Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 13: The Island of Lost Souls

Jacob's 31 Days of Halloween - Day 13: The Island of Lost Souls

Before the Marlon Brando-led cinematic travesty in 1996, but after the 1896 HG Wells science-fiction novel, there was a 1932 film based on the HG Wells novel that inspired the Brando movie, called The Island of Lost Souls.

I read "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (an HG Wells novel about a mad scientist cross-breeding humans and animals) in elementary school, and naturally only remember the parts with the animal-people. This seems to also be the case with director Erie C. Kenton, who kept everything pretty surface-level instead of delving into the more philosophical aspects of the story. It seems like he mainly set out to get audiences to say: "Look at these horrible monsters! How gross!", and that mission is accomplished. However, there are still deeper, creepier comparisons that while probably not intentional, are definitely there.

Dr. Moreau (played wonderfully by Charles Laughton) is a white man in a white suit who owns a group of natives that he's torturing and beating with a whip. I don't believe the word "slavery" is ever used in the film, but there's definitely some vivid plantation-esque imagery going on, which isn't helped by the entirely white central cast (including the "exotic" native "Panther Woman", who is clearly just a white lady). There's a literal dehumanization of these natives (some of whom are played by actual non-white actors) and it ends with them overcoming their master and destroying their prison, which definitely gave me Django Unchained flashbacks. I'm not exactly sure what any of this means, but it's pretty visceral.

While there's certainly problematic aspects to the film (it is a pre-code film made in 1932), its inspiration can be seen all over the place. In the world of music alone there's a treasure trove of Island of Lost Souls references, including "Are we not men?" inspiring Devo, "No spill blood!" inspiring Oingo Boingo, House of Pain's name, and songs by The Meters, The Cramps, and Van Halen as well. It's also the go-to Dr. Moreau film, so any and all film/television references to the story are typically references to this version of the story.

It's an early talkie, with sound having been around for about 5 years when it was released, so the dialogue is not good, and that seems to inform quite a bit of the acting as well. Richard Arlen is a stiff, as is The Panther Woman, which was fine for me since I don't care about them, but Bela Lugosi is bizarrely underutilized in this film. He's Dr. Moreau's assistant and has hardly any dialogue, despite Lost Souls being released a year after Dracula made him an icon. It's strange to the point of distracting, because all I keep seeing is Dracula being awkward off to the side in most of the scenes he's in. Laughton is very good though, as is to be expected from him, and all of the native experiments are clearly having the time of their lives in their creepy makeup so that's fun to watch as well.

I understand that Island of Lost Souls has its place in cinematic history, and the animal-people are still scary to this day, but it's certainly not without its faults and corny moments (which can also be said about any of the other classic monster movies). So check it out if you've already seen the old Universal horror movies and you're looking for something else like them, or if you just want to watch a solid pre-code era talkie.