Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau is allegedly one of the worst movies of all time – a movie so bad that even a cast of Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, and Richard Thewlis couldn’t save it.
Maybe it was the monsoons that offset production repeatedly; maybe it was the offscreen drugs and orgies. Whatever combination of these things, one thing is certain: the real story of making this cursed movie was stranger than the movie itself, and it’s chronicled in the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Doctor Moreau.
It all started with a curse, placed on the movie by a warlock Stanley hired to bewitch the film. Stanley felt destined to adapt to film H.G. Wells’ Island of Doctor Moreau, since his ancestor, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, allegedly inspired the book Heart of Darkness (1899), a story strikingly similar, he believed, to H.G. Wells’ story of Moreau. Fulfilling his destiny, Stanley decided, depended upon magical intercession from Skip (the warlock).
This is where things start to get weird, and his wish proves a monkey’s paw. In the documentary, Stanley recounts bad omens that portend of failure and even death.
It’s impossible to say much more without spoiling the most shocking parts of this true story. If you haven’t seen Island of Doctor Moreau, I can’t say I recommend it – not without first watching Lost Soul.
