Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau

Like Hearts of Darkness and Lost in La Mancha, Lost Soul is an excellent documentary in which the cast and crew tell the story of a troubled production.

The Island of Dr. Moreau is a serviceable, much-maligned movie about a mad scientist who combines humans and animals to make freakish humanoids. The production was infamously difficult, though the gritty details were widely inaccessible to the public.

Told through the recollection of some--but not all--of the various cast and crew involved in this movie, Lost Souls delivers the intricate story of this notorious film. Those curious about the origins of Brando's choice to wear an ice bucket on his head, or the casting and director changes during filming, are in for a treat. This doc will definitely have you grinning ear-to-ear at the nuttiness of it all.

Having been a fan of Jurassic Park and Batman Forever as a kid, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) looked, from the TV advertisements, like the next big thing. Look at those creatures! On an island! Starring Val Kilmer and some woman (I assumed) named Marlon Brando! In fact, the film was widely panned and derided when it came out. When I saw it with my younger sister, it was more violent than I expected, a bit of a mess, but I definitely appreciated what it was trying to do. My sister totally disliked it; maybe she had better sense in this case.

Lost Soul (a title paying nice homage to the original film, The Island of Lost Souls) is an engaging documentary dedicated to studying how the film went so far off track, and it is more insane than I realized. There's some good brief discussion of the novel and earlier film attempts. Then, to the meat of the picture. I'm not even sure if I would have liked Richard Stanley's original vision; the sketches are exceedingly trippy and the thought of the protagonist getting his genitals bit off during bestiality is so far out there. It's still fascinating to see what went wrong.

A lot of it is bizarre- the fact that Stanley went to a witch doctor to make sure he stayed on the film, and the fact that he credited it with working, says it all. You can see the injustice in Stanley finally being fired because it was raining, according to this documentary (I heard it was because of Kilmer), but then, there's definite evidence he had broken down, going by this anecdote that he had climbed a tree and wouldn't come down. It's really striking how many people came onto the project, or stayed on, despite not wanting to be there. The gong show goes on- Kilmer and Brando locking themselves in their trailer and refusing to come out until the other does. One person remarks it would be a huge achievement to finally have a film with a beginning, a middle and an end- they succeeded. I think I would have enjoyed this doc even more if I was in total agreement that The Island of Dr. Moreau sucked- but certainly, the making of it was a trainwreck, too fascinating to look away from.

The 1996 adaptation of one of my favourite H.G. Wells story, starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, was not well received to put it politely, and its production even less rosey. Well, 18 years later, a documentary goes behind the scenes to unravel how a young indie filmmaker got his shot at Hollywood big time, and what was a dream project became every filmmaker and studio's worst nightmare.

A sort of surreal affair, 'Lost Soul' mixes brand new interviews (the big draw being the notoriously elusive Stanley), archive footage and photos/concept art to tell of how this young British talent tried to fulfill a lifelong dream to adapt and update Wells' tale of science gone awry, and damn is it engrossing. There are no holds barred and spades are called spades as the cast (and many different crew, from ADs to managers to even extras) recall just how much of a hell things were, even in pre-production, as well as the pain that was Brando, replacement director Frankenheimer, and especially Kilmer. Stanley himself, with his deep voice and unusual appearance, a sort of hybrid of Indiana Jones and a voodoo shaman, is fascinating to watch as tells his misadventure with a slight hint of bitterness but also a sort of sage wisdom about it.

Of course, director David Gregory is smart enough to not let this turn into just one big slog of talking heads. He regularly breaks it up with an assortment of visual treats, including the magnificently disturbing concept art and storyboards for Stanley's original vision, archive footage of the shoot and the grotesque makeup effects of the beast people, even new material recorded at the now overgrown location. The whole thing is underscored by a sinister soundtrack that adds to the nightmarish feel as you journey on and more and more goes wrong, even on occasion referencing witchcraft and unusual phenomena.

In terms of complaints, I don't really have many, save for maybe the lack of remastering of some archive footage, the soundtrack can sometimes go a little over the tip, and the film does taper off towards the end and doesn't dwell on the film's reception and legacy as much as I would've liked. However, it is firmly Stanley's story, and a great watch for fans of film and filmmakers.

The production of The island of Dr Moreau is one of misfortune, petty grudges and probably jealous sabotage. Richard Stanley who was to be the original director had been offered the "hot seat" after proving himself with a couple good indie films and a meeting with Marlon Brando. This should have been the small town boy makes good, a triumphant feather in his wide brimmed fedora hat, instead it was a disaster that almost cost him his sanity. The documentary follows the concept to production process of the massive calamity that was Dr Moreau, warts and all we are walked through the trails faced by Stanley and cast, from tropical storms to idiotic behaviour by the two "marquee" name stars. It is amazing that the film was ever finished let alone released (it is actually not a bad movie) with petty Val Kilmer and the stupid Marlon Brando trying to undermine the director while taking playground jabs at anybody they could. The crew and some of the people from New line cinema all have their versions of this story, the fact being that it seems like a perfect storm was created where everything that could fail did. Spectacularly. You may feel most for Stanley who seems like he was in over his head and lacking support from his studio and being green as far as big budget went buckled like a belt. If you are interested in the process of film making and want to see a real story of hard ship in this business this documentary should satisfy.

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau (2014)

**** (out of 4)

If you watch enough movies, eventually you're going to see something that takes you by complete surprise. You can hear about how bad or crazy a movie is but there are certain examples that just stick in your mind because once you've seen the movie in question you realize that you really have seen something that's so bad that you have to sit there for days if not weeks wondering how it went so wrong. That happened to me in 1996 when I walked out of THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. Being a major Marlon Brando fan, it was a thrill getting to see him on the big screen but what was on that screen went down in infamy and here's a documentary explaining the craziness.

Director David Gregory is one of the best people out there when it comes to making DVD/Blu-ray shorts so throwing him into the feature world is something great for movie fans. This documentary is so perfectly done that it plays just like a real drama, a tragedy and then finally a hilarious comedy. We start off hearing from Richard Stanley who talks about his original ideas for the film and we see that he clearly has a great vision for the story. Then, we see that there's something off when he begins to talk about calling on witch doctor's to "help" the film. From here we learn just about every bit of the production details from how the film was originally meant to be made for $8 million but then Brando came on board, which had the budget go higher so then they needed a star so Val Kilmer was brought on and soon the original director was gone and replaced by maverick John Frankenheimer.

LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY'S ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU is without question one of the best documentaries that you're ever going to see when it comes to explaining the behind-the-scenes of a troubled production. However, to be fair, this here wasn't just a troubled production because you're going to learn that the entire thing seemed to be cursed and you can't help but wonder why the entire film wasn't dropped early in the production but then you learn that perhaps someone just wanted to see how crazy it could get. Things turn even worse when you hear that even Brando and Kilmer wanted the production to fail and some of the stories are just downright crazy. There are so many wild and crazy stories told about the production of this movie by the time it's over you can easily see why the actual movie turned out so bad.

There are way too many highlights in this film so picking out one or two to put the spotlight on is rather hard. Again, being a die-hard Brando fan, finding out what was going on with the white face paint and the ice bucket on his head were hilarious. Hearing about how the fired Stanley managed to get back onto the set and work as an extra was just astounding. What's the best is the fact that so many people came back and were willing to talk about the troubled production and be honest about it. Of course, Brando and Kilmer weren't available but Fairuza Balk is on hand as his New Line's Robert Shaye and of course Stanley plays a big part here. There's also some of the original producers to discuss the problems and the honesty of everyone involved is what makes the drama of the film work so well.

Of course, as the craziness continues and just gets weirder, the film pretty much turns into a comedy because you have to laugh at everything that was going on. Gregory has once again created a wonderful little gem and one hopes that his talents will see for more feature-length documentaries because he's one of the best out there and LOST SOUL is so great that it actually makes me want to go back and what that train-wreck of a film that was THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU.