This early adaptation of H. G. Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau is both wonderful and weird. Charles Laughton is in fine form as the calculating mad scientist Moreau, devoted to a bizarre experiment in speeded-up evolution. On his island, he has managed to transform animals into men, and then slaves. Shipwrecked Richard Arlen innocently comes upon this cowering new world, where the locals live in fear of Moreau's "House of Pain" (his laboratory). Moreau attempts to mate the newcomer with his only female creation, Lota, "the panther woman," who seems not uninterested in the match herself. "The film was exceptionally well made. An atmosphere of horror and degeneracy pervaded its every frame. It was not for all tastes: many Midwestern states banned it from release, as did Great Britain and New Zealand" (Parish and Pitts, The Great Science Fiction Pictures). Like other horror films of its time-Tod Browning's Freaks, James Whale's Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein-what makes Island of Lost Souls attractive was precisely what made it repellent: its underlying compassion for the oppressed freak, the beast of scientific progress. The chanting ritual of the island mutants (led by Bela Lugosi) is haunting and strangely beautiful.