Disc Reviews

The Island Of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Review

• 22nd Oct 2014

The Island of Dr. Moreau is a 1970s remake of one of the classic horror films from the golden age of the Hollywood horror film. It was called The Island of Lost Souls (1932) and starred Charles Laughton as Moreau and Bela Lugosi as the Sayer of the Law. It was a classic in many ways. It had a great deal of style, some superb make-up and an eccentric lead performance in Laughton. Sadly The Island of Dr. Moreau has none of these. This is not to say it’s a dreadful film, because it’s not, although it has been heavily lambasted in quarters. The original film casts a long shadow and it seemed a little out of place in the decade this was becoming increasingly gorier or had possessed kids and haunted houses.

On its release the promise was that this was not a remake of that 1932 film but was instead taking the film back to the grass roots of its source novel written by H.G. Wells and was even set it in 1911. However, The Island of Lost Souls was also a faithful adaptation of Wells’ novel with the original making more of a point of the saying of the law and The House of Pain that is not played on in this 1977 film. More of this later.

The film opens with a dingy cast adrift at sea following the loss of a ship. One man has already died when the thirsty and hungry men find what at first appears to be a tropical island. Shortly after their arrival one of the crew (Michael York) falls into a bear trap (suggesting that there is man on the island) while the other collapses. When the lone survivor, Andrew Braddock awakes he finds himself in the civilised and hospitable company of Dr. Moreau (Burt Lancaster), a man who has been on the island for many years. There are various other people who live on the tropical island compound with Moreau including a hunter called Montgomery (Nigel Davenport) and a strange girl, Maria whom Braddock eventually has a closeness which turns into a relationship (played by Barbara Carrera). There are other people Braddock begins to notice, mostly servants and more curiously feral people running wild through the jungle. Whenever he broaches the subject and questions Moreau he is flipped off and given vague answers. Moreau observes that Braddock becomes more nosey and closer to the truth. What he discovers horrifies him – Moreau is taking animals and injecting them with a serum that slowly begins to turn them from beasts: tigers, bears and pigs etc. into humans and notes what changes take place. To keep the animals in check he has created a law. When the beasts/men are collectively questioned by Moreau “What is the law?” the beasts are to reply “Not to crawl on all fours. That is the law… Not to eat meat, that is the law”. For anyone who breaches this is sent to the House of Pain, a place whose very name preaches fear for the beast men. Again both these aspects had greater resonance in the 1932 original. Indeed even the make-up of the creatures was better.

The Island of Dr. Moreau tried to bring the science up to date too, or at least more relevant using a serum (sounds more like something from a 1940s mad doctor B movie which would have starred either Lugosi or Karloff) that genetically modified the beasts. Instead in the original the beasts were given skin grafts and more procedural operations as well as other scientific rays. The idea of operating gives greater S&M resonance to the name The House of Pain. York does a perfectly adequate job as the hero Braddock but Lancaster surprisingly is flat. He was one of the great underrated actors is Lancaster; a deeply intelligent actor whose powerful performances even came to the fore in his later films, be it those made in Italy or his later westerns or the small Scottish film, Local Hero (1983). Here there is scope for that but is not brought out; maybe with a better director this could have happened. Barbara Carrera’s character of Maria too is not developed enough. This strange character the story seems to suggest that Maria too was once a beast who has becoming completely human but daren’t go there; she had always lived on the island and knows of nowhere else. Maybe the fact that York’s character was having a sexual relationship and therefore committing bestiality was a step too far. There are also some pretty impressive tiger and bear fights but nowhere is it seen in the credits: no animals were hurt during the making of this feature picture. Never the less the film has been lambasted but is better than the beating it received from the critics and was the 1996 remake starring Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando was equally criticised.

Chris Hick