Friday, August 5, 2011

Island of Lost Souls


The classic, 1933 Universal Monsters film, Island of Lost Souls, has been languishing, out of print for the past several years. While a restored VHS was issued by Universal to accompany its Monsters line of films, this film never made the jump to DVD, and has only been available as a hard-to-find bootleg for the past few years. Well this year, Criterion is going to give it the deluxe treatment and I could not be more excited.

At 70 minutes run time, this vintage horror film is a tightly choreographed treat. The monsters look more like beasts and less like men in monster suits. The lushness of the jungle setting with its remote location has been copied by movies for decades, and should be familiar to any fan of Jonny Quest. But where this film really shines is in its implied horror, what is not seen by the viewer, and here is where it clearly differentiates itself as being head-and-shoulders above all of the remakes and retellings of this classic H. G. Wells story.

Be sure to buy it/view it/Netflix it, when it comes out this October. It is a film not to be missed.

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