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

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

Dir. David Gregory

Cult director Richard Stanley had a vision for an adaptation of an H.G. Wells story that he loved dearly. New Line Cinema had cold feet, a sharp knife and a clear view of Stanley’s back. Like frightened animals they struck.

The usurped writer/director is surprisingly calm about the whole affair, perhaps due to time having scabbed over the wounds.

He gives viewers access to the amazing pre-production art and storyboards he’d commissioned, on-set photos of the brief time he’d had in the director’s chair and airs his view on some of the disasters that befall the production.

The documentary shifts focus for a long time after the middle section, becoming more like a DVD extra about the making of the actual Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) film that did eventually get made with a new director at the helm, namely John Frankenheimer. It was a disaster. (See below.)

There's no guarantee that Stanley's version would've been significantly better, but given how visually spell-binding and unique his past films were it sure as hell would've been a lot more interesting to look at and very likely much more thought-provoking.

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)

Dir. John Frankenheimer

I'll drop it here as a (bad) bonus because it sure as hell doesn't deserve a post of its own. All is fine for the first while, but once the painted white boulder that is Marlon Brando rolls into the story the entire production goes right off the rails. He seems to want to sabotage every scene he’s in, dragging everyone, including his Mini-Me, down with the whole tropical ship.

Kilmer didn't want to be there at all and it shows. His performance is shockingly bad.

Dir. John Frankenheimer is the only one with anything resembling an excuse for being off, he’d no time to prepare, having come to the project half a week into shooting after Stanley was removed. Still, he appears to make little effort to turn it into anything other than a pay cheque.

I feel sorry for David Thewlis, Fairuza Balk and Ron Perlman, all of whom at least made some effort to be interesting despite the odds in the screenplay being heavily stacked against them.