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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8484955" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 82: April 1993part 5/5Into The Dark: Doctor doctor, gimme the news! I've got a bad case of themed column about you! No pill's gonna cure my ills, just pushing on through the sickness and getting to the next month. Let's see what kind of conflicts the darker side of the medical profession can provide to make a good film plot. Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde is the 1932 one. It's not the very first screen adaption of the story, but it's easily the most acclaimed from that era. The same actor plays both Jekyll & Hyde with relatively little makeup, yet makes them massively different with good acting so you completely buy the other people who interact with them don't realise they're the same. The camerawork is also unusually clever for the era and adds to the atmosphere. If you're going to go ultra-retro, might as well pick a good option. Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (not to be confused with Dr Jekyll & Ms Hyde, because spicing this story up with gender-bending is one of the first things people think of) has the doctor looking for immortality rather than transformation, which is just a side-effect. As usual, things spiral out of control, albeit in a relatively lighthearted and humorous way this time. Pretty middle of the road in terms of overall quality. The Doctor and the Devils doesn't actually have any supernatural elements, but is about a corpse-stealing 19th century anatomist. Lofty goals of advancing medical science and saving lives, but distinctly dubious methods, particularly when they move from merely exhuming fresh corpses to killing people to have even fresher bodies to dissect. The cast is excellent, but the fact that the script was written in the 1940s means it's annoyingly slow for a 90's audience. The kind of thing that's easily drowned out by more flashy camerawork and special effects, but still worth a watch if you set your expectations accordingly. Doctor Mordrid is another one where the actors do their best with a mediocre script. Jeffery Combs plays the hero, which is unusual for him, an obvious expy of Doctor Strange trying his best to protect the world from extradimensional weirdness while dealing with the obligatory romance subplot on top. It's very direct to video, complete with gratuitous swearing & nudity that could easily have been cut out if they'd decided to aim for a classier market in the edit. It ends with never to be fulfilled sequel-bait. Meh. I think I'll stick with the actual Marvel, which does let it's characters grow through multiple movies. Doctor Death, Seeker of Souls is a boringly bad bit of horror. The only noteworthy thing in it for James is one of the Three Stooges in a rare serious role, and even that's only a short appearance. Definitely not worth it for that alone. One of those issues where the special feature completely dominates the issue, but the rest of it was fairly interesting as well, with the rollout of letting players hold public office in Raven's Bluff looking particularly significant long term. Will they actually have any influence on the metaplot, or will these positions turn out to be mostly symbolic? Let's see if next issue elaborates any further on the topic, or they'll give it a few months of other things before returning to that idea.</blockquote>

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