DARK Movies at the museum - Island of Lost Souls (Kenton, 1932) - CONFLICT

Ever since the early 1930s, a golden age for horror, Hollywood films have been imaginatively warning the general public about science (and scientists) gone awry. Consider, for instance, the original Frankenstein. Just as strong is the influence of Island of Lost Souls, the first and still the best film adaptation of H.G. Wells' science fiction novel The Island of Doctor Moreau.

In the story, an island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean is populated by the monstrous creations of the diabolic doctor of the title, played with sardonic delight by the inimitable Charles Laughton. A castaway encounters the subjugated humanoids, including Dracula star Bela Lugosi, and witnesses their growing awareness and resistance against inequality and oppression.

After the box office success of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), the Paramount film studio made every effort to transform the practices of the amoral Moreau as gruesomely as possible onto the silver screen. Mission accomplished, because three times in a row the film failed to pass the British censors. B-movie director Erle C. Kenton shies away from neither sadism nor taboos, while renowned cinematographer Karl Struss captures the nightmarish atmosphere in expressionistic black and white.

At the time, Island of Lost Souls shocked audiences with its staging of vivisection and ‘racial mixing’ - when segregation was still in effect -, while ideas stemming from eugenics would become highly controversial after the Second World War. Nearly a hundred years later, the infamous film classic continues to speak to the darkest side of the scientific imagination.