Each act was a brushstroke on a canvas of pure negation. And Jekyll, waking in his own bed each morning with the taste of cheap gin on his tongue and the memory of his own grinning savagery, felt alive for the first time in twenty years.
The film’s reliance on chiaroscuro lighting, theatrical performance, and stop-trick effects directly influenced later silents, including John Barrymore’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)—which borrowed Bosworth’s crouching, simian Hyde—and F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922). Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde 1908
Even in its absence, the 1908 Jekyll and Hyde exerts influence. Here is why it matters: Each act was a brushstroke on a canvas of pure negation