 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 2014 documentary Lost Soul the doomed journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Murrow That's a long title too long in my opinion, but it is a good documentary and I would recommend this to Anyone who's in the horror and especially anyone who's seen Color out of Space, which is the film that Richard Stanley Made his way back to film with basically well officially like theatrical film So anyway, um, if you have not seen this already Just know there will be spoilers as I talk about it But regardless any everyone should see it It's a very interesting documentary that kind of lets you know exactly what can go wrong with big budget films and With this particular film Island of Dr. Murrow. It really does seem like pretty much everything went wrong And it documents that well, so I think it's a well-done documentary, so Written and directed by David Gregory now He's done other documentaries that I have not seen but have a lot of interest in seeing and here's some of the more interesting ones Texas chainsaw massacre the shocking truth The Joe Spinell story which is about Joe Spinell the guy who's wrote and stars in maniac The godfathers of Mondo all about Mondo and their films ban the sadist videos about you know Films that got banned and I think there's a second one of that documentary Forget everything you have ever seen the world of Santa Sangre, which I have not seen that film But I need to it's one that's been on my list for a while What's in the basket which is very very interesting for me and I need to get my hands on that because it's about the basket case trilogy by Frank Hennan-Lotter and I'm very interested in that. I like Hennan-Lotter Master of Dark Shadows, which is a documentary about the Dark Shadows TV show that was on some decades ago And then the last one which is the most recent one that he's done Flesh and blood the real life and ghastly death of Al Adamson, which was put out by Severin, which this documentary is also put out by Severin, so if you want to get it It's there. Anyway So let's get into it. I think it's important that they actually started out this film Establishing who Richard Stanley actually is a person But then also what was kind of happening in his life leading up to him getting the director Job for the island to Dr. Moreau so It's a good way to do it just because Instead of jumping right into it and being like oh things are going wrong And there's this dude Richard Stanley because they decided or David Gregory decided that when he was going to do this film He wanted to do it from the standpoint of Richard Stanley and how basically Hollywood chewed him up and spit him out in a sense and I'll talk about you know some ideas on kind of what exactly went wrong and I Think there are some things that that were a bit malicious that ended up happening some things that were a bit negligent and some things that just happened That created the perfect storm in a way for things to just be terrible and You know make Richard Stanley swear off making film for a certain time And I'm glad that he didn't stick to that and 20 some years Sorry 20 some years later came back and made color out of space with specter vision Which if you haven't seen it definitely check out color out of space. It's really good Has Nicholas Cage in it if that motivates people to do that Just saying and he's supposedly gonna gonna be doing two more films that are HP Lovecraft inspired. So just so you know It's also good that they have Richard Stanley talk about his feelings about the original book and also his vision that he saw like not only his vision for What the film was gonna be in his mind But also the vision of kind of what the original story kind of meant to him and what it meant to Society and all the themes and the subtext in there because then it helps you understand more of like what his grandiose vision was and Potentially what the film could have ended up being so it really sets you up ahead of time before they start Taking you down the path of these are all the things that went wrong giving you this overall idea of this is what the film was gonna be and It plays well for people who for everyone really be whether you've seen the island of Dr. Monroe or you haven't or if you're someone like me who you've seen it But it's been so long that you only remember bits of it and just remember that it sucked Which is probably what most people remember from it a very aimless film, but It shows his level of interest in it and also just the understanding of the material That makes you believe that if he was able to go through with his entire vision That really it could have been something special because of how Invested he seemed in it and everyone after him everyone else involved in it I mean certainly Brando and Kilmer didn't really care that much about the material because they were very much about Kind of throwing wrenches into the gears as much as they could But then also even like John Frankenheimer when he came in direct after Stanley got fired Where he you know it just didn't seem like he cared that much about the base material And that's one of the problems is when you have a director who comes in and they don't really care that much about the story They don't really care that much about the base material and they also are trying to change the vision That's hard to make that successful then and then you add in those extra aspects of You know letting people screw with it even more like Brando letting Marlon Brando make all these changes on the fly And then Val Kilmer like being toxic on the set and causing people to have bad moods You know Brando could have done that to to a degree just because people could have just been getting very frustrated with how things were going with him But by all accounts in the documentary people were saying he was nice to people. He just was a severe pain basically Whereas Kilmer was just a total jerk to everyone as they said like a high school bully or a frat guy bully or something One of the biggest problems with the film I Don't it's not something that can be changed or solved It's just the fact that and I'm sorry to say this because I like the guy personally Richard Stanley is not interesting to listen to what he's saying is interesting to listen to and he's a very Intelligent person. He has a lot of interesting things to say the problem is the way he says it He's very monotone his inflection never really changes. It's always the same mode And for that reason you'll be trying to listen to what he's saying at or at least this is my experience I'll be trying to listen to what he's saying and then I'll just start to zone out Like my mind just starts to wander because inflection never changes and when inflection and voice changes It engages people more it kind of like catches, you know It pulls the attention in but when it's all just on one level and it never changes no matter what that person's saying It's hard to focus and I knew I knew this because a I'd seen this documentary before and B I'd listen to an interview with Richard Stanley on Mick Garris's post-mortem podcast Which is a good interview because Mick Garris does a great job with interviews So if you guys want to hear more from Richard Stanley, he talks about kind of like his his childhood and his relationship with his mother and also his Influences with HP Lovecraft because obviously they're talking about Color out of space. So that's why but definitely check that out But it just becomes hard to continually listen to him the better parts are when other people are talking about their Experiences and their feelings about Richard Stanley. So Really if they could have cut him down as much as possible, but still get through what he wanted to say You know, you see what I'm saying like this isn't something that can really be solved because he's got to be in the film And it's important that he's in the film and like I even said in the beginning It's great that they lead with him and his vision and all that type stuff It's just hard to stay focused on what he's saying the other thing is not only is he very monotone, but I feel like he talks very fast from time to time Which I think maybe I do that too but he also has a tendency to just run sentences together and it seems like he should be stopping and he just keeps going and It's like a whole separate sentence and he just keeps going so For me, it's just a little bit tough Maybe some of you out there are hearing me say that and be like no, I didn't have that problem at all and that's great There's just a personal thing Going over the concepts of what Stanley was going for Fleshes out in your mind what the film actually would have been and even more helpful with that are all those sketches that they showed Which looked awesome like those really colorful drawings of what some of those scenes we're gonna end up looking like That may be very sad for the film that we never got But it was also cool to kind of like get that glimpse into Richard Stanley's mind at that time saying this is what it was gonna be This is how cool these scenes could have been But then you know things went very bad The talk about Mike Deluca's interest in making the film and Bob Shae's Indifference kind of ended up setting the stage for the chaos that was gonna end up ensuing The problem is when you have someone who's very interested in it And then you have someone who's not and they're both very much Important to the making of the film It's a problem. You know people have to be invested people have to care about it getting made and I think to a degree you know Bob Shae did care because there's a lot of money being put into it, you know, it's his company and Obviously, I'm sure he did not want it to fail but especially with someone like Richard Stanley who was a relatively new director he was very young and You know, he had never done a bigger budget film before he had never worked with very big stars on a set before You need to have the right approach like you have to take that interest. You have to be available. You have to To a degree be very nurturing in that way And I think that's one of the biggest things that went wrong there is that they kind of left him to his own Devices to a degree they needed to kind of coddle him a little bit more nurture him a little bit more And understand he hadn't done something large budget like that before he's a great director, but he had only done Small things he had he'd been doing it in very small budgets where there aren't typically are not huge egos to have to deal with and Things are done very differently very very differently and the expectations are a lot less On that level as well. So I just and I think that Richard Stanley didn't have the personality either To deal with some of the stuff he had to deal with with the strong personalities who were fighting his vision and then also the Actors who didn't really necessarily want to listen to what he had to say or didn't Respect him the way that he should have been respected as a director because it seems like he's more of a Nice guy type, you know, a lot of the people they were that were interviewed Their opinion of him him was great guy real nice guy, you know No one was really saying he was a take charge type dude He knew exactly where everything should be and was pointing out what everyone needed to do and when someone challenged him He put him in their place and he said, you know what? This is the film. I'm the director. We're doing this So maybe I'm wrong and maybe it was just left out of the documentary But the feeling I got from it was that he didn't have the personality to take control The way he needed to with that group of people and with the scale of how big it was by all accounts Awesome dude really good guy But you know, maybe that just wasn't something he could do like handle a large budget film like that Or maybe he needed to start, you know, a little bit lower first, but it also kind of did seem like Initially, they weren't going to be going that high budget as it ended up being it's just things kept getting added Added added added it's you know as far as like the big names and How grandiose it ended up becoming? The fact that New Line knew how difficult Marlon Brando was and still wanted him for the movie because they worked with him prior I think is really crappy, especially the fact that they dumped that on Stanley knowing that he hasn't dealt with that before knowing that this is his first time going after a big budget film It's just not right that and when you hear that in the documentary like you're just like Why like like Bob Shea was talking about like he knew that Brian Brando was a problem. So why would you do that? There's so many actors out there. You could have done something else New Line insisting on the cat woman being very human actually goes to show something that's kind of a problem with With studio films in general, which is this trying to have this this love interest this romance all the time And they knew that with the original vision of the cat woman of How Stanley was seeing her as being more cat and more animal They knew that like that wouldn't interest an audience that it wouldn't hold up to the typical romance in studio films But I think that it just would have been more interesting and would have been better serving for the actual storyline So it's just another one of those things like studios put their hands in there all the time And it's like why did you why did you hire a writer? Why did you hire a director? Do you believe in them or do you not believe in them? Stop changing things if you're gonna hire people to do the jobs. Let those people do their jobs Your job is to just put it all together get the money going distribute all that stuff Just saying Val Kilmer complaining about not liking his role anymore was a pretty awful foreshadowing for this film My feeling on it when I first heard it is a he's a jerk be dude You're an actor. This is your job be a professional and do the role You already signed on for it the fact that you then show up and you're just like, you know I'm just not really feeling the role anymore, you know, think about Anyone watching this think about your job. What do you do for a job right now or jobs you've had in the past Can you just go in one day and just be like, you know what? I just don't feel like I'm just not feeling my role at this job right now. Can you just have me do something else? Can we look at other things here that doesn't work? It doesn't happen, especially not if you've already signed on sign a contract and you're getting paid a certain a predetermined amount that you negotiated. It's just It's it's classless and it's crappy The information on the animal behaviorist coming in to work with all the actors I thought was a really cool aspect And this is one of the things I love about these documentaries that are kind of like give you the behind the scenes in a way of the films I like knowing the challenges that came up or how they Like interesting or weird ways that they got certain scenes done or they worked with the actors and got them to act a certain way like that stuff's just very interesting to me because It's it's that thing of you see the finished product in front of you But then when you know everything that went into it behind the scenes It gives you more of an appreciation and then when you watch that film again You're seeing that extra stuff like you're seeing what's on the screen once again But then you're Remembering all the things that went into that that you learned about and that's what I love about it And that animal behaviorist aspect of it is a very interesting piece of knowledge It seems that the relationship Stanley had with the cast and crew were more of a friend level and much less of a Full a respected leader level that goes back to what I was talking about about him Just probably being too nice of a guy to really command a set like that Stanley getting fired wasn't done very well by all accounts. They even said it in the documentary But Stanley then going and shredding documents As revenge basically is also not good and and I think he addressed that a little bit He seemed you know kind of remorseful about it. Like yeah, I shouldn't have done that but It's just one of those things where like people like be cool like Because someone does something bad to you. It's not good to do something bad to them back So that's one of the things that I saw in this that I didn't like about Richard Stanley But then once again, you know, he was young And people he was very emotional. He was very wrapped up in this film and people do stupid things So I know what was said that John Frankenheimer wasn't interested in that type of film At one point one of the guys was like, well, you know, he wasn't interested in making that type of film It's not his type of thing But I looked through his IMDb credits and he had done The horror film prophecy and he had also done an episode of tales from the crypt So even though he wouldn't necessarily be that interested once again, like the Val Kilmer thing It's what he was hired to do. It's his job He knows how to do it Because he's done prophecy and he did an episode of tales from the crypt so That's not really an excuse for things not going well under him in my opinion Changing the story and vision of a movie during filming just seems like a terrible idea I'm sure we can all agree with that How can you make a concept like that work on the fly? And that's one of the biggest things is that And and it's shown very well. Like I said in the beginning of the documentary There was a very Big idea behind the creation of this film behind how the story from hg well school was going to be brought to life And to then Start that filming start that vision and then replace the director and bring in someone who Either has a different vision or doesn't even have much of a vision And then allow the actors to change things on the fly There's no way that's going to come out well Just no way because when everything was so carefully Envisioned and planned ahead of time You have to execute that then or execute close to it instead of getting into it and just being like I'll screw it We'll just do whatever now It's just not going to work And I know that bob shea in the end said, you know, they lost money on it But they lost less money than if they didn't put out anything Well, yeah, but at the same time you could have put maybe a little more money into it And stalled things a little bit And gotten someone else who was better for the job I mean really brando needed to go kilmer needed to go and they should have gotten Lesser named actors. I think they became so hyper focused on If this goes to the theaters, then you know the name brando and the name kilmer will bring people in That sucks man You got poor reviews though, too And I'm sure you did make some money because of the the names brando and kilmer But you also didn't make some money because it was terrible. There were terrible reviews for the film So I don't know just saying focus On the right things I'm not sure why frankenheimer just gave into brando because one of the big things is they really really talked about How good how like known john frankenheimer was for being able to command the set and he was still one of those old school directors who Would yell and you know make his presence known and take control and everything But then for some reason brando shows up and he just is is like whatever You know, he can't direct this guy And I you know, I get it that sometimes you get into that kind of like fanboy mode And it's just like I love this person and it makes you nervous But at the same time, are you a professional or are you not a professional? Are you doing the job or you're not doing the job? The fact that he let brando commandeer the set is kind of unforgivable and I think what he probably should have tried to do is been like Yes, brando. We can shoot. How about this? We meet in the middle We'll shoot it your way in one take and we'll shoot it my way in the other take And then when it comes to the editing portion, we'll see what looks best Then you just do that you don't have brando Around for the editing because most likely he's not even going to be that interested in that anyway And then you just leave all his stuff on the cutting room floor That's my solution. That's what he should have done. I feel like This really drives home what pieces of garbage celebrities can be Even when they're getting paid really well To do a job. They're just unprofessional sometimes, you know Certain celebrities get to a point where their ego just gets way too large And they feel like they're allowed to do whatever But then it's also the fault of these studios directors whoever they don't then allow them to do that It's ridiculous. They become these monsters just maniacal Things just spiral further and further out of control which you know generates a lot of interest for the documentary It's great for the documentary how insane it is, but if you're Looking at things from the Richard Stanley point of view, it's just it makes you feel worse and worse as the film goes on Um, and the last thing about the actual film events is it's crazy to know that Richard Stanley after being fired Actually ended up being in the film in some to some degree as the dog man Extra Which I just like that little twist in everything is probably the most compelling interesting thing about it And I love his kind of statement about going from being like the doctor barotype character Who was the creator and everything and then ending up the dog man who was the creation and I thought that was cool Uh, so my closing thoughts on this film I feel like new line put Put a lot on stanley without actually knowing him as a person and knowing how he operates as a director Then kilmer and brando walked all over him and he didn't know how to deal with them Which threw him off of his vision Actually, I don't think brando even had shown up yet Until frankenheimer took over so yeah kilmer at least Yeah Unfortunately, hollywood does destroy some some directors like this In this instance, like I was saying, I think it was a mixture of intentional unintentional and You know just wacky things that happen like that giant hurricane that messed some things up too But I would say one of the stories to look into it didn't fully destroy the person But it definitely did mess up their trajectory of their career Xavier yens who became known to hollywood from his film frontiers They did which was part of the french extreme Movement of horror films He was brought into hollywood and he directed that movie hitman with i think timothy oliphant in it He shot it to be an r-rated film Then the studio told him oh, we need this to be a pg-13 And he was like I did I I shot it as an r. You didn't tell me it need to be a pg-13 I shot this as an r. This is my vision. This is my film. So they gave the footage To an outside party to cut it down to a pg-13 film And it sucked and yens walked away from it and said this is not my film. I want my name taken off of it and you know Things like that happen in hollywood and it sucks and and this documentary further Exemplifies how things can get screwed up and how people's careers can get screwed because of this type of stuff so hollywood There's a lot of problems with it, but anyway this documentary done well shot very well for the most part There were a few moments where the interviews with bob shea the lighting got it got really dark excessively dark on bob shea So that's like just a little bit of a technical issue Like I said, maybe if they could have cut down a little bit of richard stanley talking Would have been nice, but um, i'm not sure they really could do that And but overall good really well put together the pacing is really good. It doesn't feel too long or anything They covered the topic quite well. So I quite enjoyed it. Um It's not perfect or anything. Um, they might have been able to cut it down just a little bit Now they might have actually been able to add some I enjoyed it, but So out of five stars with uh, half stars in play I'm gonna give a four star rating as far as the documentary goes. It's good. I enjoy it And uh, like I said, I want to see more of david gregory's stuff I'm gonna seek that out. But anyway, give me your comments down below about what your thoughts on this were Um, love to read those and do me a quick favor though hit that subscribe button Um, that's what you can do to repay me. You know, if you like any videos that I do here I'm I'm just doing it for free spending my time doing this So, um, just hit that subscribe I really do appreciate that and also hit the notification bell if you're gonna do that Because it lets you know whenever I put up a new video or when I'm doing a live stream or anything like that But regardless, thanks for checking this out and until next time keep it brutal