Skip to main content

The Island of Lost Souls (1932) - Erie C. Kenton

This is quite possibly the best adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic story The Island of Dr. Moreau. I am a fan of movies that create a kind of controversy, and this movie did just that. The movie was banned in the UK due to animal cruelty laws. Although I am very much on the side of the animals here, I am very intrigued. Also I am pretty sure that the movie doesn't really harm any animals. 

The movie is about a man who gets stranded on a boat that is on its way to Dr. Moreau's Island. This mad Dr. who looks like Hitler, experiments on animals turning them into some sort of man beasts. There is also a sexy panther woman who is used to seduce men into Dr. Moreau's clutches. The island is not on any map and the evil doctor likes to keep it that way. He has created an entire tribe of man-beasts, which he controls with the crack of his whip.

The movie features some pretty eerie stuff, mostly just monsters in great make-up creeping around in the dark. The Island of Lost Souls is a chilling and terrifying telling of this classic tale. Like I said above this is probably the best telling of it, they tried and failed in the 90's with Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando. 

It is a very entertaining movie that anyone can enjoy. Its not tremendously scary by today's standards but you should still be able to enjoy it. Bela Lugosi has some pretty laughable makeup, he is supposed to be a dog or something... I'm not too sure. 

ARE WE NOT MEN!!!
  • The movie was given an X rating in the UK
  • Filmed on Catalina Island
  • A lot of the actors that played beasts are uncredited even today.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t...
Post a Comment
Not scared yet? »

Le Diable au Convent (1899) - George Melies

Le Diable au Convent is longer than the two previous Georges Méliès ventures into short form horror. This particular French short shows the Devil himself running a convent and terrorizing the poor old nuns that live there. However he is finally vanquished by the good of Faith. This is yet another Méliès classic, showcasing the art work that really goes into his short film-making. This is one of the earliest examples of a horror movie that could rely on its elaborate set design and artistic design. Everything in this film, although horribly aged, has been packaged extremely well. If you are a fan of production and set design then I would highly recommend just about anything that Melies has his name on. Though nothing that is considered too extreme actually happens, Satan does have his way with a convent. The satanic imagery itself must have kept this film on the traveling carnival circuit. It certainly wouldn’t fit into the good moral bag that society shoved i...
1 comment
Not scared yet? »

Spookies (1986) - Genie Joseph, Thomas Doran, and Brendan Faulkner

It's impossible to get a decent movie when you take two films and just squash them together. That is essentially the story of how this movie came together. The film started as Twisted Souls. However, according to the financial backer they didn't have enough horror. So they ended up hiring another guy to come in and add a monster in virtually every scene.  This movie started out being directed by Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran. It basically is the tale of two sets of teenagers that arrive to a strange building surrounded by a strange cemetery. It was your usual tale of teenagers in a big hows with a few monsters. Then they brought in Genie Joseph and added even more. Like a haunted birthday party, a murderous cat-man, zombies, and an old wizard. It really became a smorgasbord of horror with a very thin plot-line leading it around. This movie is hard to summarize in a conventional way. It just packs so much.  The most interesting part of this movie are ...
2 comments
Not scared yet? »