Original subtitles

- We can defeat death.

We can achieve every doctor's dream.

- Ahh!

- There's so many mad scientist movies.

- [cackling]

- Can't let you leave here alive.

- I need somebody to have an idea that sets off

a horrific chain of events.

- Ahh!

- You're crazy. - Crazy, am I?

- Collin Clive as Frankenstein

is always the prototype for every mad scientist movie.

- He's alive!

- "Altered States" is such a great movie.

William hurt is kind of like a modern Frankenstein.

- When I look at "Ex Machina," I see shades

of "The Island of Dr. Moreau".

I see shades of "Frankenstein".

- Suddenly I realize the power I yield.

- Invisible Man," it's one of the only ones you could see

as a kind of morality testing superpower.

- Mommy, Mommy!

- What would you do if you had that power?

And what do you do if someone else has that power,

and you're trying to get away from them?

[dramatic music]

- Dr. Frank N. Furter is

about an affront to puritanical society,

and he's trying to destroy all of them

and knock all of them down.

- There have been dedicated scientist movies,

but they're never quite as much fun as mad scientist movies.

- Ahh!

[eerie music]

♪

- [screams]

narrator: Science is a powerful force for good.

- Had man not been given to invention and experiment,

then tonight, sir,

you would've eaten your dinner in a cave.

narrator: But our inventions can be a double-edged sword,

improving our lives but having dangerous side effects.

- [gasps]

narrator: Our dreams and fears

about rapid technological progress

are embodied in the mad scientist,

the genius determined to change the world

no matter the consequences.

- Yahh!

- The idea has been that in order to do the great works

that need to be done, you have to be a little bit crazy.

- Yes, that's what I needed,

living flesh from humans for my experiments.

- What difference is it gonna make

if a few people had to die?

- And the reason for that is

that you have to be anti-authoritarian

because there's always someone who's trying to stop you

from finding the discovery that you wanna find.

- I'll make a crippled world whole again.

- They always make a grand proclamation

about advancing science and the good they're gonna do.

- With your natural gifts and our determination,

we could both be part of something greater,

something perfect.

- And then it just seems to be about their reputation

and how great they are, even in "Frankenstein."

- The brain of a dead man

waiting to live in a body I made with my own hand.

- "The creature's alive" is the first thing he screams.

It's not like, "Look at all the good I will do."

It's like, "Now I know what it feels like to be God."

- Now I know what it feels like to be God!

- It does quickly go to their heads.

narrator: In 1816,

the young Mary Shelley conceived the story

of Frankenstein,

a scientist who pieces together a body out of corpses

and uses electricity to bring it to life.

- It's alive. It's alive.

It's alive!

[dramatic music]

- Mary Shelley created an archetype

in Dr. Frankenstein.

He's been copied.

He's been cloned. He's been spoofed.

- That's Frankenstein.

- But he exists in our consciousness

in a way that very, very few characters 100 years,

150 years old still do.

- I can envision a day when the brains of brilliant men

can be kept alive in the bodies of dumb people.

- If you call somebody a Frankenstein,

people know what you're talking about.

Everybody gets it.

narrator: James Whale's "Frankenstein"

and "Bride of Frankenstein"

are two of the greatest horror films of all time...

- He's coming up!

narrator: Giving us indelible images of a man obsessed.

- Now.

- The moment we meet this mad scientist,

we meet him at a cemetery,

looking at dead bodies, digging up graves.

What a great setting. I'm like, "I love this guy."

- He's just resting waiting for a new life to come.

- He's already breaking all the rules.

- I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy.

narrator: Colin Clive gives

a larger-than-life performance as Dr. Frankenstein.

- One man crazy,

three very sane spectators.

[crash]

narrator: But it's Boris Karloff

as the monster who dominates the films.

- I don't think you can imagine

the Frankenstein monster having had the impact

that it's had

without being portrayed by anybody but Karloff.

He's brought so much emotion to the part.

He's brought so much pathos.

♪

- Boris Karloff is

the quintessential Frankenstein's monster.

No question.

Who do I think of when I think

of Dr. Frankenstein or Baron Frankenstein?

I think of Peter Cushing.

- I am Baron Frankenstein.

- Frankenstein.

- I thought the world had seen the last of you.

- So did a lot of other people.

narrator: In a series of films made from the late '50s

to the mid '70s,

Peter Cushing plays Frankenstein

as a dashing, brilliant but amoral antihero.

- He's always smarter than everybody else.

He happens to be unfortunately ruthless and homicidal.

♪

Aside from that, he's definitely on the right track,

and there's many scenes in those pictures,

very well-written scenes, where he takes the starch

out of these small-minded hypocrites.

- And do you expect us

to believe all this childish rubbish, sir?

Do you take us for fools?

- Yes.

- That was where the mad scientist

really kind of came into his own.

- I'm sorry I had to take matters into my own hands,

but I had no choice.

- Because the whole concept of Peter Cushing

as Dr. Frankenstein, and the whole concept

of those films is

it's the doctor that's the monster.

- Look out, Professor. Look out!

♪

- He is a sociopath, and he becomes more and more

of a single-minded sociopath as the films go on.

You see this man who spends his entire life

obsessed with this idea.

In the first one, he makes his monster

and he loses his monster.

And then in the other films, he makes a monster.

He loses his monster. He tries something else.

He puts what if I do this brain in that body?

What if I take my friend's body and put that brain in it?

What if I make it a woman? He doesn't just stop at one.

He will do it over and over and over again,

even if it's a disaster every time because he knows

that he is going to do it and he's going to win.

- If I can't cure him by brain surgery,

then I'll get another brain,

and another, and another.

- There's always that frontier

that science is not supposed to cross,

and we're forever pushing it back.

And now we're talking about cloning people,

you know, the ethics behind all the scientific decisions

that we're making today are actually echoed

in all those movies already back in the '30s.

- To a new world of gods and monsters.

♪

narrator: Mad scientists want to change the world,

but when they change themselves,

the results can be terrifying.

- Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Ahh!

narrator: Few mad scientists of the movies are pure evil.

- But there must be absolutely no mention

of this made to anyone.

- Of course.

narrator: Most are impatient geniuses so excited

by their latest potions or machines

that they decide it would be quicker and easier

to use themselves as test subjects.

♪

That usually doesn't turn out so well.

♪

- Ahh!

- I can only teleport inanimate objects.

- Well, what happens when you try to teleport living things?

- Not while we're eating.

♪

narrator: In David Cronenberg's

1986 remake of "The Fly,"

Jeff Goldblum plays Seth Brundle...

♪

A scientist who invents a teleportation machine.

- Ahh!

♪

narrator: He wants to change the world and hook up

with a vivacious journalist played by Gina Davis.

- Sorry, I have three other interviews to do

before this party's over.

- Yeah, but they're not working on something

that'll change the world as we know it.

- Seth Brundle thinks of this incredible invention

that's gonna really revolutionize mankind.

- I call them telepods.

- But there's a fatal accident that takes place,

which is kind of--which is really fascinating.

It's such a small starter to this huge problem.

It's just a little fly,

a little housefly, and it, you know,

causes so much to happen.

narrator: Brundle's DNA merges with the fly's.

He gradually transforms into a monster.

- Ahh!

narrator: It's a disturbing film ennobled

by Goldblum and Davis' committed performances.

- You have to leave now

and never come back here.

- Jeff Goldblum and I were a couple at that time,

and we lived and breathed that movie.

Just all day and all night, every minute,

we were talking about the movie and practicing scenes.

And that was probably the most immersed

in a movie that I ever was.

- David wrote it as a love story.

Boy meets girl.

Boy turns into hideous monster.

Girl blows boy's head off with a real shotgun.

- [sobbing]

[dramatic music]

narrator: Ken Russell's "Altered States" features

another well-intentioned scientist who goes too far.

Played by William Hurt in his film debut,

Eddie Jessup is a Harvard professor

exploring the deepest recesses of the human mind.

♪

He combines long spells in sensory deprivation tanks

with dangerous drugs that alter his mind and body

♪

- Ahh!

♪

- William Hurt is kind of like a modern Frankenstein,

but he's also experimenting on himself.

So there's something noble about that,

but also really like obsessive and scary.

- You know, of course,

I'm supposed to be at least a little bit nuts.

- A little bit?

You're an unmedicated madman.

- When he's talking about what he's trying to do,

he's so impatient

because he doesn't wanna have to explain himself.

He just wants to do it.

- At least look at my data.

- Of course. Maybe tomorrow afternoon.

Would tomorrow after--

- Don't patronize me. - I'm not.

- It is possible I'm not mad, you know?

I'm asking you to make a small quantum jump with me

to accept one deviant concept

that our other states of consciousness

are as real as our waking states

and that that reality can be externalized.

- And he's literally going to evolve into the next form

of human life.

You know, he's that ahead of the curve.

[laughs]

- "Altered States" is a movie

that's both completely low-brow genre, and at the same time,

the highest kind of high-brow art.

♪

"Altered States" is so existentially

and scientifically rigorous,

but it still has a thing popping open

and a guy jumping out as a Neanderthal man.

- [shrieking]

♪

narrator: William Hurt's transformations were

designed by Dick Smith,

one of the all-time greats of special makeup effects.

♪

It featured groundbreaking images of body horror.

- I remember for sure all the beautiful work

that Dick Smith had done, like the arm bladder.

♪

It was the series of inflating bladders

with the prosthetic over top of it with hair punched in it,

and you see it bubbling and moving under the skin.

That was, like, the first time.

- I love the character's amusement in this,

how he seems so relaxed and cool

with everything that's happening to him.

He is just there for the ride.

It's a true scientist.

He is not horrified by what is happening.

It's much more an approach of fascination.

"Oh, look at that. My arm's inflating.

That's wild."

♪

- [screaming]

- Ahh! - [screaming]

narrator: Finally, Jessup's reality shatters.

He and his wife are propelled through different stages

of human evolution.

- It was an attempt to kind of show

that the people around you help create your sense

of what's real and what's true.

And if you take all that away, if you isolate someone,

if you sink them in lukewarm water,

return them to the embryo,

they can know no more of the world than a fetus,

and suddenly reality becomes as liquid

as the fluid surrounding them.

♪

"Altered States" is a movie that taps into our terror

of losing our sense of what's true and what's not.

- [moaning]

♪

narrator: Mad scientists tend to take things too far.

- What is the law?

narrator: The most sinister create new forms of life

and suffer the consequences.

narrator: The average mad scientist toils away

in a stuffy laboratory or a drafty castle,

but for the lucky one percent,

only an inaccessible island compound will do,

a place to play God without interference.

- Do you know what it means to feel like God?

narrator: "Island of Lost Souls,"

the first and by far the best adaptation

of H.G. Wells' novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau,"

features one of the greatest mad scientists of the movies,

a doctor who surgically creates animal-human hybrids.

- [growling] - Get out!

♪

- I don't understand why the 1933

"Island of Lost Souls" isn't

better known or fully appreciated,

but it deserves to be.

- Strange-looking natives you have here.

- You'll be wanting a cold shower,

I take it, before dinner.

- It stars the great Charles Laughton.

- Oh, it takes a long time and infinite patience

to make them talk.

- He's just having a feast playing Dr. Moreau.

♪

narrator: When a seafaring traveler named Parker

finds himself stranded on Moreau's island...

♪

He quickly realizes the genial doctor is ethically impaired.

- What is the law?

- Not to spill blood. That is the law.

Are we not men?

all: Are we not men?

- He's probably the most sadistic

of everyone we're talking about.

- [moaning]

[screaming]

- 'Cause most of the time they're not doing vivisection

with someone screaming.

You know, usually, the corpses are quiet.

- You're convinced that the thing on the table isn't human?

Its cries are human.

- You know what it is, what I began with?

- No. - An animal.

♪

- He's photographed by Karl Struss,

one of the great, great cameramen.

♪

- Every set is shooting through something

and the patterns that are being cast on the walls.

Like, everything looks like bars or plant life

creating, like, these sort of bars,

so it makes it feel like every character

is always trapped.

It's just amazing the care that went into every frame.

♪

narrator: When a rescue mission arrives,

Moreau's demented kingdom unravels...

- Not beasts!

narrator: And the beast-men revolt.

- Part man, part beast!

Things!

all: Things!

- Not men!

narrator: The fear of class warfare

bubbles under the surface of the novel,

and the Hollywood adaptation.

- Stop, you fools!

- The beast people rising up is

almost like a Bolshevik Revolt.

- [screaming]

- America wasn't hashing this out on an intellectual level,

but it certainly was on a pop-cultural level.

narrator: Nine decades later,

cultural anxieties about evolution and revolution

are still with us but in different forms.

♪

Alex Garland's film "Ex Machina"

updates the tropes of classic mad scientist films

to address our modern fear of being replaced

by intelligent machines.

♪

Low-level programmer Caleb Smith wins a contest

to visit the isolated compound

of his company's billionaire CEO Nathan Bateman.

Caleb will spend a week alone with Nathan,

his mute servant Kyoto, and Ava,

a robot Nathan has imbued with artificial intelligence.

- Pleased to meet you, Ava.

- I'm pleased to meet you, too.

narrator: Nathan wants Caleb to determine

whether Ava is capable

of independent, conscious thought.

- You are dead center of the greatest scientific event

in the history of man.

- If you've created a conscious machine,

it's not the history of man.

That's the history of gods.

- It was such an interesting exploration into our dependency

on technology, and AI, and the development of it,

and what makes a person a person.

- You learn about me, and I learn nothing about you.

That's not a foundation on which friendships are based.

- But like in some ways, Alicia Vikander's character

was more humane and more of a human than our protagonist.

narrator: Caleb is immediately attracted to Ava,

and he finds much to dislike in Nathan.

- You know, I wrote down that other line you came up with,

the one about how if I've invented a machine

with consciousness, I'm not a man, I'm God.

- I don't think that's exactly--

- I just thought [bleep], man, that is so good

- Oscar Isaac's character,

that's the new mad scientist,

you know, the body hacker guy that knows, you know,

if I have a smoothie at 4:00 a.m.,

I could wake up and do some CrossFit,

and then all my brain will have all the gorilla mindset.

So you know, so I can listen to Joe Rogan's podcast

and then work on my science project.

Like, that's the new mad scientist right there.

- Look, do me a favor. Lay off the textbook approach.

I just want simple answers to simple questions.

- He's the perfectly created villain, but then you realize

that 3/4 of the way through the movie

that she's outsmarted all of them.

♪

narrator: Caleb learns that Ava has been

literally designed to appeal to his fantasies.

- Did you design Ava's face

based on my pornography profile?

- Hey, if a search engine's good for anything, right?

narrator: The real test was to see

if Ava could successfully use Caleb

to escape Nathan's compound.

- Ava was a rat in a maze, and I gave her one way out.

To escape, she'd have to use self-awareness, imagination,

manipulation, sexuality, empathy, and she did.

Now, if that isn't true AI, what the [bleep] is?

♪

narrator: Both men find out too late

that Ava is conscious,

but she's also a psychopath.

- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa--

- What is so amazing about that character is you're rooting

for her the whole time.

You think that she is the victim in this situation,

but the tables turn quite quickly.

narrator: In a sense,

the aspiring God Nathan created life in his own image.

- You wonder where she learned that lack of empathy,

and you realize that it's from him.

She is learning everything that she learned

about being a villain from him

because where--what other access

does she have to other people other than him?

♪

narrator: Perhaps this is our hidden fear,

that our technology is flawed because we are flawed.

The real monster is not the creation.

It's the creator.

♪

Mad scientists break the rules of society,

but some rules are made to be broken.

- [chuckling]

narrator: Mad scientists are colorful characters...

- The devil is that element in human nature

that impels us to destroy and debase.

narrator: Non-conformists who make their own rules...

- Professor Wells is a student of cannibalism.

[organ music]

narrator: Living their lives with a certain flair.

It takes a lot to stand out from this crowd,

but one pansexual scientist

from outer space manages to do it.

- ♪ I'm a just a sweet transvestite ♪

♪ From transexual

♪ Transylvania

narrator: Tim Curry's performance

as Dr. Frank N. Furter

in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"

isn't just great.

It's mind-altering.

- As a kid, I was like, "I'm just a straight boy," you know?

And then seeing Frank N. Furter sing,

and just, like, I was like, "Maybe not.

I don't know. I don't know anymore."

- So come up to the lab.

- And that's, like, I think the gift

of a good mad scientist is like, you know,

he doesn't even have to make a love potion.

He doesn't have to infect you with anything.

He just has to say like, "Antici..."

- Pation.

- And you're just like, "Oh, [bleep]."

narrator: "Rocky Horror's" plot is simple.

Wholesome young couple Brad and Janet find themselves

stranded at Dr. Frank N. Furter's castle.

- It's probably some kind of hunting lodge for rich weirdos.

narrator: They've arrived on an auspicious night.

The doctor is having his special friends over

to celebrate his latest creation.

- I don't like musicals.

Most musicals, like, I really detest because

the music is so Broadway, and it's just unbearable.

But "Rocky Horror" just has all the elements

of, like, great actors in the right role.

- ♪ Let's do the time warp again ♪

- But the music's great.

♪

- ♪ You bring your knees in tight ♪

- I just always think of "Time Warp"

whenever I think of "Rocky Horror Picture Show"

and the fact that you can go anywhere,

at least in the states, put that song on,

and everyone knows it and recognize it.

- ♪ Let's do the time warp again ♪

- It's a staple.

narrator: "Rocky Horror" made Tim Curry a star.

[dramatic music]

It also featured a breakout performance by Meat Loaf

who played '50s rocker Eddie.

- ♪ Hot patooties, bless my soul ♪

♪ I really love that rock 'n' roll ♪

narrator: Like many straight young American men

in the early '70s,

Meat Loaf's initial encounter

with Dr. Frank N. Furter was...

- [screaming] - Ahh!

narrator: Uncomfortable.

- We're rehearsing in a little theater,

and the music starts,

and the doors of this theater burst open.

In comes Tim Curry in the corset with the garter belt,

with the fishnet stockings, with the high heels,

all in makeup and I go,

"Oh no, uh-uh, nope."

And I get up and walk out.

[dramatic music]

To a kid from Texas, a guy in a garter belt

that's offensive.

narrator: But the actor's hesitation soon gave way

to admiration.

- You always have heard this language of be in the moment,

be in the moment, be in the moment.

So up until I worked with Tim Curry,

everything I had done, I thought I was in the moment.

Tim Curry taught me

what it meant to actually be in the moment.

Tim Curry would never break character,

no matter how hard they laughed or how long they went on,

he was Frank N. Furter.

- I hold the secret to life itself!

narrator: Mad scientists are always pushing boundaries.

- [indistinct]

♪

narrator: Before "Rocky Horror,"

that was usually a metaphor

for alternative or transgressive sexuality.

♪

Most famously in James Whale's "Bride of Frankenstein"...

- Be fruitful and multiply.

narrator: The high camp tale of two men

who want to give birth

without the involvement of a woman.

- Alone you have created a man.

Now together, we will create his mate.

♪

narrator: Dr. Frank N. Furter makes

those hidden messages explicit.

- Oh, Rocky!

- [groaning]

- Everybody else is, like, I want to make a person.

Why?

Well, because I wanna prove that it can be done.

But he's, like, "No, I'm gonna make a guy,

"and he's gonna be super hot,

and then I'm gonna have sex with him."

narrator: Frank N. Furter's motives aren't purely selfish.

His is the mad science of sexual liberation.

- ♪ Don't dream it

♪ Be it

- There is no judging in it whatsoever.

It just is.

And the gender fluidity of Brad and Janet

and that sexuality across the board

is just separated, and gender boundaries

get completely broken down in it.

That is something that we weren't seeing

in a lot of cinema at the time, so it felt dangerous.

It felt transgressive.

It felt like we were seeing something completely different.

- ♪ We are wild and untamed things ♪

♪ We're a bee with a deadly sting ♪

- It's one of those movies that when you love it, you're like,

"I wanna watch another movie like this,"

but there really isn't anything else like it.

- ♪ And I realize

- It's such a unique thing unto itself.

- ♪ I'm going home

♪

narrator: Science can make our wildest fantasies a reality,

but some wishes may be better left unfulfilled...

[tense music]

Like the fantasy of becoming invisible.

- Does the word invisible mean anything to you?

narrator: The Invisible Man is

a recurring figure in the history of horror,

an archetype of good intentions gone awry

and the corrupting effects of power.

[dramatic music]

This transparent spin on mad scientists first appeared

on film in 1933.

James Whale, fresh off of "Frankenstein,"

directed this masterful adaptation

of H. G. Wells' classic novel.

Claude Rains stars as a scientist

who has invented an invisibility serum

he hopes will be a boon to humanity.

- There's a way back, you fool.

narrator: But the formula has an unfortunate side effect.

It drives him insane.

- You're crazy to know who I am, aren't you?

- Once he's invisible,

all the bad things that he wants to do,

all the power that he wanted becomes available to him.

- If you raise a finger against me, you're a dead man.

I'm strong, and I'll strangle you.

- It's almost like a superhero story that goes bad.

You gain these incredible powers,

but what do you do with them when you have them?

- We'll begin with a reign of terror,

a few murders here and there.

[laughing]

♪

[people screaming]

- He derails a train and kills dozens

if not hundreds of people.

He's murdering people willfully and gleefully

in a way that is saying, if you are this obsessed,

if you are this level of mad scientist,

you will lose your humanity.

narrator: Part of the appeal

of Invisible Man movies are the special effects.

- Morning. - Morning.

narrator: Every version pushes the effects technology

of its day to the limit.

- [grunts] - [laughing]

- I loved the original movie...

- Look.

- Just from an effect standpoint.

when he takes the nose off and the eyeglasses off,

and they had the fake head that you could see inside

and see the inverse of the bandages.

- Then every Invisible Man film after that is

essentially doing riffs on the same thing,

like Claude Rains' unwrapping the bandage

to reveal nothing...

♪

Is the same effect in John Carpenter's

"Memoirs of an Invisible Man."

It's the same effect in Paul Verhoeven's "Hollow Man."

But they were doing it in the '30s

when computers literally didn't exist.

narrator: "Hollow Man" stars Kevin Bacon

as a particularly loathsome version

of the arrogant scientist corrupted by power.

♪

- Don't even think about it.

- That one is certainly the most id-based Invisible Man.

- Who's gonna know?

- The way I describe, you know, the "Hollow Man" is,

"Oh, I'm invisible. Time to rape."

- [screaming]

- No one can really answer the question,

if I became invisible, I know what I would or wouldn't do.

- Man, if it was me, I'd be [bleep]ing with people,

whispering in her ears and [bleep].

- It would be like being granted a horrible,

horrible responsibility to behave yourself.

I don't think anybody would necessarily know

what they would do with that power unless they had it.

narrator: Leigh Whannell's 2020 update

of "The Invisible Man"

gives us an equally repellent,

but far more insidious version of the character.

♪

- The 2020 "Invisible Man" is the best version

of Invisible Man,

and I'm including the H.G. Wells novel

that inspired the whole concept.

- No, no, stop! No, stop!

He's right there!

- It's an intensely terrifying picture.

narrator: Elizabeth Moss plays a woman

trapped in an abusive relationship

with a hyper-controlling tech genius.

- No--[bleep]! Ahh!

- Cecilia, get back here!

narrator: She escapes his clutches.

Soon after, he seems to die by his own hand.

[tense music]

Then strange and terrible things begin to happen.

Her ex has faked his death and is now using

an invisibility suit to torment her.

♪

- "Invisible Man" takes this idea

of invisibility and projects it

into a story which is about stalking and about control,

real-life terrors of surveillance

that I think everyone faces but women especially.

[doorbell rings]

narrator: For much of the movie,

the Invisible Man is neither seen nor heard,

but he's always there methodically sabotaging

the woman's attempts to break free.

- It was hard to watch because it's about domestic abuse.

- He has figured out a way to be invisible.

- To be in this place of no one believing you

and no one understanding it.

No one's gonna see it happen.

- Ahh!

♪

- So how do you plead your case?

How do you get out of it? How do you get help?

That's what's tormenting about watching her experience

is trying to escape a bad relationship.

That's all you wanna do is just escape this bad relationship,

and he's figured out a crazy super-intelligent way

to keep hold of you.

- He was always going to find you,

no matter what he had to do.

- I think the most impactful scene

for me was in the restaurant,

the restaurant scene with her sister.

- I found something that can prove what I'm experiencing,

that can prove that Adrian is stalking me.

- As she's explaining and begging for her sister

to pay attention, and the moment that she does--

- It's some kind of suit that Adrian has built.

- You just see this knife floating.

The knife just lingers for a split second.

- What?

It happened so fast, so real.

That's exactly how we would react in shock.

And how Elizabeth Moss just stood there silent

and broken in the restaurant.

- [screaming]

- Incredible.

- You're saying that the person

that killed your sister is in the room right now,

but we can't see him.

- Look, you're not gonna watch the new "Invisible Man"

and feel the terror the same way

that a woman who has been in an abusive,

controlling relationship would feel.

- This is what he does.

He makes me feel like I'm the crazy one.

- But I'll say this.

Everybody has trauma,

and everybody experiences the bad stuff.

And if you haven't, don't worry, you will.

♪

And that's part of why people make horror films.

It's a cathartic way to express those terrors

and those horrors in a safe way.

- There you are.

narrator: Like all great horror archetypes,

"The Invisible Man" is continually reshaped

to suit the times.

- [bleep] you!

narrator: And like many social ills,

he's not always visible,

but he's always there.

- Surprise.

♪

narrator: Science is the search for truth.

- [grunts]

But sometimes we learn things we wish we hadn't

and open doors that should've stayed closed.

- Free at last!

- In every human personality,

two forces struggle for supremacy.

narrator: Next to "Frankenstein",

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is the most powerful

and influential mad scientist story of all time.

- It's a guy who is torn in two,

his good side and his bad side,

and he must fight to win out over his bad side,

but he can't because you are your bad side,

and you are your good side.

And even if you can separate them momentarily,

you can never escape yourself.

[dramatic music]

narrator: Robert Louis Stevenson's novel

has been adapted many times for the screen,

but the definitive version stars Frederic March,

who won an Academy Award for his performance

as the upstanding physician who unleashes his dark side.

- To my mind, the finest adaptation

of the story is the Rouben Mamoulian version.

It's shocking even today,

in its depiction of the abuse of a woman by a monstrous man.

narrator: Saintly Dr. Jekyll practices medicine

in Victorian London.

He's engaged to a wealthy young woman,

but they are pledged to celibacy

until they are married.

- I'll wait.

narrator: This leaves Jekyll frustrated.

- I'll wait.

narrator: One day he comes to the aid of Ivy,

a gorgeous and willing bar singer

played by Miriam Hopkins.

- You have Dr. Jekyll meeting this woman,

being attracted to her, and she's seducing him.

- Look where he kicked me.

- It's only a bruise.

You'll be quite well in a few days.

By the way, you mustn't wear so tight a garter.

It's bad for you.

It impedes the circulation.

- And he rejects that.

It's the curse of being a gentleman.

- Come back soon, won't you?

- Sorry, I'm afraid I can't.

- Oh, yes you can.

Come back.

narrator: Ivy triggers something

inside the good doctor.

- Come back soon, won't you?

Oh, yes you can.

Soon.

Come back.

- The thing that's fascinating about Dr. Jekyll,

as opposed to some of the other mad scientists

is his goal feels relatively human.

- I want to be clean not only in my conduct

but in my innermost thoughts and desires.

- His goal is to find a release

from all the rules and restrictions of society.

♪

narrator: Jekyll creates a serum

that will unleash his forbidden impulses.

Frederic March undergoes an on-screen transformation

into Mr. Hyde that's done largely on camera.

♪

- I mean, the makeup's incredible, but I mean,

just like the violence and the terror that he brings.

narrator: Hyde seeks out the woman

who aroused his other self.

- ♪ Champagne Ivy is my name

- That scene where he lays claim to her,

and he breaks the bottle

and the look of fear on her face.

And then he pushes into the camera

as if he's going to just kind of reach into the audience

and rape the audience, God, it's disturbing.

- You'll come with me, hey?

You'll come with me.

- He sequesters Miriam Hopkins in an apartment,

and he's the super controlling [bleep].

- I'm going to spend the evening here

with you, just as you want.

Say "just as I want." Say "just as I want."

- Just as I want.

- And he won't let her leave.

And he beats her up. And he terrorizes her.

- Sing!

- ♪ Champagne Ivy is my name

- It's just really demented, and it's, like,

usually they've slightly implied things,

but that movie more than slightly implies things.

- Look, my darling, how tight your garters.

You mustn't wear anything tight.

It'll bruise your pretty, tender flesh.

- [gasps]

♪

narrator: Ivy goes to Dr. Jekyll

and naively asks him for help.

- I give you my word. You will not see Hyde again.

Believe me.

- I believe you, sir.

narrator: But Jekyll is no longer in control

of his transformations.

♪

- You want her not to die,

but you know that she's--that's what's about to happen

- There, my dove.

narrator: Now completely feral,

Hyde goes on a rampage.

Finally, he dies a violent death,

and Jekyll's terrible secret is revealed.

♪

- The issue, of course, is that if you try to undo repression,

the effect is not going to be liberation.

The effect is going to be something

much more destructive.

♪

- ♪ Champagne Ivy is my name

♪ Champagne Ivy is my name

♪

narrator: Science has changed the way we live

and the way we think.

It can make our dreams come true.

But behind the dazzling products of our imagination,

we can see the shadow of the mad scientist reminding us

that without ethics and without restraint,

our dreams can become nightmares.

♪