There are some strange goings-on in 1932 horror classic ISLAND OF LOST SOULS
ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (Erle C. Kenton, 1932)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave.
Saturday, October 27, and Sunday, October 28, 12:15 pm
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
“Are we not men?” declares the Sayer of the Law (Bela Lugosi) in Erle C. Kenton’s 1932 horror classic, Island of Lost Souls. (Yes, the phrase was eventually coopted by Devo.) After surviving a shipwreck, Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) soon finds himself on a very strange island where it appears that a madman named Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) is experimenting on living beings in rather inhumane ways. While his fiancée, Ruth Thomas (Leila Hyams), is trying to find him, Parker starts hanging around with Lota (Kathleen Burke), but there’s more to her than meets the eye. As Parker continues to poke around, he learns a little too much about what’s going on, meaning it just might be the House of Pain for him if he doesn’t watch out. Island of Lost Souls is a creepy pre-Code horror flick that holds up surprisingly well, with odd twists and turns that include more than just hints of torture, S&M, and bestiality. Laughton seems to be having a blast, pulling out his whip to tame his creations, enjoying it all way too much. It was quite a year for the British-born American actor, who also played Nero in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross and the title character (winning an Oscar) in Alexander Korda’s The Private Life of Henry VIII in 1932. Island of Lost Souls is based on the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, which was also filmed in 1977 by Don Taylor, with Burt Lancaster as the doctor, Michael York as the curious wayward traveler, and Richard Basehart as the Sayer of the Law, and more famously by John Frankenheimer in 1997, with Marlon Brando as Moreau, David Thewliss as the shipwreck survivor, and Ron Perlman as the Sayer of the Law, often considered one of the worst films ever made.