The Island Of Dr Moreau (DVD)

(Just had to change this cos I realised I gave it far more stars than I intended to.) This movie is based on HG Wells' classic novel. It was originally to have been directed by Richard Stanley, who's generally considered to be a fairly interesting British horror director. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way Stanley was dropped from the project and it was handed to veteran John Frankenheimer. The story involves an English UN chap, John Douglas, played by David Thewliss. He is shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean. Fortunately, he is rescued by Montgomery, a sweaty American played by Val Kilmer. Montgomery takes him to a remote island, where ...  Read the complete review

This third screen version of the HG Wells classic fantasy tale is unable to better the previous two versions but nonetheless being a Wells story the director John Frankenheimer should have changed his name to Frankenstein for this film, to be in keeping with the story. The “animal” costumes are imaginative and very real. In fact they are brilliant. Marlon Brando takes the title role as the mad scientist who has dared to experiment with human and animal genetics and produced a new species of “human” being. Tucked away on a desert island for many years he has had free reign to do as he pleases and the results are seen lurking in ...  Read the complete review

Richard Stanley's wild, sick mix of sci-fi, voodoo and bestiality is, along with Orson Welles 'Heart of Darkness' and the original third 'Dead' film that George Romero couldn't afford, one of the great unmade films. The problem is, not only did we not get to see one of cinema's great unexploited talents let loose on H.G. Wells' prescient masterpiece, John Frankenheimer came along and made this relentlessly stupid film instead, gutting Stanley's script and substituting lame thriller cliches for the magic. David Thewlis plays a weak and frankly rather irritating UN official, marooned on an island populated with weird genetic ...  Read the complete review