The ill-fated making of the 1996 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic is the stuff of Hollywood legend, and for all the wrong reasons. Seriously, the doc Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s The Island of Dr. Moreau is a must-watch descent into hell: an auteur’s years-long struggle to bring a groundbreaking new vision to screen but sidelined by ballooning costs, studio suits, huge egos, bad weather and flat out jungle madness. The fact that the film was finished at all is sort of a miracle. That it turned out so absolutely insane and was actually released to an unsuspecting public is a godsend to fans of weird cinema. And this movie is an f’ing wild ride of outrageous acting, indulgent excess and questionable decisions, headlined by a lazy, get-me-off-this-set Val Kilmer but with Marlon Brando truly stealing the show as the ice-bucket-hat Moreau, a gauze-clad god figure to his island of freaks. Throw in excellent Stan Winston creature effects, a feline Fairuza Balk, Ron Perlman as the Sayer of the Law and Nelson de la Rosa, a 28-inch, 22-pound actor forced to hold his own against the rotund Brando, and you’ve got one for the ages. It has to be seen to be believed.
