequel to 2023’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s.” There’s a lot going on here that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s got enough humor in it that it’s worthwhile. It seems like the whole thing could have been avoided if the characters from the first film would have gone through some therapy afterward.
The ending was clearly a setup, but it was awfully abrupt, and more of a cliffhanger than an ending. Still, if you liked the first one and thought it needed more, this is probably right up your alley.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s a smooth sequel, continuing right along with things after a year passing since the events of the first movie. I thought it was on par with the first movie, just as entertaining. And it very obviously sets us up for a third movie after an abrupt ending.
2025 Influencers
Directed by: Kurtis David Harder
Written by: Kurtis David Harder
Stars: Cassandra Naud, Emily Tennant, Jonathan Whitesell
Run Time: 1 Hour, 50 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a sequel to 2022’s “Influencer,” with Cassandra Naud back at it again. It was a little unclear at first if it was a prequel or sequel considering the ending of “Influencer,” but they decided to just gloss over a major issue with that ending without explaining it. That aside, it was well put together in beautiful settings, and we both mostly enjoyed it.
Spoilery Synopsis
A woman gets a million notifications on her socials and cries. She then grabs a knife and cuts her own throat.
We cut to southern France, where Catherine, CW, is riding her bike. She goes home to Diane and they go out for a date. They have plans for the weekend, and they go to– no, they stop off at an abandoned castle to do some sightseeing. Nothing happens there, so they continue on to the castle that they have reserved.
When they arrive, their room is rented, so they get a tiny space instead. Catherine meets Charlotte, another guest, who complains about the size of the pool. She’s the one who got their special room and offers to buy their dinner. Turns out, Charlotte is an influencer. Catherine is clearly jealous, but Diane thinks she’s nice. They talk about how quickly Charlotte would shrivel up and die without her phone.
The next day, Catherine tells Charlotte that Diane is ill, and offers to be her photographer for the day. She knows just the place to get some great photos– that old castle again. Sure enough, they go up to the dangerous-looking tower Catherine visited earlier. One short push later, Charlotte is no more. Catherine has Charlotte’s phone and password, so she can use that. They soon end up in that room they reserved after Charlotte “runs off.”
Diane goes through all Catherine’s stuff and finds her passport. Her name isn’t even Catherine, and she has access to Charlotte’s account. “You’ve done this before. What were you doing in Thailand? Several girls were killed.” Catherine tries to convince her that she knows nothing about it, but one thing leads to another, and soon Diane is dead. Credits roll (30 minutes in).
We cut to a podcast explaining what happened at the end of the previous film. The murderer, CW, somehow got away. Madison White was the only survivor from all that carnage. The podcasters still don’t believe Madison’s story, whose story doesn’t quite check out. There’s no evidence that “CW” ever existed. Later, Madison reads how Charlotte’s body was found in France. Could there be a connection? Can she find proof? She’s still getting death threats and stalkers after getting blamed for all the murders.
Madison goes to France and starts following places where Charlotte had posted photos. She goes to the big chateau and asks about Catherine and Diane, but she doesn’t know what names they used. It’s kind of a dead end.
We cut to Bali, where Jacob, a “man-o-sphere” influencer, does his show. Ariana warns him that his audience is dwindling. He runs into Madison, who’s still looking for CW, and gets her phone number.
A while later, Jacob spots CW in a crows, and he recognizes her from the photo that Madison showed him. He tells CW all about Madison looking for her; he’s truly an idiot.
CW then returns to her lair and talks to an AI copy of Diane, who talks just like the original. She uses the AI to figure out who Jacob is and where to find him– and Madison as well. She then uses AI to reconstruct Diane’s face well enough to talk to Diane’s own mother over Facetime.
CW talks to Jacob and tells him about the stalker that keeps accusing her of terrible things. She’s got quite a story for him. Later, she gets into his computer and gets access to everything. While there, she runs into Ariana, who threatens to call the police. CW leaves, but also tells her that she slept with Jacob, Ariana’s boyfriend.
We cut to Paris, one year ago. CW has moved there after the Thailand incident, and wears a hoodie to hide her distinctive birthmark. We see how she met Diane and fell in love. It’s a whole extended flashback thing, and it appears that CW wasn’t using Diane the way she manipulated the other influencers. She didn’t really mean to kill her, it just happened.
Back in the present, Ariana calls Jacob’s friend Cameron, who tells her that Jacob wants to break up with her. Cameron never liked Ariana, and he wants to get rid of her. CW posted a video of Jacob having sex with another woman, and Ariana’s getting a lot of notifications. Not long after, Arian kills herself, which we saw in the opening scene.
Jacob tells Cameron that he thinks he’s onto a murderer, and Cameron thinks he’s crazy.
Jacob goes home and finds Madison standing over Ariana’s dead body and jumps to the wrong conclusion. They argue– who’s been playing whom? Well, that doesn’t matter because Madison then stabs Jacob. The two girls then fight for quite a while. Eventually, Madison knocks out her opponent, steals her phone, and learns where CW’s “lair” is.
Madison talks to the AI Diane as she searches the place and finds murder victim photos. Meanwhile, Jaxob recovers a bit and unties CW, whom he assumes is the victim now. He soon looks at Ariana’s phone and learns the truth. This time, CW stabs him a few more times.
Except Jacob’s computer on, livestreaming to CW’s lair, where Madison and “Diane” have seen rebroadcast the whole thing on social media. Her guilt is proven, and she goes berserk. Cameron walks in, and she guts him in front of everyone. Then she chases down the girls with him as the movie closes.
Brian’s Commentary
This is a sequel to 2022’s “Influencer,” and, as before, the settings are amazing. I liked the first one, and I liked this one as well. It’s got enough twists and turns, and most of the people who die kinda have it coming, so I’d call it a win.
Kevin’s Commentary
It reminded me a bit of the Mr. Ripley character from his conniving adventures advancing himself at the deadly expense of others and having to keep up on the damage control.
At first I was going to go with this being a prequel because they didn’t explain it for the first half hour. But then they showed us that they figured out how to milk it out as a sequel despite the ending of “Influencer.” How do we explain how she got off the island? Just don’t and hope we don’t mind. I’ll overlook that annoying point enough to call it a win.
2025 Keeper
Directed by: Osgood Perkins
Written by: Nick Lepard
Stars: Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland, Birkett Turton
Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
A couple in love goes to his remote, and beautiful, cabin for a romantic getaway. Things seem normal. Then it gets strange. Then very strange. It takes a while to get there, but the payoff is very good. We both were very pleased.
Spoilery Synopsis
We see various scenes of women and then cut to scenes of some of them screaming. Credits roll.
Liz and Malcolm drive to his cabin way out in the woods. It’s a nice place; the caretaker left them a cake, so he starts making dinner. As she takes a bath, we see odd things happening behind her.
Someone’s ringing the doorbell, but it’s late. Malcolm says it’s Cousin Darren and his date, Minka, who doesn’t speak English. Minka nods at the cake and warns Liz about it. The unwanted guests soon leave. Liz is suddenly very suspicious of Malcolm, but he still seems nice. They start to make out, but in the middle, he decides he wants some cake. She doesn’t like chocolate, but he wants her to try it anyway.
That night, Liz has strange dreams. She goes downstairs and examines the rest of the cake, which she shoves into her mouth like an animal. As she eats it, we hear the screams of many women.
We cut to Minka, who is lost in the woods for some reason. She sees another woman, and she is attacked strangely.
In the morning, Liz draws the faces of the screaming women; she’s an artist. Later, she and Malcolm go for a walk in the woods. She finds a locket on a rock in a stream and takes it. Malcolm gets a call from work and has to go deal with it. She’s acting weird, but he doesn’t seem to notice. She keeps getting visions of bubbles and water.
Alone now, she watches out the window to the neighbor’s yard and sees a head in the garbage there. No– just her imagination, maybe. Then she sees Minka and also a mini-Minka. And wakes up from a nap after drinking.
Darren comes over and asks about the cake. He asks if she feels sleepy. She goes to the bathroom and locks herself in while he grabs a cleaver. Is he coming after her? We see someone weird climbing the stairway, but it’s upside-down and partially dismembered. When she comes out of the bathroom, Darren isn’t there anymore. Did something get him? She calls Malcolm and leaves a message for him to hurry up.
Liz finds a man’s wristwatch in the garbage disposal and then hallucinates a person with a bag over their head. Also, there’s another cake on the table now. She packs her bag and calls her friend for a ride; the phone loses signal halfway through, so she doesn’t know how that worked out.
Malcolm returns. She confronts him about all the weird people she’s seen. He searches the house for her, obviously not believing her story. He’s charming and all gaslight-y, so she decides to stay longer. After a while, his story continues to not check out, and she knows there’s something wrong again. She finds a photo of Malcolm with another woman lying on the bathroom floor, and it looks really old.
He insists that he loves her and didn’t want her to suffer, but he’s starting to tell the truth. “You’re giving me life,” he explains. The cake was supposed to knock her out, but it didn’t work on her. “They present themselves to you as women, didn’t they? I don’t know what they are, but I’ve known them for a long time.”
Malcolm tells her a story about when he and his cousin were children, two hundred years ago. They found a pregnant woman on their land and shot her before taking her prisoner. She ended up giving birth in the pig pen. The “baby” was… unusual. Now, he and Darren feed them women regularly, and have for centuries. He talks about “their magic” shielding the place.
She runs upstairs, and something strange follows her. She climbs out a window and falls into the stream below. We flash back to the locket, which contains a picture of the original “mother,” who looks just like Liz. Meanwhile, Malcolm packs up Liz’s stuff and puts it in a room with a bunch of others.
Liz wakes up in a basement. There are some very weird “people” down there with her as well. They have a head in a honey jar, and they place it on a mummified body. They say they are her children, and also all the women who came before.
Upstairs, Malcolm waits for the screaming to stop and then goes to bed. He wakes up coughing; he’s older-looking now. There are screams.
In the morning, Malcolm wakes up upside-down, hanging from a tree, and he’s looking pretty ancient now. Liz comes out to him and says they’ve asked her to stay. She feeds him some cake. Then she drowns him in honey.
Brian’s Commentary
This started out feeling like an abduction-gaslighting-kidnapping story, and it was, but there’s a lot more to it than that.
The creature effects in this one really stand out. Those things are weird. The whole thing goes way off the rails in the final half hour, and that’s the best part.
It was surprisingly good.
Kevin’s Commentary
Things seem normal enough at first. Then they get strange. Then all is revealed.
I was expecting a sort of vampirism where he was feeding directly off the life force of a series of women over the years, but it’s a secondary immortality by feeding women to magic creatures.
I really liked the payoff and where the ending went.
2025 Wormtown
Directed by: Sergio Pinheiro
Written by: Andrew James Myers
Stars: Caitlin McWethy, Rachel Ryu, Emily Soppe
Run Time: 1 Hour, 41 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is an interesting take on a parasitic takeover, not seeing the initial invasion but instead the day to day life of a fully infested population in a small town - with a trio of holdouts fighting the system. The body horror is dialed up to eleven, and it’s really gross. We both thought it was a little rushed toward the end, but overall a thumbs-up.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a man at the optometrist’s office; he’s been having headaches and his eyes hurt. He’s the mayor of the town. He claims he can now see in the dark. The eye doctor looks into his eye and sees… worms. We then cut to the town, and it looks like it’s populated by people with skin conditions. The mayor and the others infected by the worms run the town, the radio station, and the churches, working for “the greater good.” We then see a couple of women shaving each other’s heads. Credits roll.
We then see some kids playing outside as the sun comes up, and the bright sunlight has a devastating effect on little Tommy. He melts into a pile of blood and worms.
Jess, one of the bald women, goes to check on her friend Greg, who has drunk the wormy milk. She scrounges the area for food and junk outside during the daylight hours until she finds what’s left of Tommy. She opens him up and looks at the worms inside; not all of them are dead yet. Rose analyzes the samples back at the bald-woman base to study, but Kara, another of the women, doesn’t care. Jess runs in, covered in Tommy’s blood, and she’s afraid she’s been infected.
Night falls, and the infected people come out again as the mayor continues broadcasting on the radio. Kara rushes off in a huff and gets stopped by an infected deputy. He takes her to Tommy’s mother for identification, but she’s not the one who was messing with the body. They want Kara to sell out her friends so they can all join the group. They feed her a wormy apple.
Meanwhile, Rose and Jess talk about going to Amish country to visit family. Kara and Deputy Elroy come in to infect them, and there’s a fight. Rose gets infected repeatedly, but Jess pulls out the worms– maybe. She then cuts out Elroy’s eyes - more for revenge than to get necessary samples. The two women then go out, in the daylight, to hide in a shut-down school. Rose is in the early stages of infection.
After a while, Rose complains that she can feel the worms inside her. Rose tells Jess to go to Amish country and find her sister Susanna, for help. Rose then runs out into the sun to die.
Kara, who now lives with Alice, Tommy’s mother, complains that her ribs hurt. The woman explains that the brian-worms hadn’t even hatched yet when she betrayed her friends.
Jess goes to Amish land and finds Susanna and her brother Hans. She tells them that Rose has died, but they had disowned her long ago. Susanna is friendly, but Hans is not, but Jess gets to stay in the barn. She espouses the wonder that is the “Bill and Ted” movies. Jess and Susanna talk about the world outside, all infected by the worms.
Back in town, Kara goes through a ritual as the worms take her over. Now she can see in the dark, and she’s part of the group. She’s still getting sick, so it may not be working quite right. She’s going to need surgery to correct the problem. They strap her down to a table and give her electric shocks to drive out the “bad” worms and leave the good ones. It’s painful and disgusting, but the treatment works.
Susanna and Hans talk about why she doesn’t get a humspringer, and in exchange, he allows Jess to stay with them.
Kara meets the mayor, or what’s left of him, and we see that the long-term effects of the worms are not good. She wants to be “A Rancher” , one of his deputies, and he wants to know why. He admits that the humans are basically food for the worms, and it’s all going to end badly. The mayor wants Jess brought in for the murder of Elroy.
Now “Ranchers,” Alice and Kara get outfits that let them walk outside in the daytime.
Jess and Susanna talk about Cleveland and the worm-people. They hear normal people on the radio– maybe only Ashland is infected. On the road, they soon run into Kara’s group. This goes badly for Alice, who gets exposed to the sun in the ensuing fight. They throw Alice in the backseat and head back to the farm.
Alice, now with her head clear, apologizes to Jess for everything she’s done. Alice tells Jess to disable the radio station where the mayor is constantly broadcasting and then dies.
Kara goes rogue and beats up an uninfected person in town, which annoys the mayor. Kara then squishes the mayor’s head and lets the bugs out. Taking over, she goes to the radio station and starts reporting about her new era. They are even going to go after the Amish now.
Jess and Susanna arrive at the radio station and kill one of the guards. When Jess smashes the transmitter, the outside signals can get through now. She and Kara fight, and Jess gets wormed before killing Kara.
Susanna takes Jess to the car and drives out of town. The sun comes up, and Jess gets out of the car to die in the sunlight. Susanna runs up and covers her with a blanket.
Brian’s Commentary
Ew. So many worms.
I would have liked an explanation of how this all started, but there’s a lot more mystery to it this way, which is probably fine. I feel like there was a lot here that wasn’t fully fleshed out, like the thing with the cell phones, which seemed to disrupt the worms somehow. Also, the worms seemed to be in a sort of group mind, where they knew each other were being attacked.
If you like body horror, this is a gross one, but it suffers a bit from being too ambitious a story and from being rushed. This would have made an excellent miniseries.
Kevin’s Commentary
I thought this was an interesting take on a parasitic takeover. We don’t see the origin or get an explanation if they are terrestrial or alien or what. Just small town life with most of the population in the grip of the infestation. And a few freedom fighters are trying to undo it. Well, quickly two freedom fighters and then one.
It had a promising start, but I thought it got bogged down the further it went along. I have mixed feelings about it, mostly good but not entirely.
1959 Experiment in Evil
AKA “The Testament of Dr. Cordelier” AKA “The Doctor’s Horrible Experiment”
Directed by: Jean Renoir
Written by: Jean Renoir, Robert Louis Stevenson
Stars: Jean-Louis Barrault, Teddy Bilis, Michel Vitold
Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s an updated version of Jekyll and Hyde set in the modern age of 1959 France, Dr. Cordelier and Mr. Opale this time around. The Frenchness as well as the late 1950s fashions, styles, and technology all contribute to the entertainment. It’s solidly made and an enjoyable watch, though the last half hour drags a bit.
Spoilery Synopsis
Mr. Renoir arrives in town, and they head straight to the TV studio. He gets settled in behind the desk and records the introduction to a documentary story. He tells us about the strange Dr. Cordelier, a scientist. Mr. Joly is a notary who helps the doctor write up a new will. Mr. Opale is written into the will to inherit Cordelier’s estate should anything happen to him.
Joly watches one night as a sketchy-looking man with a cane shuffles down the street. His suit doesn’t fit right, and he grabs and attacks a child. The creepy man runs and hides in Cordelier’s garden and escapes. The servant lets Joly in, who tells him what happened. The servant, Desire, explains that Mr. Opale is Cordelier’s house guest, and it must have been him.
The next morning, Cordelier comes to see Joly about Opale and the events last night. Cordelier doesn’t seem worried or surprised at the story, but he’s not going to do anything about it.
Joly goes to see Dr. Severin who doesn’t like Cordelier’s research. Cordelier used to be a great psychologist, but now he’s a loon. They talk about why Cordelier would want to work with a crazy man like Opale.
Meanwhile, Opale goes on a daytime rampage, attacking various people around Paris and eventually beating a man to death. As the witnesses are questioned, Joly is there and recognizes Opale’s cane. He knows what’s going on and tells the police about Opale.
The police go to Opale’s apartment, but he’s not there. The women in the building are thrilled that Opale’s going to be arrested. They find whips and fetish gear inside as well as the other half of his broken cane.
Cordelier doesn’t seem concerned and says he doesn’t know where Opale is. His brain has allowed Cordelier to do his greatest work, so he owes him.
Cordelier sets up a demonstration of his work with Dr. Severin, who also invites Joly. We see that it’s Opale who shows up. He can’t help but attack a man with crutches outside and this starts a whole chase with the police. He then chases the nurses around the office before confronting Severin.
Severin examines Opale and asks him some medical questions. As they talk, the police and Joly arrive outside. Cordelier answers the door and shows them to Severin’s dead body. The police search for Opale, but they don’t find a trace of him.
Cordelier promises to stop his experiments, and he even has the back door to his garden bricked up. He throws a party for all his wealthy friends.
Much later that night, Desire calls Joly and urges him to rush over. Professor Cordelier is in his lab moaning and screaming, and the servants are terrified. The noises continue, and the men break in the door.
Inside, they find Opale who grabs a hostage. They can’t find Cordelier anywhere. They all calm down and leave Opale to tell his story to Joly. Opale has an audio tape from Cordelier that explains it all. We get a flashback to a much younger version of Cordelier, who treats a woman with a scandalous nephew. He had “naughty” thoughts about his nurse and some patients, and once, he even raped a sedated patient. This happened over and over, so he started to look for a way to chemically treat his moral failings. He decided to try his experiment on himself, and after drinking it, he turned into Opale, who looks very different.
Instead of repressing his sick desires, they manifested physically, turning him into a criminal. Back in the lab, Joly doesn’t believe any of this. Opale wants Joly to help him get his conscience back and go back to being just Cordelier. He tells more about that first time he changed to Opale, then went back to Cordelier who swore never again. But he craved it too much to leave it alone. So we see the flashback of his second outing as Opale.
Which brings us back to the present, where Opale laments that he can’t turn back anymore. Opale wants to take a fatal dose of poison which Joly tries to talk him out of. He doesn’t succeed and Opale collapses. Joly runs for help, and when he comes back with the servants Opale has reverted back to Cordelier.
Brian’s Commentary
Cordelier and Opale look nothing at all alike, yet they’re played by the same actor. This was made for TV and got a theatrical release later on.
It’s decent, although pretty uninspired for the first hour, and it starts to really drag once Opale starts to tell his story. I do not recommend it.
Kevin’s Commentary
“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was published in 1886. It’s strange to think that this was a modern update at the time, which was over sixty years ago.
I was impressed with the distinct look that Jean-Louis Barrault had between the two personas with the use of mannerisms, makeup, and costuming.
It’s dated, but that lends to the charm with 1950s technology and vibe. Overall, I thought it was an entertaining good time. For some reason, it seemed longer than an hour and a half but I wasn’t bored. Just surprised when we paused at a point I was expecting to be a final wrap up and there was still a half hour to go.
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