Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde | Baby Blood

The legendary British horror studio Hammer Films may be best known for their Dracula and Frankenstein releases starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, but they also produced one of the most original takes on the classic Jekyll and Hyde tale. Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde gender-bends the original story so that Dr. Henry Jekyll (Ralph Bates) now transforms into the beautiful but daringly brash and murderous Sister Hyde (the fabulous Martine Beswick). The much-contested gender politics of the film have lately been reclaimed and its value recognized as a trans and nonbinary text. (97 mins., DCP) 

Goreometer: 1 / 4
OK for scaredy-cats

A forebearer of modern French feminist body horror films like Raw, Titane, and The Substance, Baby Blood is a recently rediscovered and restored masterpiece of the genre. When an alien entity invades a young woman’s uterus, she becomes a killer to feed the horror growing within. The film has not received a proper North American release until now. Previously it was only available in a nearly goreless, dubbed re-edit misleadingly and generically called The Evil Within. The handful of US screenings this new restoration has had are creating new fans of the film so don’t miss your chance to discover a lost classic of New French Extremity! In French with English subtitles. (82 mins., DCP)

Goreometer: 4 / 4
Gorehounds’ delight!

See the entire International Horror lineup.

IMAGE CAPTION
Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde and Baby Blood, courtesy Rialto Pictures/STUDIOCANAL.