As would-be summer blockbusters go, few are more deeply strange than the notorious 1996 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. It stars Marlon Brando, well into his late, no-fucks-given period, waddling around in a diaphanous muumuu and ghostly clown make-up, accompanied at all times by a deformed midget wearing the exact same thing. He is assisted by Val Kilmer, who seems to be doing his best to out-crazy his co-star (at one point doing a pretty spot-on Brando impersonation), eccentric ‘90s it-girl Fairuza Balk as a half-panther woman, and an army of deformed animal men led by Ron Perlman. I will admit to having a genuine soft spot for the film (colored at least in part by the NyQuil I took immediately before seeing it the first time), but there is no denying that it is a complete goddamn mess.

As it turns out, the production was even crazier than the film itself. The film was originally assigned to Richard Stanley, the maverick auteur behind the post-apocalyptic cult classics Hardware and Dust Devil (and recently seen in another great “unmaking of” documentary, last year’s Jodorowsky’s Dune). Unfortunately, the elaborate, remote shoot went off the rails from day one, with the film being deliberately sabotaged by Brando, Kilmer, and eventually Stanley himself, who was quickly replaced by Hollywood legend John Frankenheimer. David Gregory’s acclaimed new documentary, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau tells the whole bloody story from the mouths of those who lived it, including new interviews with the always entertaining Stanley and Balk. It’s been hailed as the best documentary about a trouble-plagued jungle shoot involving Marlon Brando since, well, the other one. Afterwards, you may need something to clear your head. Might I suggest some Chopin?

–Oscar Goff

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau
2014
David Gregory
97 min.