Island of Lost Souls (1932)

An obsessed scientist conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations. 

REVIEW: The Island of Lost Souls from 1932 is, I think, the earliest adaptation of the novel 'The Island of Dr. Moreau'. If you've seen any of the other movie versions, or even that one episode of Sliders from its third season, then you already know what to expect, as it's very similar, but with two small differences - this version doesn't focus on the genetic monsters as much as you'd think, and there's an interesting side plot where the main character's girlfriend, back on the mainland, launches an investigation to find out what happened to him at sea, and she ends up finding the island and taking a crew there to look for her lost boyfriend. It was a nice addition that none of the other versions have.

The acting is all great from everyone, with horror legend Bela Lugosi of course knocking this one out of the park, as per usual. Although with that said, I think all of the actors in the excellent monster make-ups did amazing acting here, helped along by the fact that the make-up effects in this movie are astounding and better then a lot of make-up effects even this day in age. The ending was also surprisingly horrific, and even though this movie portrays pretty much the exact same moral lesson as Frankenstein, I feel this movie does a slightly better job at it.

There were a couple things I didn't like though. Even though it's only an hour run time, the movie was excruciatingly slow in parts, making it feel much longer then it was. Also, there is absolutely no background music in the movie, which I felt hurt it quite a bit, and in addition to that there were several scenes where there was no sound effects either, when there should have been, so other then the spoken dialog there is very little here in terms of audio.

Overall though, if you're the kind of person that loves old classic black and white horror movies, you can do no wrong by watching this instant classic that totally deserves its place alongside the classic Greats like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and all those.

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward