I, Monster (1971)
I, Monster is a low budget Amicus production and a cunning retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Due to copyright reasons, these names are not used in the film and are replaced with new characters, Marlowe and Blake respectively. However, despite the modest budget and the aforementioned legal issues, this is a very faithful adaptation of the original gothic novella. Milton Subotsky’s screenplay incorporates all the essential elements of the source text which is both a boon and a bane. A boon because it really does capture the essence of Stevenson’s concept, which has been drastically misrepresented by previous adaptations. And a bane in so far that the original novella is a little too insubstantial to sustain a feature film. Even at a modest 75 minutes running time I, Monster feels somewhat “thin”.
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