Behind the scenes chronicle of how clash of vision, bad creative decisions, lack of interest and really bad weather plagued the disastrous production of the infamous 1996 remake of "The Island of Dr. Moreau".

This film is great because it not just talks about the film, but also the career of Richard Stanley and how it went off the rails. Following genre cult classics like "Hardware" and "Dust Devil", Stanley could have been the biggest thing in horror. However, because of his experience here, he has done relatively little in the last twenty years.

I love that they have Tim Sullivan commenting on the "identity crisis" of New Line. Sullivan is not credited, so how much he was on set I do not know. But having talked to him myself in the past, he is extremely knowledgeable. From the vantage of a production assistant, he saw a lot of great movies get made before making his own.

Fairuza Balk is nice to have here. Her career went downhill after the 1990s, though not necessarily because of this film. It would be nice to see her make a comeback. David Hudson, the Buffalo Man, offers a nice point of view from the natives.

And, of course, we find that Val Kilmer is a total diva. Fortunately, his career has taken a complete dive and he is now seen largely as a joke. Unfortunately, if he was wise, he invested his earnings and never has to work again.

LOST SOUL is a documentary exploring the making of an infamous film, namely 1996's THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU which was begun by cult director Richard Stanley and ended up being completed by Hollywood veteran John Frankenheimer. It feels a little like the behind-the-scenes craziness you see chronicling the relationship of Herzog and Kinski in cinema, for example. Stanley himself is the overriding figure here, extensively interviewed as he talks about his vision for the movie and the chaos that ensued. He's obviously an erudite figure who knows his stuff, which makes the disasters that ensued the more puzzling. I would have preferred more behind-the-scenes footage from the film itself, but the interviews and clips we do see are well assembled. I find it a pity that Ron Perlman and David Thewlis don't feature and aren't made mention of, but the stuff we learn about Brando and Kilmer's behaviour is priceless and Fairuza Balk is a good sport.

Maybe one of the things I'm missing, are sound bits from a few more players (actors),like Ron Pearlman, who also was in the original movie. You were expecting Val Kilmer not to take part in this (although he was asked of course). But those things are not really that important, especially considering how great the movie is built and edited. The mayhem that ensued seems to have been inevitable in some sense, but is still very gripping.

There is faults on more than one set of shoulders and maybe the other movie might not have been a better "Island of Dr. Mureau" movie than the one we finally got. But it most definitely would have been crazier (yes it's possible) and might have given a very creative guy some power to fulfill his other visions. A man suffice to say that sort of was not ready for that big a project of course.

And this duality and all the gray areas (plus all those great anecdotes, hoping there will be a few more on a future disc release without them having to cut anything out of the movie we had the pleasure watching at Frightfest) in the movie, make it great. Fun and light and over before you know it ...