Island of Lost Souls

In the tradition of King Kong (well, it actually predates King Kong), this is a fun piece of 'south seas gothic'. Charles Laughton stars as Doctor Moreau in this cautionary Frankenstein-ish tale of nature perverted by science. Dashing everyman Edward (Richard Arlen) finds himself lost at sea after a run-in with a corrupt boat captain. He's picked up by a scientist (Arthur Hohl) with a ship full of animals (plus a man in a gorilla suit) and taken to the island of Doctor Moreau, where heinous experiments in splicing humans and animals together have seen the doctor elevated to tyrannical godhood over his subhuman subjects.

It's a fairly short film, and (conceptually speaking) it hasn't really aged very well due to its antiquated subject matter. Island of Lost Souls comes from an era when theories of evolution were still a relatively hot topic and therefore grounds for exploitation by horror films. Unforunately, it's based on an underdeveloped understanding of evolution so even as a period piece it seems a bit dodgy. Also, the way that Edward naively takes the animal hybrids in his stride and assumes that they're just really ugly 'natives' is embarrassingly old-fashioned and a little too reflective of western ignorance in the 1930s.

On the positive side, Laughton is great as Doctor Moreau - a refined and aloof gentleman-scientist of the old order, carrying a whip and dressed in a white linen suit like some Great White Zookeeper with delusions of divinity (though his black goatee points more towards his true nature as something more demonic). Some of the film's horror aspects are genuinely unsettling as well, such as the disturbing allusions to live vivisection and references to "long pig".

Anyway, it's a pretty fun way to spend an hour or so - one to watch in the small hours of the morning, on a dark and lonely night.

DIRECTOR: Erle C. Kenton
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Waldemar Young and Philip Wylie, based on a novel by H. G. Wells.
KEY ACTORS: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, Kathleen Burke, Arthur Hohl, Bela Lugosi

RELATED TEXTS:
- Based on The Island of Dr. Moreau, a novel written by H. G. Wells in 1896.
- Also adapted twice more as The Island of Dr. Moreau (in the 1970s, with Burt Lancaster) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (in the 1990s, with Marlon Brando).
- Devo referenced this film in their song Jocko Homo, and Van Halen did the same in their song House of Pain.
- See King Kong for more south seas horror from the 1930s. Also see the TV movie Danger Island.