Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie Review

Richard Stanley, I presume?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 25, 2015

Having experienced something I call "transgenerational karma", I’m a firm believer that there are mysterious forces swirling around us that often spill out in intriguing ways. Years ago, and seemingly for no apparent reason, I became obsessed with the story of Frances Farmer, digging through massive piles of documentation (in the pre-internet age, when you actually had to go places to uncover information) to get at the truth about the famous (and/or infamous) actress, only to find out later (quite by chance) that an uncle of mine had known and worked with Frances and my father had known Frances' brother. It was like some force of nature had reached out and “selected” me to investigate this story, and it was a bit of a revelatory experience for me back in the day, though of course many would simply chalk things up to an "interesting coincidence". Something somewhat analogous plays out in the fascinating Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s ‘Island of Dr. Moreau’, in this case tracing back to Stanley’s iconic great-grandfather, Sir Henry Morton Stanley (of “Dr. Livingstone, I presume” fame). In the 19th century, writers H.G. Wells and Joseph Conrad were evidently BFFs, or something close to it, at least that is until Conrad published Heart of Darkness in 1899, some three years after Wells had published The Island of Doctor Moreau. Wells evidently didn’t take kindly to what he saw as Conrad’s near plagiarism in offering a story of an explorer venturing into an unknown land to find a hermitic madman who had assumed control over the native population. Wells accused Conrad of having appropriated salient plot elements from The Island of Doctor Moreau, evidently even going so far as to say Conrad’s immortal character Kurtz was simply a slightly retooled version of Wells’ good (?) doctor. Conrad was having none of it, of course, and responded that Heart of Darkness was the result of his own experiences on the African continent and that Kurtz was in fact based at least in part on — Henry Morton Stanley.

Richard Stanley makes no bones about having had a near lifelong fascination with The Island of Doctor Moreau, at one point holding up a tattered first edition of Wells’ iconic novel that Stanley mentions was an object of fascination for him as a child, especially when his parents told him it was off limits because it was too scary for a kid to read. When Stanley, who spent much of his childhood traipsing around Africa with his anthropologist mother (who specialized in investigating “magical” folklore), started attracting attention as a filmmaker after Hardware became a critical darling and surprisingly successful at the box office (at least for a “little” independent film), the big studios came calling (as they so often do), and Stanley suddenly found himself able to fund his dream project, a new film version of Wells’ tale of genetic experimentation out in the wild. (Of course the story had seen the cinematic light of day previously with such films as Island of Lost Souls and the 1977 The Island of Dr. Moreau, among several others.)

As so often seems to happen in the film industry, an initial “small science fiction” film, reportedly budgeted at around five million, ballooned into a mega-budgeted spectacular as things got further into development, especially once Marlon Brando unexpectedly agreed to play Dr. Moreau. (The fact that Brando had played Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola’s reworking of Heart of Darkness, certainly qualifies as synchronicity if not actual “transgenerational karma”.) Even before that surprising casting decision (which did not sit well with some New Line executives, some of whom had just finished dealing with the legendarily problematic actor on a previous film), members of the production crew were becoming increasingly concerned that Stanley, whose odd get up made him look like a directorial version of Darkman, might not have been “ready for prime time” (so to speak).

Stanley comes off as unapologetically eccentric but still at least relatively rational in the interviews with him included in the documentary, but there’s a “warts and all” aspect to this piece which, while fascinating, doesn’t always paint a pretty picture of either Stanley or the rather convoluted (and ultimately downright chaotic) production history of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Some of the confusion seems to have stemmed from good intentions under extremely difficult circumstances, including Stanley’s attempts to keep Val Kilmer in the film by shifting him to a secondary role when the actor (then at the height of his Batman Forever fueled “arrogance,” in the verbiage used in the documentary) insisted that his shooting schedule be cut by 40%. Other problems frankly seemed to issue from Stanley’s own off putting behaviors (including his self admitted reliance on "witchcraft"), many of which led to various crew members whispering “uh oh” under their breath as things continued to spiral out of control.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' is an object lesson in both the excesses and almost weirdly restrictive tendencies that seem to exist side by side in Hollywood at times. The documentary does an almost frightening (if often hilarious) job of depicting the seemingly insane power struggles that attended this particular film, but it's not hard to draw general conclusions from this specific example. Dr. Moreau may be a study in madness, but a cursory glance at some of the shenanigans taking place as this film got underway prove he's far from alone.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's 'Island of Dr. Moreau' is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (largely) in 1.78:1. As should be expected with a documentary cobbled together from so many disparate sources, there's a rather wide quality disparity on display here. Even given that unsurprising aspect, though, some of the contemporary interview footage is also a bit (if less) variant, with some of the studio shot sequences looking really sharp and well defined (see screenshot 2), while some of the on the fly stuff with Stanley is perhaps a bit less so (see screenshot 1). The archival material is pretty ragged looking at times, with baked in issues like image instability and ghosting.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's 'Island of Dr. Moreau' features a workmanlike LPCM 2.0 track that easily supports a fairly unambitious soundtrack. The bulk of the documentary is basically talking heads sequences, and while those obviously don't offer a lot of sonic "wow" factor, fidelity is excellent. There are no problems of any kind to warrant concern.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This three disc "House of Pain" edition includes a Blu-ray, a DVD and a CD.

Blu-ray Bonus Features:

• Out-Takes:

  Richard Stanley (1080p; 47:36)

  Marco Hofschneider (1080p; 16:33)

  Jim Sbardellati (1080p; 5:45)

  Graham "Grace" Walker (1080p; 2:18)

  Graham Humphreys (1080p; 1:17)

  Hugh & Ollie (1080p; 1:19)

• Graham Humphreys Concept Gallery with Commentary by Richard Stanley (1080p; 14:32)


• Archive Moreau Interview with John Frankenheimer (1080p; 6:02)


• Barbara Steele Recalls Moreau Audio Interview (5:19)


• The Beast of Morbido Featurette (1080i; 9:43) is kind of a goofy piece with Stanley at the Morbido Film Festival.


• The Hunt for the Compound (1080p; 6:18) is a kind of fun return to the Cairns location as a couple of crew members attempt to find where the original set was built.


• Boar Man Diary (1080p; 15:15) is an often pretty funny recounting of on set reminiscences by one of the cast.


• Trailer (1080p; 2:23)

Bonus DVD The H.G. Wells Files:

• Insel der Verschollenen (Island of the Lost) Recently Discovered 1921 German Version of Moreau (480p; 1:01:50) is a silent film version (with piano score) that's played in the typically florid manner of the era. Severin has included a "bug" in the upper right corner featuring their distinctive logo, no doubt to protect against piracy. English subtitles are included.


• H.G. Wells on Film Featurette with Expert Sylvia Hardy (480p; 18:59) offers some decent generalist biographical data on Wells while also giving an overview of his many works, including those that ultimately became films. There are some very brief clips of various outings here, and some interesting information about Things to Come .


• Richard Stanley on H.G. Wells (480p; 16:09) looks like it was part of the same interview sessions that are in the main documentary. Stanley obviously has a deep connection to the author, and his affection for the subject comes through quite clearly.

Bonus CD:

• Richard Stanley Reads The Island of Dr. Moreau offers Stanley's evocative voice in an audio book version of Wells' iconic tale.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Anyone with even a passing interest in the vagaries of Hollywood should absolutely love Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's 'Island of Dr. Moreau', whether or not they care one whit about this actual film. Filled to the brim with eye opening (and often quite funny) anecdotes, and offering a rather unexpectedly long and in depth "chat" with Stanley himself, this documentary may cause a somewhat different kind of reassessment of its titular film than the one I suggested might be due in my The Island of Dr. Moreau Blu-ray review. Technical merits are generally very good, and the supplemental package outstanding on Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's 'Island of Dr. Moreau'. Highly recommended.