Island of Lost Souls (1932)

directed by Erle C. Kenton

USA

71 minutes

2.5 stars out of 5

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I recently read H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau for the first time and was curious if any of the film adaptations made over the years have managed to get it right (or at least fail and be entertaining in the process) and while I do respect this for being an early sci-fi/horror film, I wasn't moved by it. I feel like disliking any movie from the 1930s immediately gets you branded as un-intellectual, or something like that, but this just didn't grab me. I appreciate the early practical effects, but in terms of actually conveying the feeling that I got from reading the book, Island of Lost Souls falls short.

Dispensing with the opening of the story within a whirlwind minute or two, the film introduces us to our soggy-cardboard-quality protagonist, Parker, as he's "rescued" after his ship goes down and only he survives. The drunkard captain of the ship that picked him up decides he no longer wants to have anything to do with him or the cargo he's been tasked to deliver to Dr. Moreau's isolated South Seas island, and essentially chucks it all overboard. Moreau is introduced earlier in the film than he is in the book, but it doesn't make that much of a difference; neither builds up much of an air of mystery around him; we know that he's morally bankrupt and delusional and there's no real need for a big reveal. Charles Laughton as Moreau is really the best thing about this particular adaptation, and although Laughton really doesn't have any kind of "mad scientist" vibe per se, he's still entertaining to watch and I wouldn't have picked anybody else to play Moreau.

This film also introduces an extremely boring love triangle between Parker, his fiancée Ruth, and Lota, the Panther Woman, one of Dr. Moreau's creations (she is actually credited as "the Panther Woman"). Nothing like this is present in the book, if I'm remembering correctly. There's not the kind of fixation on gender difference that there is in this film: at no point does Dr. Moreau focus on creating a woman in contrast to creating a man; he seems to have experimented with creating different genders, and it is at least mentioned that some of his creations are women, but the whole "can she love like a woman? does she have a woman's impulses?" thing is not a plot point in the book at all. This is why I said that this movie is really nothing special - it has cheap, borderline misogynistic elements inserted purely to meet studio demands of a love story. (Not to mention the hints of racism and exoticism, which actually are there - and a bit worse - in the book as well.)

I'm really just not getting anything out of this. Maybe it's my fault for comparing it to the book. I see reviews on Letterboxd referring to the storyline as "compelling and multifaceted" and praising the actors' performances. I don't get it. I will say that the moment where this actually stood out from the book was at the climax when Moreau's creations realize that he can die - this is more straightforward than the ending of the book, and much more powerful for it. I think restrictions in both content and production kept this from being all that it could (this is technically pre-Hayes Code, but very tame), but I have seen tons of horror movies from this time that still manage to be creepy and atmospheric without utilizing what would eventually become canonized as traditional horror imagery, so there's no inherent reason why Island of Lost Souls should feel like it lacks the ambiance of the book. Although The Island of Dr. Moreau is quite short, it needs something a bit more expansive than a 71-minute movie to get its message across on anything further than a surface level.