The first of many adaptations of H.G. Wells' novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, Erle C. Kenton's Island of Lost Souls is a fascinating blend of science fiction and horror from the pre-Code days of Hollywood.  The film leaves a lasting impression on a number of fronts as it takes viewers to a mysterious island where Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) defies the laws of nature with his experimental work.

Going from an adventure off-screen to this one, Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) is found floating in the ocean after surviving a shipwreck.  A freighter, rendezvousing with a boat from Moreau's Island, rescues him, but after standing up to the freighter's drunken captain (Stanley Fields) because he picked on an odd-looking fellow, Parker finds himself forced to leave (in an unintentionally funny moment when an obvious dummy is thrown overboard) with Moreau's boat.

After learning of Parker's arrival, Moreau introduces him to Lota (Kathleen Burke, though she's billed as "the Panther Woman" in a bit of showmanship to make the creatures more believable) to see how they will act towards one another.  While sharing a moment together, they hear screams from what Lota refers to as the House of Pain.  Parker worries he'll be next and flees into the jungle where he runs into some of the half animal/half man inhabitants of the island.  He is rescued by a whip-cracking Moreau and sees the creature known as the Sayer of the Law (Bela Lugosi) step forward to recite the laws they live by, such as not to walk on all fours, not to eat meat, not to spill blood.   

Moreau reveals to Parker he has been working on making animals evolve into people but keeps secret that Parker is part of an experiment as well.  Once Parker learns of this, he tries to escape again.  Moreau, who thinks himself a god toward the creatures, orders them to capture Parker, but when they see him breaking the laws, they question his authority.  

As the best horror does, Island of Lost Souls provides thoughtful reflection on humanity ("Are we not men?" the Sayer of Law asks.) through the use of monsters, though the real monster of the story is one who looks most human.  Wally Westmore's make-up is outstanding as is Karl Strauss' evocative cinematography.  Laughton's scene-chewing performance of the mad scientist is memorable and Lugosi, under a face full of fur, reveals how underrated an actor he was in a small role.

The video has been given a 1080p/ MPEG-4 AVC encoded transfer displayed at 1.33:1.   According to the liner notes we are lucky to have a copy that looks this good "because the original negative no longer survives, this new digital transfer was created from a number of sources, including 35mm fine-grain master positive with some inherent damage; the UCLA Film & Television Archive's 35mm nitrate positive, which also had defects but contained lines of dialogue not heard since they were censored upon the film's theatrical release; and a private collector's 16mm screening print, used to help repair scenes with missing frames and scratches. These elements were scanned in 2K and HD resolution on a Spirit Datacine and a SCANNITY film scanner, and then combined to create the most complete version of the film ever to appear on home video. Finally, thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS system and Pixel Farm's PFClean system, while Digital Vision's DVNR system was used for small dirt, grain, and noise reduction."  Damage is evident and flicker can be seen.   There are soft spots, likely due to the source, and whites appear slightly blown out.  Film grain can get pervasive, such as occurs during the opening sequence due to soft focus and fog. 

The audio is LPCM Mono and the liner notes reveal "the original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from the collector's 16mm print and section of the 35mm nitrate print, the best sources available. Clicks, thumps, hiss, and hum were manually removed using Pro Tools HD. Crackle was attenuated using AudioCube's integrated workstation."  Hiss can be heard throughout on the track. 

Criterion offers a few special features to enhance the film, all in HD unless noted.  "Landis, Baker, and Burns" (17 min) – gathers director John Landis, award-winning makeup artist Rick Baker, and horror-film aficionado Bob Burns to discuss the film, those involved in its production, and the era.  Film historian/documentary filmmaker "David J. Skal" (14 min) provides great insight into the themes of the book and the era it was written.  Filmmaker "Richard Stanley" (14 min), who was he original director of The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) before he was fired after a few days of production, discusses Wells' work, the films made from it, and what he was going to do with his version.  He even offers an apology for the film that was made, but that's certainly not his fault. 

Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh (20 min), founding members of Devo whose first album uses the phrase "Are we not men? We are Devo", talk about the film, horror host Ghoulardi, their time at Kent State, and how the ideas of film made their into their band and music.  The "Short Film" (10 min, 1080i) "In the Beginning Was the End: The Truth About De-Evolution." is an extended music video that features “Secret Agent Man” and “Jocko Homo”.  Both are outstanding features for Devo fans.

There's also a commentary track by writer/film historian Gregory Mank recorded in June 2011.  The original trailer (2 min), a Stills Gallery, and a 12-page booklet featuring Christine Smallwood's essay "The Beast Flesh Creeping Back".

Island of Lost Souls is a great addition to the video library, especially for horror fans.  Owning a copy should be the law.  If you don't believe me, listen to the men like Landis and Baker in the special features.

Produced by the famed Troma Enterainment, Father’s Day is a pretty middling affair. The flick comes written and directed by Winnipeg-based filmmaking collective Astron-6 and attempts to slap itself headlong into the grindhouse and late-nite movie genre, using resolute cheese, bad effects, and exaggerated sex and violence to plead its case.

The trouble is that Father’s Day is simply too knowing. While other films have enjoyed success by committing to the B-movie principles and embracing the clichés, rarely does a moment go by within this picture that the actors don’t seem to be winking at the camera. The comedy is too contemporary for a film with such a retro vibe and the cornball plot is undermined as a result.

Father’s Day opens with a series of rather serious scenes. There is a “Father’s Day Killer” on the loose, apparently, who rapes and murders fathers. Father John Sullivan (Matt Kennedy) and Father O’Flynn (Kevin Anderson) know that there’s more to the sordid tale than that and understand that there are some theological implications at play. In order to stop the demonic slayer, Father John seeks out the services of one Ahab (Adam Brooks).

Ahab lost his father to the slaughterer and is out for revenge. His sister, Chelsea (Amy Groening), tags along. Twink (Conor Sweeney), a male prostitute, also lost his father (Billy Sadoo) to the killer and joins the party. When it turns out that the murderer is actually a demon from the netherworld, things get even more intense as our heroes track down the scoundrel.

As mentioned, Father’s Day gets off on an interesting foot. The film’s opening sequences are filmed in a relatively frank style and things get pretty penetrating in a hurry. The rape and murder of Twink’s father is tough to watch, as are scenes involving the father and son trying to figure out their relationship. The tone is strange given the overall construction of the movie, but it isn’t long before the Astron-6 team delightedly blows it all to pieces.

In terms of gore and violence, Father’s Day is off the page. It is hard to keep track of all the horrid death scenes and soupy make-out sessions (trust me), but they do provide most of the movie’s entertainment value. For the most part, the violence is rather over-the-top. There are some scenes that may bother more woozy viewers and there are numerous bloody and non-bloody penises on display.

The retro feel is evident from the intro sequence, which sets Father’s Day up as a picture showing as part of a late night series of movies on some remote cable channel. There’s actually a mock advertisement for an upcoming flick called Star Raiders. And as with most kicks at the grindhouse can, this movie scrapes up the visual presentation and dumps plenty of pops and hisses in the audio track.

Unfortunately, all the glorious gore and retro feel gets bogged down as the film attempts to be modern. As good as Kennedy, Brooks and Sweeney are as the protagonist trio, their attempts at comedy feel at home in The Hangover more than they do here. In place of calculatingly hammy acting jobs is a glinting and nudging sense of pseudo-awkwardness, making Father’s Day a little too “cool” for its own good.

So as strange as it feels to consider a movie that features oodles of full frontal male nudity, a stomped-on hellspawn baby, a chainsaw-wielding stripper, maple syrup humour, and one hell of a hallucinogenic Jesus, Father’s Day isn’t dilapidated enough to make for a classic grindhouse picture. Too modern and too hip for its own good, this Astron-6 film is amusing but ultimately forgettable stuff.

As Roger Ebert so memorably put it a few years ago, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not so much as movie as more of a long-running social phenomenon.” Indeed, there has never been (and likely never will be) a movie which has inspired such fan devotion. It has now been nearly 40 years since the original stage production of Rocky, yet it remains as weirdly fresh as ever. 

When the film version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released on VHS in the '80s, I assumed that the whole midnight movie thing would end. After all, owning it meant that you could watch it anytime you chose, over and over. Was I ever wrong on that one! What I had failed to take into account was just how important the audience is to the whole Rocky experience. 

More than anything else, it is the fans who make each Rocky Horror Picture Show screening so special. Although the “midnight movie” idea had been around for some time prior, there had never anything like this. How many of us walked in for our first viewing, only to be taunted by a packed house as “virgins?” Even though I had been cautioned by my friends to expect the unexpected, I was still pretty stunned by the event. Watching The Blue Lagoon (1980) was certainly nothing like this. But, as Marti DeBergi (Rob Reiner) put it in This Is Spinal Tap (1984), “Enough of my yakkin'; whaddaya say? Let's boogie!”  

What the recently launched Music On Film book series does is discuss various movies whose soundtracks are intrinsic to the picture at hand. In fact, the previously mentioned Spinal Tap was one of the first entries in the series. Author Dave Thompson takes us through the various permutations of the Rocky Horror phenomenon. As a native Brit, Thompson was a perfect choice for this project. There is quite a bit of history to the film that a lot of Stateside viewers may be unaware of. 

The Rocky Horror Picture Show began as a stage show, at a tiny Kings Road theatre on June 19, 1973. It was a humble beginning, the house had a capacity of just 63 people. Rocky Horror was so original that it received an inordinate amount of press, especially from the hip music rags. I am certain that the glam-rock connection didn’t hurt things either. Thompson shies away from this connection, but think about it. In 1973, androgyny was the coolest thing going in England. Portraying a sweet transvestite on a London stage may have been edgy, but the Ziggy Stardust girls understood. 

Rocky got noticed, so much so that 20th Century Fox green-lit a film version of it, which appeared in 1975. As every fan knows, it was a box-office bomb. The studio executives quickly distanced themselves from it, in fact, many of them were embarrassed that the film had been made at all. 

Then the midnight screenings began, and all hell broke loose. The late-night movie concept was a smart idea even before Rocky caught on. Take a film with a “cult” audience (read small, but hip), and show it at midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. The crowd was mainly college kids, watching such fare as Pink Flamingos (1972), or a stoned-out concert flick like Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (1972) - and suddenly you had a packed house. Plus, the snack bar did incredible business. 

Still, one has to wonder - why The Rocky Horror Picture Show? There are many others that could have made the cut. For a while, Eraserhead (1977) was a contender, and there were plenty of others “weirdos“ to choose from as well. Thompson makes the argument that it was the music that really drove things home, and it is hard not to agree. The songs made the movie, and the movie made the songs. 

I guess it depends on your level of devotion to Rocky Horror, but for me - the tunes don’t really work too well outside of the movie. With a book in a series titled Music On Film, the writer is bound too spend a great deal of time discussing the tunes. And there are some great ones here. “Science Fiction / Double Feature,” “Time Warp,” and “Sweet Transvestite” to name just a few. 

In terms of physical size, there is a uniformity to the Music On Film series. They are not much bigger than a standard jewel-case CD, yet the books hold some cool, and obscure information. The pictures of rare, and very cool memorabilia is a nice inclusion. But the majority of the text is devoted to the amazing shelf-life the whole thing has had over nearly 40 years. 

Besides discussing the early stage production and midnight movie phenomenon, Thompson gets into some of the later stage versions. For example, I was previously unaware of the fact that during the Broadway run,  the producers hired Joan Jett to play the character of Columbia/Usherette. 

Music On Film: The Rocky Horror Picture Show will obviously appeal to fans of the movie, but for those on the fringes, it is a pretty easy introduction to the whole thing as well. Remember, “Don’t Dream It, Be It.”

This AMC series didn’t seem to get much attention during its first season, especially in comparison to the network’s critical darlings, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and ratings juggernaut The Walking Dead. It doesn’t help that the title conjures up images of something closer to Sons of Anarchy than its actual setting of the construction of the first transcontinental railroad. Then there’s the pesky matter of its almost entirely exterior set location in Alberta attempting to stand in for Nebraska, roughly 1500 miles to the southeast. There’s no real draw to the talent on board, with the biggest names being actors Colm Meaney and Common. But the biggest knock: how to make a drama about 19th century railroad construction (that isn’t broadcast on the History Channel) enticing to viewers.

Thankfully, the writers save the day, crafting intriguing stories that milk the ongoing tension between the different races, nationalities, sexes, and ex-Civil War sides of the ragtag crew working on the railroad. There’s also an ongoing revenge story at play, which opens the pilot and will continue into Season Two. That story follows ex-Confederate loner Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) hunting down the Yankee soldiers who murdered his family, a trail of retribution that eventually leads him into the Hell on Wheels camp. One of his final targets controls the rail work crews there, and when that man winds up dead Bohannon manages to turn a murder conviction into a job as the dead man’s replacement. As the new foreman, he has to navigate the politics of bossing the mostly Irish white workers and their lesser-paid black counterparts (led by Common's Elam character) as they rush to complete the first 40 miles of track.

Meanwhile, the greedy head of the railroad sits in his fancy clothes and plush railcar devising plans so dastardly he should have a mustache to twirl. Rather than plot a straight line for his railroad, he demands that his crews take a winding route solely to maximize the mileage and hence the size of his government compensation. Colm Meaney makes a commanding baddie, but his role is so one-dimensional for most of the season that it’s more caricature than character. He’s abetted by a towering Norwegian assistant known as the Swede (Christopher Heyerdahl), much to his chagrin, an unsettling and off-kilter character who devours scenery with aplomb. Rounding out the nasties are the ever-present Indians who threaten to wipe out the rail progress and workers at any time in an effort to protect their land.

Other tangential recurring characters include an Indian who has converted to Christianity and lives in the camp, a minister who has a violent past and isn’t afraid to revisit it, and a fair-haired classy maiden widowed by an Indian attack but determined to stick with the rail crew for no apparent reason other than eventual romance with Bohannon. The cast is fairly large and most of the characters get decent screen time and worthwhile stories, further enforcing the theme of America’s melting pot pulling together in the grand rail endeavor. At its core though, at least in the first season, the stars are Mount, Common, and Meaney, with the Bohannon and Elam characters forging a tenuous friendship while Durant throws obstacles in their way. The construction of the railroad is little more than a backdrop for the interlocking character studies, but those stories make the show well worth seeking out.

The series looks great on Blu-ray, except for the pilot episode that is oddly pixelated, as if the production team hadn’t figured out the nuances of high def before shooting. Other than that, the rest of series is feature-film quality and well worth the Blu premium. Bonus features include a look at how the designers recreated the past for the exterior sets, along with behind the scenes footage, cast interviews, and a segment on the monumental efforts undertaken to film a train crash using a dummy fullsize wooden train and some creative landscaping work.

Has anyone ever stopped to consider what the politics of The Doctor might be? I must admit that before watching The Happiness Patrol, it is a question I had never even thought of. More to the point, it is a question that had never seemed relevant. The Doctor seems to exist on a plane where such mundane concerns as liberals versus conservatives is practically absurd.

One of the greatest attractions of science fiction has been to use it as a pretext to discuss serious social issues. The first Star Trek series was famous for this. That program even aired the first kiss between a white man (Kirk) and a black woman (Uhura), during the height of the Civil Rights movement no less. But Doctor Who always seemed to follow a very basic “good vs. evil” scenario, no matter what outrageous situation he found himself in.

The Happiness Patrol (Story #153) first aired November 2 - 16, 1988, as a three-part serial. The Doctor was portrayed by Sylvester McCoy. While those in England who watched the initial transmission may have immediately gotten the point, it took me a little longer. The set-up is pretty straightforward. The Doctor, and his female companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) land on Planet Terra. As The Doctor tells Ace, Planet Terra is an Earth colony settled some centuries in her future.

We are then introduced to an older, frighteningly made-up woman named Helen A. (Sheila Hancock). She is giving a man named Silas P. (Jonathan Burn) his first badge, “In honor of 45 Killjoys to your credit,” as she puts it. Helen A. is the leader of Planet Terra, where it is illegal to be unhappy. In fact, unhappiness is punished by death. The offenders are called Killjoys, and the Happiness Patrol exist to take them out on sight.

The Doctor’s mission is simple, Helen A. must be stopped. The Doctor and Ace are quickly deemed a threat, and are (as usual) in jeopardy. The Happiness Patrol features one of the great Doctor Who villains in the Kandyman (David John Pope), a robot made of candy. He is Helen A.’s most trusted associate, who revels in eliminating Killjoys. When The Doctor first meets him, The Kandyman says, “Welcome to my kitchen, I like my volunteers to die with smiles on their faces.“

Helen A.’s mantra is “Happiness will prevail,” said in such a menacing tone as to make one’s skin crawl. The official music is literally called Muzak, and the Happiness Patrol are deadly earnest. In retrospect, maybe it is a little heavy-handed, but the dictatorship of Helen A. and her Patrol is as brutal as any in the real world.

An inspired addition to the story is another visitor to the planet, a bluesman who plays harmonica, named Earl Sigma (Richard D. Sharp). He becomes a vital ally in the mission. And when you think about it, the mission here is a strange one. The Doctor must legalize unhappiness. One of the key points of The Happiness Patrol is that people need to be free to express themselves in every way. To be a robot is to not be human, as the Kandyman later discovers.

One of the most touching elements comes when The Doctor sits down on a bench with someone who says that they are melancholy. It is a “bittersweet melancholy,” and feels good - something he has been denied for a very long time. In this moment we are vividly reminded that life is a complex mix of emotions, and to deny oneself of the bitter, and of the sweet - is to deny life itself.

Sheila Hancock plays Helen A. as The Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher. Upon first viewing, I thought this was an interesting and perfectly reasonable choice. It was not until I watched the outstanding extra features until I realized just how deeply The Happiness Patrol cut.

The 24-minute “Happiness Will Prevail” reveals the full intent of the serial. In the interviews with former Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmel, and writer Graeme Curry, they explain that any resemblance to the latter period of Thatcher’s reign were purely intentional. Those days happened to coincide with the end of the Reagan-era as well, and it is an eye-opening realization of just how topical this particular serial was.

Not only was it explicitly critical of the whole (to paraphrase Ronald Reagan) “Morning in Britain” mentality, but dangerous to the Doctor Who franchise itself. Certainly a great deal of change had occurred in society between the program’s debut in 1963, and the world of 1988 - but at heart, Doctor Who was always a family show.

Allow me to preface the following with the admission that I am something of a Doctor Who neophyte, and more knowledgeable fans may groan at this attempt to state the obvious. With that caveat in place, I must say that the 45-minute supplement “When Worlds Collide” is the finest Doctor Who DVD extra I have ever seen. This was my jumping-off point a few hundred words ago, with the question of the political leanings of The Doctor, and of what he really stands for.

“When Worlds Collide” is a marvelous look at the evolution of the Doctor Who program as it reflected British society over the years. I had certainly never considered it as a week by week (however obliquely) comment on society, but this piece does exactly that. It is a fascinating journey through the various incarnations of The Doctor and of those behind the camera, juxtaposed with what was going on in the real world at the time. Andrew Cartmel is the main talking head here, and his insights are remarkable. He was the script editor for Doctor Who from 1987-1989, but his real agenda was not revealed until the publication of his book Script Doctor - The Inside Story of Doctor Who 1986-89, in 2005. In it he claimed that during his interview for the job, he stated his goal to be, “To overthrow the government.”

This scandalous revelation remained under the radar until 2010 however, when one day it exploded and became headline news. The footage of the national news story about it is hilarious. But what an irresistible tale it must have been. Imagine the horror of staid Brits discovering that an anarchist was quietly weaving his subversive ideas into one of the nation’s most beloved television institutions. This leads into a discussion of the way Doctor Who has commented on, and in ways participated in British life over the years. There are also parallels drawn to other science fiction landmarks such as Metropolis (1927) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967).

In the end, Cartmel questions the very core of the series. He compares The Doctor to the Lone Ranger. He rides into town, solves the problem, then leaves. The question is, what happens afterwards? We never find out. For all we know, the entire civilization could have collapsed due to The Doctor’s actions. 

The newly released 2 Entertain DVD of The Happiness Patrol also contains extras of deleted and extended scenes, a photo gallery, and some PDF materials. But nothing can touch “When Worlds Collide.” I recommend this bonus feature almost more than The Happiness Patrol serial itself. Thankfully, everything is contained on a single DVD.