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The Island of Lost Souls (taken from H.G. Wells novel) is a science-fiction/horror movie, published in 1933. The film, plotted on a South Seas island, presents Dr. Moreau, owner of the island, as a mad scientist that secretly conducts surgical experiments on animals attempting to transform them into human beings. Failing his attempts, he instead transforms the animals into “half human – half animal” beasts. The society that is established among Dr. Moreau and his “man-beasts” is a very strange social structure where a “rule against violence exists” and forbids the “man-beasts” to regress into their animal and dangerous behaviors.
However, at the end of the film, Dr. Moreau is caught in an act of violence by his “man-beasts” which contradicts the law against violence. This event leads to a revolution by the animal-men that leads to the killing of Dr. Moreau.
The Island of Lost Souls (1933) is one of mediums through which the character of Dr. Moreau is paralleled with Britain’s colonialism history. As a matter of fact, the film was published in an inter-war period (1913-1945) during which the British Empire, suffering from the Great Depression, could not afford another attack from either Japan or Germany. Dr. Moreau, compared to Britain in this film, is shown as a week “ruler” when opposed to his “beast-men” before his death, thus symbolizing the weakness of the British Empire of the time.
