Boasting as the "Original Teen Horror Comedy," Student Bodies follows the crazed serial murderer "The Breather" as he picks off sex-starved students one-by-one with everything from paper clips, to a chalkboard eraser, to a household bookend! You'll never look at horror movies the same again once you take in this original spoof-hit that can easily be seen as an inspiration for all of today's "Scary Movies."Legend Films' Jekyll and Hyde Together Again:
The laughter is as big as the scares as actor Mark Blankfield takes on the dual role of the famed Dr. Jekyll and his "inner-beast" Mr. Hyde in the comedy hit Jekyll and Hyde Together Again. Robert Louis Stevenson would be turning in his grave at this hilarious adaptation of his famous written work as Jekyll's other half, Hyde, finds himself more interested in taking advantage of the 80's party scene - sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll - than he is in terrorizing the local public. Featuring superb comedic acting, this film has it all and deserves a space in every comedy library.Legend Films proves that no film is too obscure or awful to merit release on Blu-ray these days with this double feature. Yeah, I said it, these are bad films. Student Bodies holds up a tiny bit better, if only because we now can compare it to something like Scary Movie, which is attempting the same thing. However, they are both pretty awful, and completely drenched in the ugly era in which they were made.
That being said, there is fun to be had with bad movies, and these are no different. Student Bodies is particularly interesting as a film spoofing the early slashers as their contemporary. It is easy to look back with 20 years of hindsight and hundreds of films from which to draw and spoof a genre, but doing with within four years of Halloween and smack in the middle of the slasher bonanza? That takes a bit more work. Student Bodies has a couple of memorable characters, including the rubber-legged (and armed) custodian, Malvert, who just creeps me the fuck out by his very existence. The ending is broadcast a mile away, and the killings are only mildly amusing, but overall, it doesn't stink.
Jekyll and Hyde, however, is another story. The acting is arch, the characters are by and large unlikable, and the film is poorly made. The joke wears thin before it is even completely through its first iteration. I can't really say much that is good about it, apart from the fact that I don't have to watch it again.
The Disc:
Legend Films have rescued some very interesting films from obscurity and the bottomless Paramount vaults over the last few years. These two benefit from that operation, and, while I must say I wasn't expecting much in the way of a transfer, I was pleasantly surprised. The films are overflowing with grain, but eighties film stock was terrible to begin with, and I'm sure these weren't kept in the same vaults as, say, the Indiana Jones films, they don't look horrible. They are definitely an upgrade from DVD, and there is no sign at all of digital manipulation, which will allow some folks to breathe easily. The sound is also unremarkable, apart from the fact that it is lossy Dolby Digital stereo for both films, no lossless track, a minor issue.
Legend Films brought out three of these double features simultaneously, and I'll get to all of them, but this one is a mixed bag. Very decent A/V coupled with pretty bad films. However, they are super cheap, and each film comes on its own disc, no cramming two films on a single disc, which is nice.
Student Bodies / Jekyll and Hyde Together Again from Legend Films is coded for Region A.