So meanwhile, and this was kind of what I was
alluding to earlier, Richard Stanley was still
recuperating. And so he actually got back onto
the set as an extra with a dog man costume. There
was a story in the documentary about how they
would take their breaks for lunch or whatever,
or probably to wait for Marlon Brando to decide
to come out of his trailer. And it would be like
sweltering heat. So everybody else would be taking
off their helmets. And that first AD who Vincent
had mentioned, I think, is the one who said,
like, he noticed this guy with the dog costume
on who just, like, wasn't taking the helmet off.
Even though they're in this, you know, 110 degree
heat or whatever. Because obviously he didn't
want to reveal his identity and that he was,
you know, infiltrating this. That's hilarious.
Like, who's the psycho who keeps his dog mascot?
Yeah. Hello, and welcome to Camp Kaiju Monster
Movie Podcast. We're your hosts, Matt Levine.
And Vincent Hannum. And we're talking about all
of our favorite monster movies, the good, the
bad, and the downright campy, and asking if they
stand the test of time. Traditional Kaiju creature
features, space invaders, the supernatural, and
everything in between. All strange beasts welcome
here. Camp Kaiju is sponsored by Zack Linder
and the Zack Pack, powered by Coldwell Banker
Realty. your source for real estate, home rehab,
fixing and flipping for investor clients and
residential buyers. Reach out to the Zach Pack
today for real estate services, follow the Zach
Pack on social media, and contact the Zach Pack
for investment opportunities. Link in the show
notes. On the sixth day, God created man. On
the seventh day, he rested. And on the eighth
day, in the year 2010, in a remote laboratory,
an exiled scientist created something impossible.
Unmistakably human. Undeniably animal. On the
island of Dr. Moreau. I'd like to present my
children. Father? Oh, my God. From director John
Frankenheimer. H .G. Wells' most terrifying creations.
About the line that separates man from beast.
And the notorious doctor who dared to cross it.
We are men. Because the father has made us men.
Marlon Brando. Val Kilmer. David Thewlis. The
Island of Dr. Moreau. Tonight, we have a very
special guest joining us. All of you Frankaholics
out there will be very excited. Frank Olson is
back on the show. Woo! Yeah. Hello, Frank. Thank
you for joining us. Welcome back. Yes, thank
you for having me. Was the last episode that
you joined, was that Attack the Block? I'm trying
to remember. That was, yeah. Okay. Back in December,
I believe that was. Yep. Well, the last regular
episode, anyway, I was on the like the year end
thing as well. But yeah, the last one where we
went over a specific movie was the Attack the
Block one. Cool. Always a pleasure to have you
on the podcast. Tonight, we are going to be talking
about a movie with a much more difficult production
history than Attack the Block had. Tonight, we're
talking about The Island of Dr. Moreau from 1996.
It's going to be a doozy. I never, well, and
I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves.
I won't say that yet, but I'm very excited to
talk about this movie. Yeah, me too. I had always
heard about this movie. I did not realize how
deep the rabbit hole went with the troubles.
Like that's an understatement. I was watching
this movie and I won't get ahead of myself, but
like that's going to be our whole episode. Like
just chomping at the bit to talk about all the
trivia with this movie because it was a mess.
There's so many factoids and bits of interesting
info on this film and the people involved. Yeah,
the other day I was reading the Wikipedia article
on it before I rewatched the movie, and I texted
Matt and I said, we could probably just read
the Wikipedia page for a bit, and that would
be a good enough episode. I mean, there's a lot
of that Wikipedia page on the show notes for
tonight. So in essence, that's kind of what we're
doing. But also there's a bunch of stuff from
that. A really good documentary from 2014, Lost
Soul. I can't remember the full title. It's kind
of a long title of that movie. I think all three
of us saw it. Yeah, I've got to hold up here
because I knew I was not going to remember the
full title either. But it's Lost Soul, The Doomed
Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau.
So much fascinating information in that documentary.
And we'll be talking about some of the stuff
that I think all three of us learned from that
documentary tonight as well. It's not too much
of an exaggeration to say The Island of Dr. Moreau
might be the most problematic or troubled production
history of any Hollywood movie ever made. It
sounds over the top, but it's close to being
accurate, I would say. Because what I learned
or like what I just realized was that bad movies
win. I feel like after watching the documentary
and you're listening to the producers at New
Line Cinema back in the mid 90s, they were so
deep into production. They realized they were
going to lose so much money if they did not go
through with this. And they knew it was going
to be a train wreck. But I feel like that is
the exception, right? I mean, most movies that
come out are decent. They might be boring, but
they're not bad the way they're not in shambles
the way I think. Dr. Moreau is in certain points.
So it's really interesting that this did manage
to get made despite everyone knowing it was a
disaster. Yeah. And I think like, you know, it
at least is like interestingly bad. I mean, like
there are some movies out there that are just
kind of like boring and bland and forgettable.
And like maybe like two days after you see it,
you forget almost all of it. This is a movie
that I will never forget. It's so bizarre. It's
like really off the rails. And I would kind of
rather have a movie be interestingly bad than
just bland and forgettable, you know? So I guess
that's one thing the Island of Dr. Moreau has
going for it. Yeah. I also liked that you called
it The Troubles before. I feel like from now
on, that should not refer to Northern Ireland
and its history of terrorism. It should refer
to this movie instead. That's how I'm going to
use it from now on. I'm also sad that you were
wearing the ice bucket hat at first, Vincent.
And I know most people listening can't see us
on screen right now, but you don't have the ice
bucket hat on anymore. All right, I'll put it
back. It's just a couple of sheets of construction
paper I taped together. And a bunch of ice that
will slowly leak over your head throughout the
recording. Of course. Before we get to that,
just a couple quick intro things to get out of
the way. Frank and I actually together a couple
days ago saw a new monster movie in theaters,
Death of a Unicorn. Frank, what did you think
about that movie? It was not very good. I think
I actually nodded off a couple times in the theater
while we were watching it. Did not really work
for me as a horror movie or as a comedy. And
for a movie with such an eccentric concept, it's
shockingly bland and just kind of plain, I guess.
There's nothing really interesting about it.
I don't know. It just didn't do anything for
me. Totally agree. I strongly disliked it. I
feel like in addition to not working as a horror
or a comedy, it also doesn't work as satire very
well. And like the CGI is as bad as like the
brief CGI that we get in the island of Dr. Moreau,
even though we're like 30 years later. So, you
know, Death of a Unicorn, not recommended by
the Camp Kaiju crew. Vincent, have you seen it
yet? No, I was curious. So I like that you guys
saw it. And now I know to not watch it. Yeah,
that'd be my recommendation. Real quick, have
you guys seen any other good new or older monster
movies recently? So many. I'm going to keep it
brief. I've just been on a Lon Chaney kick. Lon
Chaney Sr., if you all get a chance to watch
his Phantom of the Opera, it is a good time.
I'll keep it short and sweet, but that's my rec
for the week. A classic. Can't go wrong with
Lon Chaney. Yeah. I'm trying to think if I've
seen a particularly good... monster movie recently
i did see so last year i saw i never exactly
sure how to pronounce this i think it's diamond
diamond gene it's it's like a weird like combination
of samurai movie and kaiju movie and they made
three of them that they filmed simultaneously
last year i watched the first one and then earlier
this year i watched the second and third ones
and those are pretty interesting they're a little
bit too slow paced in my opinion and for anyone
you know listening to this who just wants to
see like the kaiju destruction stuff and in all
three movies that's basically saved for like
the very end like there's a giant uh statue of
a samurai that eventually comes to life like
people pray to it and like people who are like
oppressed pray to it and and then ultimately
like agree to sacrifice their lives to the statue
and then he like comes to life and gets all this
you know righteous vengeance on the like evil
samurai who are the evil samurai clans who are
like you know abusing the people and everything
but those are all pretty interesting i i like
the third one the best and the third one the
protagonists are like these these children who
are trying to like you know climb up the mountain
to to visit the statue and like pray for him
to save their parents and so that kind of gives
them a little more of like uh like a boys adventure
vibe, which sets apart a little bit from the
other movies. So that was my favorite of the
three. The third, it's called Dimension, right?
D -A -I -M -A -J -I -N, something like that?
Yes, that's how it's spelled. I'm not exactly
sure how it's pronounced, but I, yeah, something
like that. Okay. I've always been curious about
those. It's a good reminder that I should watch
them at some point. Yeah, those might, I haven't
seen them either, but I have been thinking about
bringing. One or all of those to a future installment
of Camp Kaiju. So listeners, stay tuned. Definitely
worth checking out. Perhaps for next season.
We shall see. One thing I feel like we should
say before we get into tonight's episode about
the island of Dr. Moreau. One of the main characters
is played by Val Kilmer. So we have to say rest
in peace to Val Kilmer. Just died about a week
ago. I've been starting to like dive back into
some of his movies. This might sound a little
bit weird, but I'm very excited to rewatch MacGruber,
the SNL like parody, which is hilarious. I love
that movie. And Val Kilmer plays the villain
in that movie. So I'm excited to rewatch that.
That's right. I also want to say that Val Kilmer's
reputation in The Island of Dr. Moreau is pretty
bad. Like everyone he worked with on that film
has nothing good to say about him. So with that
said. Like still rest in peace, Val Kilmer. You're
a great Batman. You're a great actor. Even if
you weren't in this movie. Yeah, I was thinking
the same thing. We'll probably say some negative
things about him tonight, like through what other
people have said about him. But still an amazing
actor with a long, great career. And hopefully
how much of a difficult actor he was on this
movie doesn't overshadow his long career. Yeah,
and definitely his performance in Top Secret.
is one of the like all -time great like deadpan
comedy performances he's really funny in that
movie i heard that i am i haven't seen that movie
frank but it that makes me think about a quote
i i forget who said it but in the wake of his
passing someone said that he was a character
actor trapped in a leading man's body and i find
that really interesting as a as an actor myself
like you get put in these boxes, but maybe that's
not your true calling. Maybe he thrived in the
character space, but he was too good looking.
Yeah. Yeah. I, and you know, maybe that's some
of the like discontent that he experienced while
making the Island of Dr. Moreau. Who knows? Maybe
that was partially a result of that, but top
secret is great. I can, I agree with Frank. That
is a hilarious movie and Val Kilmer is awesome
in it. So if you haven't seen it, Top Secret,
and also MacGruber. Two recommendations. Okay.
So before we dive into tonight's episode, just
a quick intro. Thank you all again for hanging
out with us. Please rate and review Camp Kaiju
wherever you listen. You can also send us listener
comments at campkaiju at gmail .com, at our Instagram
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comments, and access to any live events. Thank
you to our current patrons, Jason, Chris, Sean,
Peggy, and our anonymous patron. We really appreciate
you so much. Yes, and if you are all local in
the Twin Cities, join me and Matt Monday, May
5th. At Indeed Brewing, we are going to be co
-hosting as special guests with Naomi Osborne,
friend of the pod, who hosts a movie trivia on
the first Monday of every month. So it's going
to be a Camp Kaiju themed monster movie bash
type of trivia. We're very excited. And if you
are not a patron, then you have time to join.
and you get a free drink on us alcoholic or not
if you're not in the cities we're still going
to send you something a freebie so just pay attention
to your inboxes i'll be messaging our patreon
our patrons between now and then yeah and see
what what kind of free merch you want happy to
you know pay back what you're giving us and just
show our appreciation Indeed. I'm very excited
for trivia. Maybe there will be some Island of
Dr. Moreau questions. Who knows? Like we're experts
at this point. That'd be a good idea though.
Like tie it back to a couple of recent episodes.
Yeah. See how closely people were listening,
you know? I'm very excited for that. And then
on our next episode of Camp Kaiju, we're talking
about invaders from Mars, which Vincent, you're
bringing to the podcast. Yeah. Early underrated
yet seminal science fiction work from the early
fifties. It's in Technicolor. It's about a little
kid whose world is turned upside down. His parents
are brainwashed by Martians. The town is, it's
like maybe Invasion of the Body Snatchers type
of situation, but it's told through the point
of view of this little 10 -year -old boy. It's
great. It's on Tubi. Everyone should check it
out in time for our episode on that. Cool. I
can't wait. Frank, have you seen that one? I
haven't. It sounds interesting, though. I, you
know, I've been meaning to like keep up with
you guys and, you know, kind of watch the movies
ahead of time of when the episodes come out.
And I've failed horribly at that. I finally got
around to watching Beast from 20 ,000 Fathoms
earlier this week, actually. But nice. So I'm
catching up very slowly to where you guys are
at. Plenty of time to catch up. We'll have, I
think, a little bit of an off. off time over
the summer, so plenty of time to, yeah, watch
all the movies from this season before the next
one. Yeah. But, again, tonight we're talking
about The Island of Dr. Moreau, so we can talk
about our personal histories with that movie
a little bit. Frank, before we started recording,
you were mentioning that you remember seeing
it in theaters when it came out in 1996, and
you were one of the only people that actually
liked it around that time, right? Yeah, so I
would have been 12 years old. I remember I saw
it with my dad. And yeah, I remember I really
liked it. I think at that age, I just like anything
that was weird, I liked for the most part. So
that probably helped. But yeah, I remember just
thinking it was really exciting. And I remember
thinking at the end, there's a part at the very
end of the movie where it's kind of like a montage
of documentary footage. things happening and
i was like whoa this is so deep like i i will
say i was more impressed with it at uh age 12
than at age 41 but but yeah i i liked it at the
time but i also liked you know like the street
fighter movie and stuff like that from roughly
around the same time so can't Can't trust my
taste from when I was a little kid, I guess.
Oh man, we all have movies like that from our
youth. Yeah, I remember liking Speed 2 Cruise
Control when I first saw it, when it came out.
And it's, you know, watching it again kind of
recently, it's not terrible, but that's definitely
not a good movie. That's the first one that comes
to mind where like, when I first saw it, I probably
like 13 years old, whenever that came out, 14
maybe. I was like, oh, this is the best action
movie ever, which is not true. So I think all
of us can relate to that kind of thing. Well,
for me, it's the Ben Affleck Daredevil from 2002.
I loved it so much, I dropped $20 at the local
CVS to buy that full -screen edition DVD. Wow,
totally immersive flashbacks of the early 2000s
right now. That sentence just brings it all back.
Yeah, man. Cool. Vincent, had you ever seen The
Island of Dr. Moreau before? No, but I love this
story. In sixth grade, speaking about our youth,
I fell in love with H .G. Wells' writing and
his science fiction, and I consumed all the stories
I could of his. And The Island of Dr. Moreau
always stood out to me, even then. I reread it
recently in prep for this episode, and it's a
quick read. It's really dark and twisted, more
so than like War of the Worlds or The Invisible
Man. other wells titles. So it's definitely in
line with this, this movie's aesthetic in terms
of like weird animal human hybrids. But also
I love the early thirties adaptation Island of
lost souls, pre -code horror film that, you know,
is better than this 96 version. I think it's,
it's more atmospheric. It's sexier. It's, it's
weirder in just like an old timey way. So, so,
so everyone go check that movie out. In addition
to the 96 adaptation. Yeah. I actually just rewatched
Island of Lost Souls in preparation for this
too. And yeah, absolutely. 100 % agree with everything
you said, especially the part right toward the
end where the beasts started. There's like the
closeup montage of all the different beasts as
they're like, you know, about to tear Dr. Moreau
apart. Great scene. Yeah. Charles Lawton in that
is just, just steals the show. He's so powerful
in that role. He's a great actor. I love him.
Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. And I feel like the
element of bestiality that's strongly implied
by the island of Dr. Moreau is even more pronounced
in the, in the island of lost souls. It's like,
you know, suggested anyway but like in the pre
-code era i feel like that was kind of shocking
and still kind of feels a little shocking today
so totally agreed that movie's amazing more successful
than this one for sure but there was also a 1977
version of island of dr moreau which is not supposed
to be very good but the cast has burt lancaster
and michael york so i'm kind of intrigued by
it i'm very intrigued by that yeah all right
big lancaster fan totally yeah i was actually
considering trying to like find that and watch
it before this i just kind of didn't have time
and i don't know if it's really easily available
to find but it does seem like the reputation
of it is just that it's you know kind of forgettable
nothing special yeah yeah that's what i've heard
as well And kind of like Vincent, I had never
seen Island of Dr. Moreau from 1996 until recently
for this episode. I'm just always very compelled
by stories of like really difficult productions
and like clash of egos on set and like how all
those kind of obstacles and hurdles kind of like
give shape to a final film. It's always really
fascinating to dive into. So I'm excited to do
that tonight. Andrew Braddock. Shipwrecked and
cast away on a land beyond human experience.
A world inhabited by sounds and shadows. The
island of Dr. Moreau. Morning. We haven't met.
Officially, that is. I'm Dr. Moreau. Andrew Braddock,
sir. Has he come for your work? No. Just till
the next ship arrives. The island was a garden
of Eden. A tropical paradise. And a trap. Because
here, a bizarre civilization was growing. What
happened, Mr. Braddock? Those creatures! What
are they? You go back to the compound, that way.
What were they? What were they? This is human.
This is man. Understandably, they fear this place.
The pain they've suffered. And when they revert,
they bring back into their brute lives the memory
of that experience. Their human legacy. You want
to explore that in the battlefield and bring
back the knowledge. The ultimate knowledge. No!
See? You see? It's happening already. No! This
is the chillingly prophetic story of the genius
who tore down the walls that separate man and
beast. Bert Lancaster, Michael York, Nigel Davenport,
Barbara Carrera, Richard Basehart, and the incredible
humanimals that populate the island of Dr. Moreau.
We can start by diving into the crew of the film,
which will be a little bit convoluted because...
There was a lot of turnover. We'll just say that
right up front. The accredited director is John
Frankenheimer, who I think is kind of an interesting
director. He made some really good classic films
from classical Hollywood as it was turning into
the new Hollywood era. Manchurian Candidate,
Seconds with Rock Hudson, The Train. All those
are really good movies, I think. And then he
kind of went through a period of... critical
downfall, I guess you could say. And before he
made Island of Dr. Moreau, he had made a lot
of bombs in a row, kind of poorly received movies.
He did make some TV movies that are supposed
to be good that I haven't seen for the most part.
But he's an interesting director who maybe was
not at the height of his talent or at least his
fame when he made the Island of Dr. Moreau. Yeah,
and in fact, it sounds from the documentary about
this movie like basically the reason he took
it is because nobody would hire him for anything
else like he wasn't really particularly interested
in this but and and didn't like the script once
he read it but you know he kind of had nowhere
else to go i guess yeah yeah he did a job yeah
totally i think it's kind of interesting that
like you know this movie probably mostly like
you know sent him even further down the A -list
to the D -list or whatever it would be. But I
think one of the movies he made after this, Ronin,
the action movie with Robert De Niro, is actually
really good. It has some amazing car chases.
So Frankenhammer made at least one good movie
after this one, in my opinion. All right. The
initial director who was slated to make The Island
of Dr. Moreau, however, was Richard Stanley,
a South African filmmaker who was kind of up
and coming at this point in his career when he...
seemingly had the green light to make the island
of dr moreau i'm curious have either of you guys
seen any of his other movies besides this one
no to be honest i'd never even heard of him prior
to you know reading the wikipedia article about
this movie and then watching the documentary
about the making of it he seems like an interesting
guy though yeah yeah interesting character i
had actually seen color out of space in 2019
when it came out And he was just another name.
I didn't know who he was. And I was pleasantly
surprised to see that he had been working in
the 90s. And Moreau was his baby. It was his
brainchild and his passion project. And as we'll
get into, obviously, later, Moreau just kind
of burned him so bad that he disappeared from
Hollywood for decades. His comeback, if you will.
But his other movies, Hardware and Dust Devil,
look really interesting. And I am very eager
to find those at some point. Yeah. Yeah. I have
seen Dust Devil, which I like quite a bit. It's
very messy. It's flawed. I think the storytelling
is not really very sharp at times, but the visuals
are incredible. The sense of tone is really amazing
throughout. I really like that movie a lot. I've
never seen Hardware, and I want to. It looks
great from the little bit that I've seen from
it. And Color Out of Space is fantastic. I love
that movie. Nicolas Cage is in it. It's a great
Lovecraftian horror movie. I remember seeing
it in 2020 during COVID lockdown, and it seemed
kind of appropriate for that time. And it's kind
of crazy to think that Richard Stanley, after
the debacle of Island of Dr. Moreau... the next
feature that he made was Color Out of Space,
like, you know, 25 years later. So he definitely
took a long break from filmmaking, although he
made some shorts and music videos and documentaries,
but no features during that time. I can't wait
to talk about Richard Stanley because he, as
a person involved with this film, is as weird
as the movie itself. Like, I think he is the
source, for good and bad, of all the drama that
happened with this film. Yeah, I mean, there's
a lot of blame to go around, I think, for sure,
you know? But yeah, it's easy to understand how
he might have alienated some of the cast and
crew and not been able to deal with Marlon Brando
and Val Kilmer and their massive egos on this
film. I do feel like Richard Stanley kind of
was screwed over during the making of this movie.
Oh, yeah. Don't get me wrong. I'm team Richard
Stanley. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think he, based
on what I have heard and read and watched, He
was out of his depth. I just didn't know how
to handle a studio picture coming from the indie
background. Yeah, there was a guy in the documentary,
I believe he was the production designer on the
film, and it seemed to me like his account was
trustworthy because it seemed like he was very
sympathetic to Richard Stanley, liked his vision
for the movie and everything, but he also says
it seems like he couldn't cope with the... the
necessary like meetings where he would like convey
his vision to other people you know and all of
these other things you'd have to do on like a
bigger production like this so it seemed like
you know from that guy's perspective at least
it seemed like you know he liked stanley but
definitely felt like he was out of his depth
with it so yeah and it seems like he would have
been out of his depth on you know like like making
that transition to like a big budget hollywood
movie would have been difficult no matter what
and then for it to be just like the most difficult
hollywood production of all time and these like
crazy diva actors doing ridiculous insane things
like the odds were stacked against richard stanley
for sure yeah There was kind of a convoluted
writing process as well. The initial draft of
the screenplay, Richard Stanley co -wrote it
with Michael Hare, I believe is how you pronounce
his last name. Really interesting guy. He wrote
the novel Dispatches, which is seen as one of
the most powerful Vietnam War era novels from
an American writer. Hare also did contributions
to the Apocalypse Now screenplay. And there are
a lot of overlaps between Island of Dr. Moreau
and... apocalypse now slash heart of darkness
so we'll talk about that a little bit as well
and hair also co -wrote full metal jacket which
i just re -watched recently i think it's a really
great movie the stanley kubrick vietnam war era
movie and then the last co -writer on that initial
draft of the screenplay was waylon green who
wrote the screenplays for the wild bunch sorcerer
really classic new hollywood movies i like i
don't know what you guys think but that I would
love to read the initial draft of the screenplay.
With those three writers, I'm sure it was incredible.
It sounds amazing. That's the impression I got,
at least again, watching the Lost Souls documentary,
that it was an incredible screenplay, which of
course just got whittled away and bastardized
throughout the process. Yeah, totally. Because
when John Frankenheimer came onto the movie,
he demanded a rewrite by his frequent collaborator,
Ron Hutchinson. Hutchinson had worked with Frankenheimer
on The Burning Season and Against the Wall. I'm
not saying that I'm an expert on Frankenheimer
movies, but I feel like it's a bad sign that
I have not heard of those two movies. Like maybe
that's not the best things that they made. So
yeah, it seems like the rewritten screenplay.
Definitely not as good as the initial draft.
Not to mention the fact that they were rewriting
it throughout the entire process of the production.
So the screenplay was a total mess on this movie.
And you had actors who constantly questioned
it, like Val Kilmer. And you had actors like
Brando who constantly wanted to throw his own
ideas into the movie. Some of which made it in,
some of which did not. Like the dolphin subplot.
Yeah. Yeah, for those of you who don't know what
we're talking about, maybe I won't give it all
away right now, but definitely watch that Lost
Soul documentary where they talk about that a
little bit. Marlon Brando had this crazy idea
that Dr. Moreau would in fact be, would at least
think that he was becoming a dolphin, was like
in the process of transforming into a dolphin
during like the story of the film, which is,
and there's one scene that kind of like alludes
to that a little bit, but it's not explained
at all in the movie. It's nuts. It's really,
really funny. It's crazy. Just a couple other
crew members to talk about here real quick. The
editor was Paul Rubell, who worked on some really
good movies, or maybe not really good movies,
but at least the editing was good in them. Blade,
The Insider, The Cell. So like a pretty accomplished
editor. I just wanted to say his name because
I feel like he had a very difficult task ahead
of him to whip this movie into shape, you know?
Good point. Does anybody want to talk about Stan
Winston? He's such a huge name in the monster
movie. Field, you know, very well known name.
So yeah, if anybody else wants to talk about
him, you're welcome to do so. Yeah, well, you
had noted in the notes here that he had just
completed Congo. And yeah, unfortunately, I would
say his work here is probably closer to what
he did on Congo than on like Jurassic Park and
Terminator 2 and some of the more, more beloved
stuff that he did. But yeah, yeah, he's, you
know, all time great special effects man. Just
this just, you know, it's definitely not some
of his best work. Yeah, looking at his filmography
today, I realized like he did do a lot of amazing
work and worked on some really incredible films.
But like in the mid 90s, he had kind of a rough
run of just like kind of poorly received movies.
Shortly after this, he worked on The Relic, which
we've talked about on the podcast before, which
has pretty good special effects, but sort of
like this one, those... creature effects and
makeup effects are kind of combined with really
terrible mid -90s CGI. And I feel like that kind
of brings down Winston's work a little bit, unfortunately.
I wonder if he just like, you know, after Terminator
2 and Jurassic Park, if he was like so in demand
that he just got like spread really thin or something.
Because, yeah, it is bizarre that he did such
great work on those movies in like the early
90s and then seemed to kind of fall off just
a few years later. Yeah. And like, I wonder too,
if maybe it became like, like his company took
over some of that work and it became a little
bit more of like an assembly line thing with
a lot of employees. And maybe the work kind of
suffered a little bit for that reason. But that
being said, there are some kind of cool, you
know, I don't know if it's suitmation exactly,
but there's some kind of cool creature effects
in Island of Dr. Moreau. One of the good things
about it, I would say here and there. I agree
with that. I think some of the, some of the CGI
though. is laughable even by mid -90s standards.
There's like a scene where there's a bunch of
rats on a boat that just seemed like, how did
this make it into the final cut? This is really,
this is like an Animaniacs segment here. Yeah.
it seems like it just would have been way more
difficult to have like the fleeting moments of
CGI in this movie than to just have an actor
wearing a suit, like jumping from one tree to
the next, you know, like why wouldn't you just
do that? It would look better than what you have
in this movie, but. Or at least not, it would
look just as silly, but just better because it's
practical. Yeah. I don't know. Exactly. That's
how I feel about it. One of countless bad decisions
that was made during the, during the production
of this movie. I don't know how much you guys
know about this producer, Edward R. Pressman,
but just doing a little bit more research about
him, he sounds like a pretty fascinating guy.
He gave a lot of young filmmakers some of their
early starts, including Brian De Palma on Sisters
and Phantom of the Paradise, the latter of which
is amazing. I love Phantom of the Paradise. Pressman
also produced Blue Steel, an early Catherine
Bigelow movie. He produced Bad Lieutenant by
Abel Ferrara, which in my opinion is not a great
movie, but kind of... helped bring Abel Ferrara
to a little bit more recognition. So you would
think that Pressman would be a good choice to,
you know, work with Richard Stanley, give him
an opportunity for this like bigger exposure
movie. But even Pressman's backing couldn't come
through in the end on this one. And then I just
kind of list a couple executive producers here
that worked on Island of Dr. Moreau. Tim Zinneman
and Robert Shea, who is then the head of New
Line Cinema, are just some of the names that
I put down here. I think in that Lost Soul documentary,
they also mentioned Mike DeLuca, some other names.
And I just think that's relevant because the
producers of this movie played such a decisive
role in the finished product in terms of the
chaotic production that we'll talk about soon,
the personnel changes. You know, it's a case
study in how just like Hollywood studio filmmaking
really played a decisive role in the finished
product. Obviously not in a good way in this
case. Yeah. Yeah. They had a lot of decisions
to make. And ultimately, that's the job of the
producer. They're making those decisions. They're
not worried about the creativity, the creative
vision. They have a bottom line. They have a
product to sell, at least in this case. Yeah,
you'll see you see how it played out. Yeah. Yeah.
And sort of like we briefly mentioned before,
that's not necessarily to throw them under the
bus. They probably did have good reasons for
thinking that Richard Stanley might not be able
to handle this project. But yeah, it did not.
It did not end well, despite those reservations.
All right. I think we should dive into the production
backstory of this movie, which, like we mentioned,
is so convoluted, so chaotic, it's going to take
up probably the bulk of this episode. But it's
fascinating. It's just so entertaining to me
to. find out about the making of this movie.
And we'll talk a little bit about the cast of
the film too, which was equally difficult to
bring together in the final, in the finished
version. Okay, go for it. All right, so I'll
start it off just because that's the way I happened
to write the Google Doc here, but we'll kind
of trade off here and talk about the backstory
here. So Richard Stanley had dreamed of making
Island of Dr. Moreau into a movie since he was
a child, since he was like four years old. He
always loved this book. And once he got a little
bit of clout behind him with the movies that
we mentioned before, Hardware and Dust Devil,
he started working on this project even before
he had the rights to the novel and before he
had any kind of producer backing him. He started
making storyboards. He started envisioning what
the story would be like. So he spent years working
on this movie before there was ever a chance
that he would actually be able to make it. His
initial vision, we kind of talked about this
briefly before, but was significantly darker
than the version that finally made it to the
screen. Again, I haven't read that screenplay.
We see the storyboards a little bit in that Lost
Soul documentary, but they look really fascinating,
just like dark and violent and kind of twisted,
very sexual. Would have been a pretty amazing
movie. So a chance meeting brought Richard Stanley
to Edward R. Pressman, and that led to New Line
Cinema greenlighting The Island of Dr. Moreau.
I think in that Lost Soul documentary, Stanley
mentions that he met Pressman on a bus in London,
and that's kind of how the green light came about,
which is kind of crazy to think that that's how
this insane, chaotic production started. Again,
Richard Stanley's initial vision was quite different
than what made it to the screen. He initially
wanted Jürgen Prochnow to play Dr. Moreau. And
in that early vision, that would have been kind
of like a new age cult leader, long haired sort
of Charles Manson -ish almost character. But
instead of Jürgen Prochnow, New Line Cinema somehow
got Marlon Brando attached. And that's kind of
when the troubles of the production began on
Island of Dr. Moreau. Yeah, Marlon Brando. I
mean, arguably the greatest actor of the 20th
century, at least on film and at least in the
Western world. I'm not going to go on about Marlon
Brando. I'm a big fan boy when I was getting
into acting. In high school, I've seen all his
classic movies. So another reason why I've long
wanted to watch this movie, because his reputation
kind of took a really big hit in the 70s onward.
But anyways. Shortly into that pre -production,
we're going back to Richard Stanley now. Richard
Stanley learned that with all these changes that
he had been replaced by Roman Polanski, which
I'm like, I kind of would love to see that movie
too, Polanski's version. Yeah, man, that would
have been very twisted for sure, very dark. Yeah,
no shade to Stanley there. This is so bizarre.
Richard Stanley was a practicing Wiccan, or he
was really into witchcraft at the time. Maybe
he still is now, I don't know. But at the time,
so much so that upon learning of Polanski's involvement,
he visited a warlock friend of his. And that's
his words. And as he's quoted, he's Stanley's
featured speaker in the documentary. Richard
Stanley says, quote, knowing that the odds were
against me, I resorted to witchcraft. And it's
just, I mean, whether you believe in this stuff
or not, it did maybe get Richard Stanley back
in the director's chair. And it got Marlon Brando
on board. Because Brando was surprisingly sympathetic
to Richard Stanley. This is some weird trivia.
I'm just going to read this verbatim so I don't
mess it up. So Richard Stanley's great -grandfather
was the legendary African explorer Sir Henry
Morton Stanley, who was one of the inspirations
for the character of Captain Kurtz in Heart of
Darkness and, of course, the film adaptation
Apocalypse Now. Brando is still fascinated by
this character who he had played in Apocalypse
Now and Richard Stanley's connection to it. So
all the Venn diagrams are coming together here.
All this points back to the surprising connection
between H .G. Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau and
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which were
published three years apart in 1896 and 1899,
respectively. Both books concern white characters
who venture into the, quote, heart of darkness
and discover mad explorers driven insane by their
isolation and God complex. Wells and Conrad had
actually been friends. But the friendship ended
when Wells accused Conrad of ripping off his
story, and this feud lasted the rest of their
lives. I just want to insert, I've read both
books. I think I don't draw those connections
more deeply than just like, okay, two white guys
with a god complex in the jungle. I think they're
very different stories. But then again, I haven't
read Heart of Darkness in a while, so I might
stand corrected. But anyways, Marlon Brando insisted
he would only make this movie if Richard Stanley
stayed on. So New Line, who were skeptical of
Richard Stanley for being artsy and eccentric
and insular, they stuck with their director.
I'll also mention that Brando at this time in
the 90s was certainly a name, but he wasn't box
office. He wasn't going to fill the seats. So
that's why they needed someone else. That someone
else eventually became Val Kilmer, but not at
first. Not at first. So I'll pass the baton over
to Frank there. Yeah, so Bruce Willis got recruited
to play Edward Pendrick, the UN negotiator who's
brought to the island after his plane crash.
And James Woods was cast as Montgomery, who's
Moreau's chief assistant. So with that cast in
place, they started on the pre -production. Richard
Stanley was working with Stan Winston on the
creature designs. They were preparing sets and
scouting out shooting locations. But as they
were doing that, Bruce Willis had to drop out,
possibly due to marital difficulties he was having
with Demi Moore at the time. And they did indeed
get divorced, I think, a couple of years after
that. So Bruce Willis got replaced by Val Kilmer,
who was at the height of his stardom then because
he had just been in Batman forever. But Kilmer
caused problems right away because he was demanding
that his shooting schedule be cut by 40%. So
the kind of ingenious solution that Richard Stanley
had for this was to switch his role to Montgomery
instead of the lead. So by doing that, they had
to kick James Woods off of the film. And, you
know, they probably regretted that pretty quickly.
So to replace someone in that lead role, they
brought in Rob Morrow from the TV show Northern
Exposure. I don't know if he has any other significant
credits. He's a guy who I recognize, but I never
really watched Northern Exposure, so I don't
know that I've ever actually seen him in anything.
I know I've seen some episodes of that show.
When I was looking at his filmography recently,
I feel like he was like... You know, he was never
the lead in, like, an extremely well -known movie.
I feel like maybe he was, like, a supporting
actor in some, like, moderately successful movies
from the early 90s, but that's all I really was
able to see in his filmography there. Yeah. So
I don't know him all that well either. As we'll
find out, he did not last long on this production.
Well, after all that, it's probably a good time
for our sponsor break. It seems a little bit
anticlimactic, but here we go. Camp Kaiju is
sponsored by Zach Linder and the Zach Pack, powered
by Coldwell Banker Realty. Your source for real
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in the show notes. Vincent, do we have any correspondences
from Minya's mailbox today? Yeah, we do have
a few, and I just want to shout out our patrons.
I see you. I see your comments. They're just
so good that I want to give time to discuss them.
And unfortunately, with this jam -packed episode,
I just wanted to pick a briefer comment. This
is from a new subscriber named Lita on YouTube,
and she says of Dracula's daughter, Hi, new subscriber
here. Thanks for good content. And then she has
a string of emojis, heart eyes, star eyes, red
heart, black heart, vampire, and then three bats.
I love that because Dracula's Daughter, you know,
it's an older movie. Maybe not as many people
listen to that episode as some other episodes,
but we got a lot of positive feedback from Dracula's
Daughter. So I just want to shout out. our listeners
who really appreciated that conversation with
Naomi. Yeah, thank you, Lita. It's great. Yeah.
Peter Lorre, you know, he's around here somewhere.
Is he still crashing at your place, Matt? You
know, he vanished, much like Richard Stanley
at the airport in Australia. I don't know where
he went. He's probably at a retreat somewhere
around here. Who knows? Eating his bucket of
fish heads, though, I'm sure. I would love to
see what kind of retreat he's going to for long
deceased horror stars. Probably just the bottom
of a well somewhere. That's what he means by
retreat. Well, wherever he's at, he has recorded
a segment for us for the Poverty Row Picture
Show, a movie called Spooks Run Wild from 1941.
That sounds made up, but it's a it's it's a fun
movie, actually, with Bela Lugosi and the East
End kids. And there's another dwarf actor in
that actually named Angelo Rosito. So just a
coincidence there. We're featuring two movies
with smaller, shorter than average actors. So,
Peter, take it away. Welcome to Poverty Row Studios
on the other side of Hollywood. Where the stars
were dimmer and the red carpet stripped with
blood. Together we will watch the best of the
worst. Movies known for their limited budgets,
outlandish concepts, and questionable performances.
But with enough haunted houses, zombies, ape
men, and devil bats to keep you up at night.
This is the Poverty Row Picture Show. I dare
you to sleep through these nightmares. I am your
host, Peter Lorre. You may know me from such
horror pictures as Arsenic and Old Lace and Tales
of Terror, the later of which I co -star with
fellow creatures of the night, that villainous
Vincent Price and Basil. Skull and Crossbones
Wrathbone. I recently met up with my blood -curdling
colleagues at a secret retreat for long -dead
horror icons. No, I swore an oath to keep our
antics under wraps, but I can tell you I have
never seen anyone tear up a dance floor like
Boris Karloff after one too many. But listeners,
it is good to be back in my own room, in Matthew's
home. He even had a bucket of fish heads waiting
for me. He is a hell of a guy. Oh, as for Pierre,
he is taking some time off, but remember those
lilacs he so thoughtfully left me? Yes, they
are thriving beyond my wildest dreams. to find
them as tall as I, and... Oh, what is this? Listeners,
there is a strange light emanating from the leaves.
I turn off the light, and they glow in the dark.
Hmm, I do not know what this is all about, but
I will put this out of my mind for now as I turn
to reviewing this week's Poverty Row picture.
Spooks Run Wild, starring Bela Lugosi and that
gang of grotesque teenagers, the East End Kids.
Now this picture finds the kids solving the mystery
of the, quote, monster killer as they spend the
night in a countryside haunted house. Hijinks
abound as the kids run into cobwebs, suits of
armor, and secret passageways. Lugosi plays the
supposed monster along with his dwarf sidekick.
Now how does this story of hilarious suspense
end? You will have to see for yourself. The last
time we saw the East End kids on the poverty
row picture show was the odious boys of the city
rife with Racist jabs at the lone black actor
of the troupe, Sunshine Sammy Morrison. How does
Mr. Morrison fare in this outing? I am pleased
to say, much, much better. The problematic jokes
are still there, albeit turned down, and Mr.
Morrison appears more confident in his presence
in the gang, allowing such teasing to roll off
his back. He even gets some good zingers back
at his friends. The script is co -written by
Carl Foreman who would go on to write the classics
High Noon and The Bridge on the River Kwai, believe
it or not. Now as for Bela Lugosi, he holds his
own and appears to enjoy spoofing his vampire
image. The picture was a moneymaker despite mixed
reviews, and Monogram decided to reunite Lugosi
and the kids in 1943's Ghosts on the Loose, which
we will review at a later date. Next time, however,
we will discuss a John Carradine picture from
PRC entitled Bluebeard. Now, where did I put
my planting shears? Yeah, so glad he's back,
by the way. I kind of thought that ended at the
end of last season, but I'm glad that he's back.
We couldn't keep him away. Just when you think
he's out. No, that quote doesn't work in this
case. Sorry, never mind. You know what I'm getting
at, though. When I was listening to the Beast
from 20 ,000 Fathoms episode the other day, all
the stuff about the fish heads in Matt's fridge
was making me laugh pretty hard. And it's true.
I cannot get the stench out of my apartment.
It's terrible. Oh, gross. I love the Peter Lorre
thing. You're convinced that the thing on this
table isn't human? Its cries are human. Do you
know what it is, what I began with? No. An animal.
Well, we may as well discuss this frankly, now
that you know the facts. I want to prove how
completely she was a woman. I'm not beaten. Get
everything ready. For what? This time I'll burn
out all the animal in her. I'll make her completely
human. On Dr. Moreau's island, there are three
rules. Don't drink the water. Don't disturb the
natives. And whatever you do, don't feed the
animals. Let's go! New Line Cinema presents the
science fiction event of the summer. Marlon Brando,
Val Kilmer, David Thewlis. The Island of Dr.
Moreau, directed by John Frankenheimer, rated
PG -13. Now playing. Even before shooting was
set to commence, tragedy struck Marlon Brando.
His daughter Cheyenne, from his third marriage
to a French Polynesian actress named Tarita Tarapaya,
his daughter Cheyenne committed suicide. Marlon
Brando and Cheyenne had an extremely difficult
relationship, a very distant relationship, some
might say not even really a relationship at all.
Marlon Brando did not allow her to visit him
in the United States or her brother, his son,
with the same wife. And he rarely visited them
in Tahiti. I read that Cheyenne sort of idolized
Marlon Brando when she was a kid. But then when
she got to be a teenager and a young adult, she
was a model and an actress and really grew to
hate Marlon Brando. And they didn't really have
any kind of relationship whatsoever. Regardless
of all that, her suicide really sent Marlon Brando
into a spiral of depression. He retreated to
his private island. He did not communicate with
the cast and crew at all. They had no idea if
or when he was going to show up to make The Island
of Dr. Moreau. Even so, shooting did start outside
of Cairns in northeast Australia, which that
documentary Lost Soul kind of says is like the
worst place they could have chosen to shoot this
movie. Like really terrible weather, really remote.
They could have found like jungle sort of scenery
much more easily than this place. But that is
where they shot the film. Tensions were continuing
to grow between New Line Cinema and Richard Stanley.
Like we've already alluded to, Stanley had some
pretty eccentric behavior. He would skip production
meetings. He would kind of hole himself up in
his bungalow that he rented. He maybe was not
always very good at communicating his vision
to other people on the project. Some false rumors
about Richard Stanley spread. It's hard to say
exactly where they came from. There was a story
about him climbing a tree after a long day of
shooting and refusing to come back down. Pretty
much all the cast says that did not happen. That's
ridiculous. They never saw that happen. But nonetheless,
all these rumors started to grow about this artsy,
eccentric young director. But still, even aside
from those rumors, the main source of tension
was Richard Stanley's inability to handle or
tone down Val Kilmer's just kind of diva -ish,
really honestly bullying behavior during the
production of this movie. Again, he was at the
height of his fame after Batman Forever. He arrived
to the production two days late. He proceeded
to be a nightmare to the entire cast and crew,
according to pretty much everybody involved with
this movie. He would question creative decisions,
demand more screen time than his co -stars, and
refused to read the dialogue as written. Sounds
like it was pretty bad dialogue, but still, his
constant arguing I'm sure did not make it better.
There was one story too in that documentary about
how he lit a cameraman's hair on fire as sort
of a prank or just like he thought he was being
funny or something. So yeah, really a handful
on this movie. He already had a reputation for
being a pretty difficult actor. And that reputation
was just set in stone after this movie. And honestly,
it set him, you know, he was in the A -list firmly
at this time. And after Island of Dr. Moreau,
that changed pretty quickly, kind of tumbled
down the list of Hollywood stars. Much later,
Val Kilmer would say that his unruly behavior
during the making of this movie was partially
a result of the fact that he was also going through
marital troubles. He found out through a TV news
report that his wife, Joanne Wally, was divorcing
him. And indeed, he was served divorce papers
very early during the shooting of the movie.
So that certainly did not help his already very
difficult behavior. Yeah. I just gotta say that
with Brando AWOL that Richard Stanley lost his
main ally, The only reason why New Line was keeping
Stanley was because of Brando's insistence. So
Stanley was not helped by that. And Matt, I love
that you brought up how the shooting location
was so remote. It was like an hour on dirt roads
from the hotel each day, there and back. And
it's so funny. I think it's the AD that Frankenheimer
brought in. In the documentary, the AD is like...
why this was so poorly chosen. Like there's jungle
everywhere. I walk out my door, there's jungle.
Why do we have to drive an hour for more jungles?
Yeah. And Richard Stanley at least brings up
like a big landmark that's in the area, like
a big mountain that can kind of be like orienting
space or whatever. I did not notice that mountain
a single time throughout the entire movie. So
if that was the reason to shoot there, that does
not seem sufficient. Nope. So adding insult to
injury with the location in the jungles of Northern
Australia, a hurricane hit the production and
they had to halt everything for several days.
Much of the set was destroyed in a legitimate
hurricane. Going back to our witchcraft theme,
it's at this point that with Brando and his tragedy,
the warlock that Richard Stanley was friends
with, got into some sort of trouble in England.
Richard Stanley's mom's house was struck by lightning
multiple times, apparently. There was a sighting
of a hyena in Ireland. I'm paraphrasing, but
there's a lot of things that happened that seemingly
unraveled the magic that was helping Richard
Stanley, if you buy into all that stuff. So it
just paints Stanley as just a character. I'm
not saying that he's, you know. you know, an
oddball in any disparaging way. Just he had reasons
for people to to question him, including taking
four lumps of sugar in his coffee. That was an
anecdote from one of the new line producers.
That didn't seem that weird to me, but he did
make a big point of that. Yeah, I know. OK, OK.
So with all these delays and the tensions, actor
Rob Morrow. Couldn't handle it, and I don't blame
him. He called New Line president Robert Shea
and demanded to be let go from the role, saying,
I need to be released from my contract. He couldn't
stand the problematic shoot any longer, and he
was granted that release from his contract. So
again, they had to recast the part. Yeah, and
with all of these issues piling up, New Line
Cinema abruptly fired Richard Stanley via fax.
So he had angrily shredded up a bunch of his
documents after that, just hoping that that would
kind of be a way that New Line would have to
rehire him, since he'd done all this preparatory
work for it already. They brought him to the
airport to try to send him back to Hollywood,
but he vanished and no one knew where he was
for a while after that. So New Line offered him
his full fee. They offered to pay him his full
fee for the work, even though he didn't complete
it and only shot, I think, for about a week,
provided that he stayed quiet about the firing
and the circumstances surrounding it and didn't
criticize the production publicly. But after
he disappeared, of course, New Line was worried
that he would sabotage the film, and there's
kind of a funny story about that that I'm sure
we'll get into later. But essentially what happened
is he, at least for a little while, went to a
secluded retreat to recover and just try to,
I guess, kind of get his mind right after being
kicked off of this dream project. And I guess
didn't leave his room for weeks. So of course,
you know, a lot of people who were working on
the movie were sympathetic to him, were interested
in his vision. And so they were angry when he
was fired for Rusevok. was particularly mad about
it. She was arguing with the executives on the
set. She had someone actually drive her like
all the way across Australia to the other side
of Australia because she was planning to fly
back and she was telling her agent that she,
you know, just did not want to do this anymore
if Stanley was not involved. But they told her
that her career would be ruined if she broke
her contract. And that she'd, you know, basically
never work in Hollywood again. So, you know,
against her wishes, she wound up returning to
the set. She's a very compelling person in that
Lost Soul documentary, I think. It's kind of
like touching in a way to see her stand up for
Richard Stanley. They kind of seem to have like
a shared vision for the movie. So, yeah, it's
obviously unfortunate. But Richard Stanley's
gone. He was fired. So the New Line Cinema brought
in John Frankenheimer, like we mentioned before,
to act as replacement director. Frankenheimer
was very eager to work with Marlon Brando, as
was pretty much everybody else on this movie,
even though he had kind of had his, you know,
controversies, I guess, over the last 10 or 15
years. He was kind of already a notorious, like,
eccentric, I guess you would say. Still, everybody
wanted to work with him, so Frankenheimer came
on board. He did receive a huge salary and arranged
a three -picture deal from New Line Cinema for
his services. Probably he knew that this was
not going to be a very easy job, so he tried
to work it to his advantage, which he was pretty
much able to do. You know, again, Frankenheimer
was kind of a relic of the kind of classical
Hollywood moving into new Hollywood era. So he
was one of those gruff, tyrannical directors
who would bark out orders, kind of act as like
a military commander on set. That could not have
been further away from Richard Stanley, but it
was equally alienating to much of the cast and
crew of the film. Frankenheimer also brought
in David Thewlis to replace Rob Morrow in the
lead role. Thewlis is kind of interesting. I
don't think he really fits this movie very well,
and he seems to be in a different movie altogether,
but it's kind of interesting to watch that sometimes.
And he has very fun, interesting things to say
about the movie as well, which we'll probably
talk about a little bit later. Production was
halted for a week and a half as Frankenheimer
was brought on board, and these changes and script
rewrites were made. There was a moment in the
movie, in the film, Thouless and Kilmer, I don't
know, they're just kind of standing around. Nothing's
really happening in the shot. But then the camera
cuts to David Thouless, and he's literally facepalming.
And I guarantee you he's not acting in that moment.
And I laughed out loud so hard. Yeah. Yeah, I
did feel bad for him watching this movie because
he's like of the. The main male actors, at least
he's like the one who is like trying to like
honor the material. But by the end of the movie,
I know it's not shot sequentially, but his energy
is is 100 percent. Just get me out of this picture.
Like, where's my paycheck? Yeah. Out of here.
Yeah. And I do agree with Matt, too, that he
is kind of miscast in this role. You know, he's
like his persona, I guess, to the extent that
you could say there's a David Thewlis persona
is more that he's, you know, you expect him to
play more like a neurotic character or like,
like kind of a sleazy character. And I think
for this role, you kind of need someone who's
like, you know, a normal guy, like a normal square
jawed guy who's like horrified by all the weirdness
around him. Like I said, he at least, unlike
the other major male actors in the movie, seems
to be trying to give a good performance. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So same story, same
characters, as Matt has titled this section.
Shooting soon resumed, but it didn't go any better
with Frankenheimer at the helm. New script pages
were turned in only a few days before they were
shot, and the actors hated the rewrites and often
improvised, making up their own characters. Brando
did this a lot, and I think some of the most
memorable, maybe most interesting parts of this
movie is just Brando winging it. And I kind of
love it, actually. But behind the scenes, Brando
and Kilmer just hated each other. They both behaved
erratically. Brando would spend hours in his
air -conditioned trailer as the cast would wait
for shooting to commence. The extras were wearing
full heavy makeup and costumes, and they were
sweltering in the tropical heat. So not cool
that Brando was acting that way to his cast.
But on one occasion, Kilmer and Brando both waited
in their trailers, refusing to come out before
the other one did. Again, the cast and crew waited
for hours as this standoff took place. Some pretty
good quotes attributed to this feud. Brando said
to Kilmer, Your problem is you confuse the size
of your paycheck with the size of your talent.
Kilmer said something about, you know, he asked
Brando once, like, did you see the reef? And
Brando said, see the reef. I own a reef. I have
reefs coming out of my ass. I love that quote.
I forgot to put it on here. I'm so glad you said
that. More quotes dumping on Val Kilmer. Frankenheimer
later said. I don't like Val Kilmer, I don't
like his work ethic, and I don't want to be associated
with him ever again. After Kilmer shot his last
scene, Frankenheimer reportedly said, now get
that bastard off my set. And Frankenheimer also
said, even if I directed a movie about Val Kilmer,
I would not cast him. I love that quote. There's
also a story Feruza Balk recounts. She went up
to Brando one day because they have a scene and
she wanted to talk about their characters. good
working actors should do. And I'm going to paraphrase,
but Brando literally said, no, I'm not going
to do that. Why? Like, who cares? You're getting
paid. I'm getting paid. You're beautiful. Like,
let's just, let's just, who cares? Let's just
make it up. Like just the irony of like, again,
arguably the greatest in his prime on the waterfront
street car, even the godfather later in his career.
And he just doesn't give two craps at this point
in his life. And I don't know how I feel about
that. Yeah, he gave so little crap about any
of it, I guess, that he refused to learn his
lines, which I guess was becoming a habit for
him from his last few movies prior to this as
well. So they actually gave him like a small
radio receiver where they could like feed the
lines to him. And then he would just recite them
on camera. And I, they mentioned in the documentary
that there were like a few incidents where his
radio receiver would pick up like something from
like CB radios. And he would actually say something
that like a trucker said that would be, you know,
in the context of even less crazy performance.
And sometimes he even just like ignored whatever
he was supposed to say and just made something
up. I'm sure his coworkers loved. God. so meanwhile
and this was kind of what i was alluding to earlier
richard stanley was still recuperating nearby
and i think he said he was at a bar or something
and he happened to run into some of the people
who were working in the movie and who were camping
in the area as you know they were working as
extras and so he actually got back onto the set
as an extra with a dog man costume. There was
a story in the documentary about how, you know,
they would take their breaks for lunch or whatever,
or probably to wait for Marlon Brando to decide
to come out of his trailer. And, you know, it
would be like sweltering heat. So everybody else
would be taking off their, their helmets. And
that, that first AD who Vincent had mentioned,
I think is the one who said like, he noticed
this guy with the dog costume on who just like
wasn't taking that off even though they're in
this you know 110 degree heat or whatever because
obviously he didn't want to reveal his identity
and that he was you know infiltrating the set
yeah so that's hilarious like who's the who's
the psycho who keeps his dog mascot And apparently
in his autobiography, Val Kilmer claims that
he could hear Richard Stanley yelling somewhere
in the crowd of extras, and he recognized the
voice, but because there's so many people running
around in all these weird animal outfits, he
could never determine who was Richard Stanley.
And then finally, at the end of filming, when
the wrap party came up, Richard Stanley showed
up. And apparently Val Kilmer did apologize at
that time for behaving so horribly and contributing
to getting Richard Stanley fired from the production.
So a little bit of a happy ending there, I guess.
maling very sophisticated beast folk who who
hangs out with dr moreau but hoffschneider says
that brando was very gracious on set on his first
day brando took time to shake everyone's hand
hoof and claw because everyone was in costume
and i'm like that's that's something you know
maybe he was you know maybe he was unprofessional
in a lot of ways but I don't know, still gracious
in some other ways. Yeah, I think there's a quote
where I think it might have been Hofschneider
who says that Brando was at least kind of playful
about the fact that he did not care about this
movie or the performance at all. Whereas Kilmer
was like hateful in the ways that he like did
not care about this movie or the performance.
And I think, yeah. Yeah, I think it's so fascinating
to me. Like you see those energies to me translate
in the performances. I see that Brando doesn't
care, but he's having fun. I see that Kilmer
doesn't care. He's really salty about it. Yeah,
especially in the part toward the end after Moreau
has died and the Kilmer character is kind of
trying to take his place as the god of this island
or whatever, and he's doing his Marlon Brando
impersonation while he's sitting on that throne.
It did seem really... It seemed like genuinely
mean -spirited, which could have worked for the
performance, except it's also extremely hammy
and just doesn't actually work. But yeah, it
seemed like there was some genuine hatred there.
Yeah. I don't know. It just makes me think about
acting as like, I don't know. It's just like
a transcendent, almost like you can't define
it. But people have energies, and they bring
that to the screen. If you're feeling salty and
hateful, well, I guess it comes out. Yeah, and
like Frank said, it kind of works for the character,
but it goes beyond the character, too. I feel
like it becomes pretty obvious that Kilmer's
not playing a role. That's just what he was at
that time of his life, or at least on set for
this movie. It's fun to watch Brando's... lunacy,
basically, and like the crazy ideas that he comes
up with. One really bizarre story that I forgot
to put in the notes, I'm sorry, there's just
so much to this backstory. But it was Brando
who insisted that Nelson de la Roja, who is a
dwarf who is about two feet tall, he was cast
in the film, he was initially kind of just supposed
to be like, you know, like, you know, a strange
looking background extra, essentially. But Brando
was like this, this human person is fascinating.
Everybody's going to be fascinated by this figure.
I want him next to me at all times. And that's
exactly what happened. This dwarf character played
by Nelson de la Roja essentially becomes Dr.
Moreau's mini -me, and Mike Myers has admitted
that that's where he got the idea from. And in
Austin Powers, it's a parody of these two characters
in The Island of Dr. Moreau. And it's bizarre
because, like, those images with, like, the two
of them together are really striking. They look
amazing. Like, the scene, Frank kind of made
a joke about this earlier, but the scene where
they're both playing the piano and Nelson de
la Roja character is, like, on a tiny grand piano
that's, like, above Brando's piano is hilarious.
That's my favorite part of the movie. And that
was Brando's idea. Yeah. Amazing. And like, it
still might not be good in those moments, but
it's definitely very entertaining and just like
off the walls or off the wall. And then like,
you know, once Brando leaves the movie, I think
you can tell that it kind of, the energy changes
a little bit. It just gets kind of draggy, I
think, after that point. Yeah. I feel like it
gets reliant on just a lot of set pieces and
like, let's just crank the action and wrap up
this movie as quickly as we can. Yeah. But not
quickly enough, I would say. No. Well, you know,
not surprisingly after all that, this movie was
a notorious bomb when it came out in August 1996.
It grossed only $49 million worldwide against
a $40 million budget. And that does not include
all the marketing and distribution expenses.
So in the long run, this movie lost money for
New Line Cinema. Do either of you guys want to
talk about the notoriously negative reception
it received? Yeah, you know, Roger Ebert said
it was likely Marlon Brando's worst film, which
is probably true. Nothing else is coming to mind
immediately for that when I think about his other
stuff. He got nominated for six Razzie Awards
with Brando winning or losing, depending on how
you look at it, for worst supporting actor. Yeah,
you know, it's funny, too, because I remember
I was thinking about it, you know, at the time
in 1996 when I was 12. I would have been reading
entertainment weekly. I know. And I think my
mom had a subscription to it, which kind of like
sort of unofficially became my subscription to
it. We're just reading it. But so I went back
and actually looked at their review of it. They
give it a C plus, which I think is a pretty,
you know, positive can compared to the reception
that I got elsewhere. But, but I thought that
was kind of, kind of interesting to go back and
look at again. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I don't
know that it ever got higher than a C plus from
anybody. I feel like maybe like there have been
some retrospective reviews that are like in the
so bad, it's good, like cult classic sort of
territory. But I feel like even recent reviews
are like, this just does not work. Like it kind
of earns its reputation as a fiasco, you know,
but as we'll probably talk about in a little
bit, there are some, maybe some redeeming aspects
to it, you know? Or some fun aspects, anyway.
Redeeming is a very kind word. But yeah, David
Thewlis, he said that he wants to give an exhaustive
account of the making of this movie. He would
love to tell that story. But he's also said that
if he did that, then he would never work in Hollywood
again. I think he said that quote a long time
ago. It's probably not true anymore, but I think
it's kind of funny. He skipped the premiere of
the movie, still has never seen the finished
film. There's another quote that I did not put
on the notes, but Marlon Brando compared the...
experience of filming the movie to david thules
when they were like just talking on set one day
marlon brando compared it to doing a crossword
puzzle while falling down an elevator shaft great
quote i love that yeah there are some themes
in this movie even if they're not very successfully
delivered well there's the are humans the real
monsters theme which uh as somebody noted here
is is basically a theme of just about every monster
movie ever made But yeah, you've got the Moreau
character who's kind of a zany echo of Captain
Kurtz from Heart of Darkness. Just kind of a
guy playing God in a remote locale that kind
of brings him back to the origins of humanity.
There's that montage late in the movie that I
mentioned earlier that tries to reaffirm that
theme by showing some real... world footage of
humans committing atrocities and violence that,
you know, that kind of makes them seem more like
beasts than the man -animal hybrids in the movie,
perhaps. Were you guys able to identify any of
that documentary footage, like what it was from?
I wasn't watching it back this time, which I
think... Kind of hurts that scene, actually.
I think it would be better if you kind of it
just is kind of like vague footage of strife
and like people punching each other and stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. It didn't seem up to snuff with like
I could have shot that on my phone, I guess.
I don't know. It just didn't seem like the same
quality. Yeah. Yeah, and it's so vague that,
to your point, Frank, I feel like that point
doesn't really land home because it's just like,
humans are terrible. And it's like, well, I think
we need a little more focus and a little more
pointedness to that theme. I feel like that's
one of the reasons that theme doesn't land very
well. In the book, H .G. Wells actually wrote
the book as a satire more than anything on religion
and humanity's tendency to seek an all -powerful...
supreme being. And in the book, it's much more
obvious in a good way. Of course, the book's
always better than the movie. But in the movie,
it was just a scant, almost a throwaway, the
David Thewlis character or Kilmer, I don't remember
who, but let me just say in the book, the Thewlis
character. makes it his objective now. I must
become their god to replace Moreau for my survival.
Because they're starting to get out of line and
they need that discipline that religion gives
people. So yeah, I don't know. It's obviously
better in the book. I didn't get much of that
in this movie. Yeah, and I feel like if the theme
is that... you know men are more monstrous than
the supposed monsters or like these kind of beastly
animal human hybrids i i feel like that also
isn't really conveyed because you know, the society
on the island does not get any better when Moreau
dies. Like, it immediately descends into chaos
and all these monsters, or I'll just use the
word beasts because that's kind of what's used
in the movie and that's what they're referred
to in the credits. You know, they immediately
start killing each other. The supposed, like,
new god that steps up, you know, is, like, clearly
is not trying to lead to, like, a harmonious
society or anything like that. So I feel like
the movie is not actually, it does not successfully
say that, like, Men are more monstrous than the
beasts because the beasts are just as bad. And
that kind of leads me to believe there's like
no theme whatsoever. Like it's kind of just,
you know, an action climax without a purpose
behind it. You know, the themes are just, I mean,
Wells's story is so good that the themes are
there. Yeah. But you can, but that doesn't excuse
the lack of diving into them. Yeah. No, it's
just like, okay, well, thank you HG Wells for
writing a great book. yeah like it just goes
back to him and yeah right yeah i i mean i wish
i knew what the script revision process was like
because how much did they actually try to take
from the wells novel and how much was it just
like let's end this movie like let's just get
it over with you know like yeah i wish we kind
of had some more insight into that process which
probably was fascinating but depressing is my
assumption i guess i'll just briefly say that
like it's unfortunate again going back to that
ostensible theme that like men are the real monsters.
You know, I feel like the actual villain at the
end of the movie is this character of Aza Zello,
who's one of Dr. Moreau's sons. So one of these
beastly hybrids. And it's just really unfortunate,
I think, that this character is like visually
the darkest one of all of them. He has the darkest
skin and like he even has dreadlocks. And I feel
like he's kind of coded to be a black character.
And he kind of becomes the villainous. monster
at the end. But then conversely, the most cultured
of Dr. Moreau's kids are the Feruzabal character,
Aissa, who's kind of like this cat woman. And
then Maling, who we talked about before, played
by Marco Hofschneider, who quotes Shakespeare
and like talks about political theory. And I
just, it's really disturbing. Honestly, I feel
like there are some maybe unintentional, but
still kind of racist representations where you
know, the villain ends up being like the darkest
monster character, but like the lighter skin
ones are the most cultured and civilized. It's
a really unfortunate racial representation that
unfortunately I think has been common in American
movies throughout much of its history. Maybe
getting a little better recently, but still a
thing in the mid -90s, you know? I don't know
if either of you guys picked up on that. Maybe
it's, again, maybe it's unintentional, but I
did not like it very much. I did not, but I think
you make valid points. Yeah, same here. That
didn't really occur to me watching it, but yeah,
seeing it written out like that and hearing you
say it, that is definitely there. Yeah. And I
think also it just, again, weakens that theme
of like, the men are the real monsters because
the climax of the movie is not really representing
that at all. So the movie fails if it's trying
to deliver that theme, I think. Yeah. Is it okay
if I move on? Yeah, totally. Okay. Sensationalism
and exploitation. Matt, you wrote this note that
I think is fair because we have the actor Nelson
de la Rosa, de la Roja, who at the time was the
world's shortest man. He was a celebrity in the
Dominican Republic. He was on TV. He made music.
But you wouldn't know that, and I don't. You
know, being on this set, I think he was just
viewed De La Roja as a freak of nature, for lack
of a better word. You know, Marlon Brando took
him under his wing, so to speak, and wanted to
feature him by his side with more screen time.
And on the one side, you could say, wow, that's
really great. Brando's given this guy a lot of
screen credit. But there's something about it
that's just really kind of icky. Like Brando,
because you know Brando at this time, he's an
eccentric. And he probably, I don't know, I got
the sense that he viewed De La Roja as more of
a toy than a human being. So I did get that vibe
too with Nelson De La Roja's portrayal in this
film. Yeah, and I think in the Lost Soul documentary,
some of the crew members were, you know, when
Marlon Brando was like, oh, this person needs
to be in like every shot of the movie. And they
were like, well, he doesn't speak English. Like,
he's not an actor. Like, you know, I just don't
think we can do that. And also the character,
which who does have a name, I think Mahai is
the character's name, Majai, something like that.
But anyway, this character took... numerous scenes
away from the maling character like maling was
supposed to be a pretty major supporting character
in the movie and that's not how it wound up because
then marlon brando wanted mahai or nelson de
la roja to be to take you know maling's place
in all those scenes so but you know marlon when
marlon brando was told like oh he's not an actor
he doesn't speak english brando was just like
oh it's fine he doesn't need to he doesn't need
any dialogue he just needs to be there basically
yeah as a prop yeah you know is dehumanizing
right I am a little, yeah, like it's certainly
unfortunate. And also I think most of the scenes
with Moreau and Mahai next to each other are
extremely entertaining. And like the images are
extremely striking. So I'm a little conflicted
to say this, but it's not great, you know? No,
I agree. I mean, again, what Brando's doing,
I think is what draws me to this movie for better
or for worse. Yeah. I guess just real briefly,
I'll say that I think the only scene in the movie
that actually is intentionally good that works
the way that it's supposed to is when Hyena Swine,
who's one of the Beast characters, and some of
the other... go into Moreau's compound basically
to kill him. And they basically ask him, like,
what are we? Like, what are you? Are you our
father? Are you our God? Please explain our existence.
And Moreau is not able to do that. And then they
kill him immediately afterwards. Like, you know,
I think maybe that's the only scene in the movie
that works as it is intended to. And it works
fairly well, I think. I like that you brought
up that scene. I might add a touch of camp for
me when they rip off Marlon Brando's arm. which
was such a shocking moment of violence of like,
you could see it. I said to Ellen, I wish they
had just ripped his head off. I don't know. Like
why? I wish they had just gone the full Monty
and just like totally eviscerated Marlon Brando
in front of us. It would not have been out of
place in this movie. Like nothing seems like
it would be off limits here, you know? All right.
That's all I got. Cool. Frank, is there anything
else you want to say in that thematic category?
No, I think I'm probably ready to do the breakdown
if you guys are. Cool, let's do it. As always
on Camp Kaju, we have the good, the bad, and
the campy. Frank, do you want to start off with
the good stuff? Yeah, I actually, so when I first
started re -watching this, I was actually thinking
it was like a pretty decent movie for the first
half hour or so. I think it's, like, the 30 -minute
mark when Marlon Brando first shows up. And even,
like, you know, I thought it set a pretty decent,
ominous tone leading up to that. I actually kind
of like the scene with David Thewlis and the
two other guys who are on the, like, the life
raft together who are just, like, you know, brutally,
like, killing each other to try to survive. It's,
like, very bombastic. like kind of ridiculously
over the top in terms of like how just aggressive
the editing is and everything in it. But it,
it kind of sets a tone right away of, you know,
just, this is going to be like a weird, you know,
unsettling time kind of. And then also I, I think
the, the first appearance of Brando, even though
he, you know, looks ridiculous, like he looks
like he's like coated in flour or something,
but. When he first shows up and he's got the
big dark glasses on and everything, and he's
living in this weird alternative society on this
island, it kind of reminded me of Jonestown.
I don't know if that was an intentional illusion
or anything, but I thought that was kind of effectively
creepy. Because any old photos or footage you
see of Jim Jones, he's usually got the big thick
glasses on too. And it was just kind of giving
me that vibe. And I don't know if the filmmakers
intended that at all. It probably was just kind
of like a happy accident. But I thought that
was kind of effectively unsettling. And then,
you know, as soon as he starts talking and stuff,
the movie just gets like ridiculously campy and
kind of completely goes off the rails from there.
But I do think it starts off pretty well. Yeah,
I would agree. Sorry. No, go ahead. After you.
Okay. Good stuff. Good stuff. oh what do i have
here what do i have let's see no direction bad
acting makeups okay i like the makeup as i said
before i love the the actor who plays the hyena
swine who kind of becomes the leader of the beast
folk guys i thought that was ron perlman the
whole time and i was sorely disappointed that
it wasn't but you know again I don't want to
take away from the actor who played the hyena
swine. I think he understood the assignment and
just goes off the wall. Crazy. I guess as a hyena
would. So I really enjoyed his performance. Daniel
Rigney is his name. Daniel Rigney. He doesn't
even have a Wikipedia page, right? Yeah, he's
great. But like, he should be a star. And that's
all I have. Makeup and Daniel Rigney. I feel
like I'm a little closer to Frank. I think maybe
I actually do like some things about this movie.
I think it's like fairly engaging at first. The
opening credits are really bombastic and over
the top, but I kind of like them. I think that
the tone, the music's kind of bad, but still
sort of fun. I think there are some moments of
visual. There's like one kind of low angle shot
at night when David Thewlis is walking down like
a courtyard in like Moreau's complex and like
a fan is whirring in the background. I was like,
oh, this is a very like mysterious image. You
know, I was kind of surprised by that. And then
just a couple other close ups that I thought
were kind of striking. Certainly the moment when
Marlon Brando first appears, you know, it straddles
a fine line between like. Visual style and just
like way over the top bombast. But either way,
it's like interesting to look at. So I think
that stuff kind of goes away at some point in
the movie. It gets less visually interesting
as it goes on. But I would agree with Frank.
Initially, I think it at least is kind of fun
to watch. And there's a certain atmosphere that's
built up for a while. Yeah. But there is probably
a lot more that's bad about this movie than good.
And we've already talked about a lot of it. I'll
just real quick start off and then you guys can
take it from there. But I just I think, you know,
like at least it's like entertainingly bad and
like nuts for a while. But I think like the last
20 minutes, maybe when you just have the beasts
fighting each other and like it becomes muddled
what the themes are. I think the movie actually
starts to get surprisingly boring at that point.
And I was like, let's go back to like the insane,
crazy stuff. You know, that's that's my big bad
stuff about the movie for the bad category. Yeah,
I agree with that. Even though this is not a
very long movie, it's only a little over an hour
and a half, the big action climax does seem like
it's going on forever. It reminded me, recently
the movie Mickey 17 that's out in theaters, and
that has a climax that just feels to me like
it's the length of a regular movie. The big action
scene at the end, and that's kind of how I felt
in this one, even though it probably only goes
on for like 20 minutes. But yeah, it just seems
like, yeah, the movie gets totally lost in these
just like shoddy effects and explosions and things
and doesn't really recover from there. Yeah.
My big criticism that I haven't mentioned is
I think the makeup is so good and visually interesting
that I found it upstaging the action. the actual
scene that was happening because there was a
moment, I don't know, it was Val Kilmer, David
Doulis, and the Nelson de la Roja is on the hood
of a car, like right beside them. And his makeup
is so gross and weird, but like the way the shot
is, or the blocking is, is the actors are blocked
and the shot is composed. I'm like, yeah, yeah.
You guys are talking. I don't really care about
your dialogue. Look at this weirdo. And I was
like, this is, I shouldn't, my, my focus shouldn't
be pulled the way it is right now. And I just
found the makeup upstaging the things we should
actually care about in, in any given scene. I
had the same exact experience. Yeah. Yeah. I
don't know if it's that exact moment you're talking
about, but there's, there's one part where the
Nelson de la Roja character is just like randomly
naked for like no apparent reason. Yeah. And
yeah, that, that was like, you know like like
you say it probably did pull focus from whatever
was going on in that scene because i don't even
remember what was going on at that time but um
but it is like an effectively kind of unnerving
detail i would say yeah yeah yeah yeah that's
it i have a lot of campy stuff yeah i feel like
most of this movie is camp in a way one example
so when we were talking about the Nelson de la
Roja character kind of like distracting from
the main plot of the themes or whatever. One
example of that is extremely campy. So maybe
I'll just start off with that example. It's when
Moreau and Mahai, the Nelson de la Roja character,
are like sitting side by side at the dinner table,
like in that dinner scene. They're just about
to start like a supposedly deep conversation
about like ethics and science and all this stuff.
But then it's interrupted because Mahai has like
his feet on the table. And Marlon Brando was
like, don't do that. Get your feet off of there.
And it's ridiculous. It's hilarious. And like,
I couldn't think about anything else in that
scene after that moment. That to me is the campiest
moment and one of my favorite parts of the movie.
Yeah. Yeah. Clear improv. Yeah. Not good improv.
Right. Yeah, pretty much anything Marlon Brando
does in this movie is campy. It is, you know,
like Vincent's saying, it is entertaining on
some level, but everything he does basically
destroys any chance that the movie has of actually
being scary or disturbing or anything. He clearly
just wasn't taking it seriously, was just kind
of there to indulge in whatever. whims he had
at the moment and and that that's entertaining
on some level but yeah definitely doesn't make
for a cohesive movie yeah no just yeah absolutely
so right off the bat with this movie the campiest
thing happened and i forgot about it you know
100 minutes later there's a shark attack right
at the top of this movie do you guys remember
the sharks I forgot about it until right now.
I know, but it's shot like a bad shark attack
movie. And it's just so funny. Immediately, I
was like, okay, we're in for a ride. What else?
Those boat rats. Actually, those are really bad.
All right, yeah, that's all I got. I mean, everything
Brando does, but shark attack is my... Campy
note. Right off the bat, yeah. I did also want
to point out one line that Val Kilmer says. It's
in a scene where the beasts are having an orgy
and they're all high on some kind of drug because
Val Kilmer has been pumping them full of drugs
throughout some of the movie. And right before
he dies, Val Kilmer says, I think the line is,
I want to go to dog heaven. which is a really
ridiculous line of dialogue. And the way he delivers
it is, of course, over the top and ludicrous.
So I love that moment as well. All right. I think
we've arrived at the point of Camp Kaiju where
we give each film a rating. Our four ratings
here on Camp Kaiju are, number one, it's a timeless
classic. It definitely stands the test of time.
Number two, there may be some antiquated moments,
but overall it's great. It stands the test of
time. Number three. It may be historically significant
or just fun, but it does not stand the test of
time. And our lowest rating, it is not worth
revisiting. It definitely does not stand the
test of time. Vincent, do you want to start us
off? Sure. You know, I think that this movie
is bad, but I don't think it's boring. So I'm
going to give it the second lowest rating. Is
that right? You know. It does not stand the test
of time, but it has some fun moments. I don't
think it's as bad or as unwatchable as you may
be led to believe. I think Marlon Brando is pure
camp in this movie. And there are some visuals
that, again, whether they're bad or not, they're
going to stick with you. So yeah, 1996, Island
of Dr. Moreau. Check it out for the... The morbidly
curious among you. Yeah, I'm 100 % with everything
Vincent said there. I agree with that rating,
too. Maybe historically significant or just fun,
but doesn't stand the test of time. It's definitely,
yeah, I don't think it's anywhere near one of
the worst movies I've ever seen. It's too bizarre,
has too many individual striking moments to be
a waste of time. But it definitely does not work.
in any way at the same time. It's a huge mess.
You can tell that whatever chaos happened behind
the scenes that we went into great detail on
here shows up on the screen, I think, which is
interesting. It gives it an interesting effect.
But yeah, definitely did not like it as much
as I did when I was 12. Yeah, 100 % agree with
both of you guys. If I had seen it when I was
12, I probably would have loved it, but it does
not stand the test of time. But yeah, it is fun.
It's entertaining throughout much of the running
time, if not in the end. I kind of mentioned
this at the beginning of the episode, but I would
rather have a movie that's interestingly bad
than just boring and forgettable. And this movie
is not forgettable at all. It is not boring for
most of its running time. And it's a case study
in just like how... quickly a Hollywood production
can fall apart. And that's, like you said, Frank,
is pretty fascinating to watch. That was great.
Thank you again, Frank, for joining us. Always
a pleasure. We will see all of you out there
next time on Camp Kaiju for Invaders from Mars.
Hopefully we'll see some of you at Trivia on
May 5th at Indeed Brewing. Getting tired, sorry.
for more information. Camp Kaiju was recorded
in Minneapolis, St. Paul with Minya's Mailbox
Music by Ben Cook -Felts. Thanks, friends. And
until next time, stay campy. Camp Kaiju is sponsored
by Zach Linder and the Zach Pack, powered by
Coldwell Banker Realty. Your source for real
estate, home rehab, fixing and flipping for investor
clients and residential buyers. Reach out to
the Zach Pack today for real estate services.
Follow the Zach Pack on social media and contact
the Zach Pack for investment opportunities. Link
in the show notes. Things didn't work out. Nero
wanted to turn animals into humans and humans
into gods. But it's instinct and reason. Instinct
and reason. What's instinct to a dog? To hunt.
To kill. Master. To run. Back. I want to go to
dog heaven.