Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

The Twilight People Blu-ray Movie Review

The Island of Dr. Less-eau?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 27, 2018

If it’s at least arguable that Jules Verne and Herbert George Wells are two of, if not the two, fathers of modern science fiction, it’s kind of fun to do a quick comparison of cinematic adaptations of their works, since one might also make an argument that films are the natural medium through which to depict the often phantasmagorical elements of these authors’ stories. Going by the not always reliable Wikipedia, Jules Verne has 59 films based at least in part on his writing, while H.G. Wells is remarkably close behind with 54 films based at least in part on his writing. But here’s a kind of fascinating (trivial) data point in these overall totals: according to the way the not always reliable Wikipedia has pages listed in their accounts of cinematic adaptations of these venerable authors’ works, there are subcategories for films that have received many adaptations. Other films, however are listed separately (even if both authors have works adapted more than once in this category as well), and here kind of strangely Wikipedia offers 29 “and the rest” pages not otherwise subcategorized in the case of both authors. Among Verne’s most filmed pieces is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which has had ten adaptations (our database here lists five with that actual title). H.G. Wells’ output includes two works that have had multiple versions, The Invisible Man (14 adaptations) and The War of the Worlds (11 adaptations). Among the films based on H.G. Wells which have been classified under individual pages despite having multiple adaptations is The Island of Dr. Moreau, which many fans will know has also been adapted as Island of Lost Souls, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain . None other than Tim Burton also cut his teeth in his early student days with an effort called The Island of Doctor Agor which makes it onto Wikipedia’s list, but (and here’s the “not always reliable” part), the online encyclopedia has yet to list The Twilight People as having obviously been based on Wells’ frightening tale of a mad doctor creating hybrids of humans and animals. It should be noted that The Twilight People makes absolutely no reference to Wells or Dr. Moreau in the credits or character names, but anyone who has seen any version of The Island of Dr. Moreau will know at least the broad outlines of The Twilight People, even if this campy but enjoyable effort differs in some of the particulars.

Matt Farrell (John Ashley) is a supposed “soldier of fortune” who is first seen scuba diving in some unknown tropical locale. In just one of many kind of fanciful elements to this tale, two other scuba divers show up and basically kidnap Farrell, lassoing him and hoisting him onto a nearby ship. There he awakens from having been drugged to the beautiful sight of Neva Gordon (Pat Woodell), who seems to be having second thoughts about whatever’s going on with Farrell, especially when she has to deal with a henchman type named Steinman (Jan Merlin).

Once the group arrives at an uncharted island, it turns out that Neva’s father is this story’s mad scientist, Dr. Gordon (Charles Macauley), and that he has been, in good old Dr. Moreau fashion, attempting to create hybrids of animals and humans. He has “big plans” for Farrell, who is, after all, a sterling specimen. Unfortunately for the good (?) doctor, daughter Neva also finds Farrell to be a sterlint specimen, and thereby a conflict arises which leads to the freeing of a bunch of captive half beast - half human creatures. It’s all resolutely in the standard Dr. Moreau template, albeit with slightly less florid dialogue than has accrued in some other adaptations.

The film is undeniably low rent. It was marketed as a drive-in film, typcially on a triple bill, and often appearing as the third entry on that bill, which probably says something. But taken within that context, it’s kind of goofily enjoyable, with some surprisingly effective make-up work. There’s little of the drama that some other adaptations of the Dr. Moreau tale have had, and little of the philosophical underpinnings of Wells’ original source tome, but the film is decently paced and makes the most of its Phillipines locations.

The Twilight People Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Twilight People is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of VCI and MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. VCI touts "remastered in 2K from the 35mm negative — first time in widescreen!" on the back cover of this release, and the good news for those who have followed VCI's sometimes spotty releases on Blu-ray is that this outing has none of the sometimes quite odd encoding issues that have plagued other releases. The biggest issue here is not really with compression or even age related wear and tear like scratches and other blemishes. In fact, there are relatively few major scratches or other really noticeable signs of damage in that particular category, but as even a cursory look at the screenshots accompanying this review will show, the color timing here is seriously in need of some correction, as well as "normalizing" across what are at times almost bizarre variances, sometimes within the same scene and even at times within the same frame. Some of this is obviously photochemical damage or print through related, but there are extremely wide variations in palette accuracy. Some moments will look excellent, with true blue skies and reasonably good looking flesh tones, but then in the next moment things can look weirdly yellow, green, or blue, depending on the moment (I've tried to upload a few examples of some of the variances, and I highly recommend parsing all of the screenshots accompanying this review). Some of these anomalies tend to diminish detail and fine detail levels quite noticeably. This is a cult item where many fans will be willing to overlook any obstacles like this, and my underlying assessment is that when this transfer looks good, it looks quite good, but when some of these rather unfortunate color differentiations show up, it can look fairly odd at times. One of the interesting things fans may want to pay attention to is the color variances between the trailer and the TV spots included on the Blu-ray as supplements. The trailer exhibits some of the same weird green tones that afflict the main presentation, while some of the same shots used in the TV spots have a much more natural looking palette.

The Twilight People Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Twilight People features an LPCM 2.0 mono mix which is much more consistent than the video aspect of this release, even if some of the effects and score can sound slightly boxy at times. Dialogue (such as it is) comes through cleanly and clearly, though sync seems slightly loose a couple of times (I'm assuming that perhaps some outdoor work may have been post looped).

The Twilight People Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by David Del Valle and David Decoteau is full of interesting trivia about the production and the players.


• Interview with Eddie Romero (1080p; 58:44) comes with a warning that "The visual quality of this interview is not up to our normal standards, but if you can see past the tape hits, it's nearly an hour of entertaining stories and observations by Eddie Romero". The video quality here is indeed problematic at times (upscaling anomalies and things like tracking issues), but Romero is a lot of fun as he details how he kind of stumbled into a film career.


• Original Trailer (1080p; 1:51)


• TV Spots (1080p; 1:34)

The Twilight People Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I actually liked The Twilight People quite a bit, despite its obvious shoestring budget and sometimes hokey aspects (you haven't lived until you've seen this film's "Bat-Man" fly through the forest and assault some of the bad guys). VCI's Blu-ray releases are improving, and that's the good news. Unfortunately, the negative looks like it has some fairly serious damage that probably requires a more time consuming and costly restoration than this cult item may be capable of recouping. Fans will probably be willing to overlook some of the deficits of the presentation, and for them the supplements included here will be an added allure.