Judging from the other reviews, mine is the first for the new Bluray restoration. And what a restoration it is.. the film looks absolutely stunning in its sinister, dimly lit glory. The cinematographer wisely chose to film with a dark lighting, which makes the image appear as a moving Baroque painting, the primary color being blood red, which looks stunning against the blackness. I'm sure that a movie like this must have looked awful on VHS and unrestored DVD versions. Fans of the cult TV horror/soap opera "Dark Shadows" might be the correct audience for " Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon" , as this is unapologetically Gothic and overwrought drama. The idea of combining the then-popular martial arts genre with a Gothic period horror film has never been done before, and the result is truly bizarre. The kidnapped victims that are injected with the rage inducing serum, are forced to fight to the death in a bleak, nightmarish looking dungeon that resembles the torture room in David Cronenberg's "Videodrome, " and these scenes provide the grim action and violence of this sadistic tale of tortured madness and family dysfunction. Filming the entire production inside the huge mansion doesn't hurt the film, as the house is beautiful and poetically spooky. Themes of incest and the pain of unrequited love are examined in ferocious detail, and the highly stylized overly dramatic acting brings to mind the 1930s horror classics. The low rating of this unknown gem is wildly inaccurate and I can only assume it's largely due to the poor quality of earlier video transfers. There is a very specific audience for this bizarre film and it looks like that audience has yet to discover it. If nothing else, see this on Bluray for the aesthetic beauty alone, which is a quality that can't be denied. I absolutely loved this movie. Also recommended is the 70s film "Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne" with Udo Kier, and directed by Poland's premier Surrealist Walarian Boroswyck. That film is very similar in style to this one and most likely was an inspiration for this unique horror film, even borrowing music cues from that European version. In fact I'm guessing fans of Euro cinema might particularly appreciate this one of a kind film..

Looking as though it was lit entirely by a single spotlight, and boasting some truly terrible acting and direction, The Dungeon (AKA Dr. Jekyll's Dungeon of Death) is an unbelievably bad horror movie that manages to throw in some very poor martial arts for good measure.

The great grandson of the original Dr. Jeckyll (a very hammy James Mathers) is experimenting on kidnap victims in an attempt to perfect the aggression serum first created by his famous ancestor. Jeckyll injects his prisoners with his serum and films their fights to the death; he is aided in his task by a black hunchback-style assistant named Boris and his lobotomised sister Hilda.

The mad scientist spends the rest of his spare time trying to seduce Julia, the object of his desires (well, most of them, since he also has a thing for his sister!). Julia is somehow resisting his charms, so Jeckyll wisely keeps her tied up and drugged in his house.

When the father of Julia pays a visit (believing his daughter to have died in a riding accident),the mad scientist tries to enlist his help. Naturally, he isn't too keen on the idea and tries to put a stop to the madness.

Although this premise actually sounds fairly entertaining, let me assure you that not one facet of this awful production is worthy of praise: the whole film is extremely dark (ie., too shadowy); the script is terrible; the acting is amateurish in the extreme; and the endless fight scenes are interminably boring.

If I hadn't bought this in a charity shop, I'd be demanding my money back!!

Where do I even start?! The film, set in San Francisco, opens with two black guys fighting in Dr. Jekyll's (James Mathers) lab. Over this fight a narration by Jekyll informs us of the story up to this point. He says "Great Grandfather Jekyll foolishly used his own body as a subject for experimentation, that was his fatal mistake. Once the rage emerged, or as he wrote once Hyde emerged and gained control, Grandfather was lost. In the continuing viewing of my experiments filmed here in the laboratory it is interesting to note how the various subjects react under the influence of the serum. The reaction time of the serum doesn't seem to be affected in any way by the decrease in dosage. I'm able to study the behavioral changes brought about by the different dosages. The black subjects have less hostility in comparison to the whites, one would think they would have more repressed aggressions, perhaps I should increase their dosage. Despite the many failures I have endured thus far, I will continue with the human experimentation and discover the secret that will give me the power to control the mind of man!". Jekyll is a complete loon, he was thrown out of Oxford university in 1939 for dissecting a tramp alive. He keeps his assistant and the woman with whom he is in love with, Julia (Dawn Carver Kelly) constantly drugged and tied to the front of his wardrobe in his bedroom. His mute sister Hilda (Nadine Kalmes, who I sort of fancied) was hopelessly insane from birth and was lobotomized when she was 14 to calm her madness. Boris (Jake Pearson) is also mute, he kidnaps people for Dr. Jekyll to perform his experiments on and is a general dogsbody, he is also in love with Julia. Malo (Tom Nicholson) who has an afro hair cut and a 70's porno mustache, also helps Jekyll in his experiments, Jekyll describes him as "a fine example of a psychotic killer!", he doesn't say a word throughout the entire film either. On the false pretense that his daughter Julia is dead Jekyll invites her Father Professor Atkinson (John F. Kearney) to his house. Jekyll wants Atkinson to help him in his experiments. Jekyll tells him that he has developed a cross breed of cattle that produces 30% more edible meat. But the bulls are docile and refuse to breed, sex stimulants on their own are useless. Jekyll says that while he worked on psychological warfare for the army he developed a pituitary stimulant which released all the aggression buried deep within the unconscious mind. The serum is unstable and the bulls kill the cow after ejaculation! At first Professor Atkinson agrees to help him, but it soon becomes clear to him that Jekyll has more sinister intentions for the serum. Jekyll confesses "if I can control the dosage so as to counter the rage with the awful need for withdraw then I believe I can keep the subject in a constant state of anxiety, they will follow me then on command!" Disturbed by this Professor Atkinson refuses to help him any more. If it's possible Dr. Jekyll becomes even crazier in his attempts to perfect the serum. Will he succeed? Can Professor Atkinson convince him to cease his experiments? Will the local police figure out that Dr. Jekyll is behind the recent kidnapping spree? Watch it and find out. Directed by James Woods (no, not that James Woods!) this is one crazy film. The script by Dr. Jekyll himself James Mathers is totally hilarious. Just listen to some of the dialogue, "good god Jekyll does tragedy follow you everywhere!?" Jekyll starts to grope a drugged Julia, his sister Hilda looks on in the shadows, he sees her grabs her and says "you have had to bear more agony than I in your wretched young life, your just like Mother, that's why I hate you! You walk like her, look like her, you even make me want you like her!" Dr. Jekyll is showing Professor Atkinson some footage of his experiments, he gloats over the possibilities "imagine if you will an army of enraged killers, righteous killers. Who'd need no moral justification for their deeds, ever. No moral questions in battle!" "You fiend, Jekyll! You fiend! You Fiend!" Line after line, it's just so hilariously entertaining. The relationships between the characters is bizarre as well. Jekyll beats Boris, "yes my friend I know exactly how you feel, love is the most painful emotion of all!" and burns him with a cigar. He stabs Hilda in the arm with an ice pick because she didn't put any ice in his drink, in this scene Jekyll also attacks a block of ice with the pick shouting "Ice! Ice! Ice!" I am also puzzled as to how Boris can kidnap people so easily. He pulls his car up outside the front of Jekyll's house and proceeds to remove people from the boot and takes them inside over his shoulder. Jekyll's neighbors call the police when they supposedly hear gunshots but don't notice Boris and all the unconscious people he brings home in the boot of his car! Unfortunately, apart from the wacky script and bizarre characters there is little to recommend here. The film has no blood or gore and very little violence, the fight scenes look OK and seem well choreographed, with the exception of the odd punch here and there that obviously miss by a mile. Another exploitation element that appears to have been completely, and disappointingly ignored is naked flesh, there isn't any nudity or sex in it at all. The film is extremely dark and sometimes difficult to see whats happening. The entire film is set in Jekyll's large house, film never leaves the confines of his house or grounds. Acting is all over the place, Hilda, Julia, Boris and Malo don't say a word during the whole film so they don't have much acting to do. I did like Hilda though, probably because I fancied her. So, the entire film is basically Mathers as Jekyll who overacts wildly, in fact he's quite funny to watch. The only other speaking character is Professor Atkinson, but Kearney isn't given much to do with him. The script is surreal, the dialogue is hilarious, and the characters bizarre, if only they could have made a good exploitation film around these elements, but they didn't and the film is poor in just about every other department, and with no blood, gore or nudity there's not a whole lot of reason to watch this. I found some of it really funny, but all things considered, don't bother wasting your time.