Island of Lost Souls

I saw this for the first time at a revival theater a couple years ago. It isn't on DVD, and it must not gave gotten much play on TV (or at least I never caught it as a kid), but it's such a great movie.

This has it all. In both theme and entertainment value, it's like a combination of King Kong and Freaks. Bela Lugosi is in a very unusual role, Lota The Panther Woman is played by a very unusual person, there are scores hideous mutants being vivisected, and the movie is a major inspiration for Devo's "Jocko Homo", the official anthem of this blog.

My favorite bit of trivia from the imdb page:

To create the language of the mutants sound-man Loren L. Ryder recorded a mixture of animal sounds and foreign languages, then played them backwards at alternating speeds. The effect: the sound induced nausea and caused the audiences to vomit in the theaters.

Who knows why this isn't on video. It might have something to do with the fact that it was made by Paramount, but then purchased by Universal in the 50's, and Universal might not want product that competes with their own 1930's horror films. Or it might be the H.G. Wells estate that's in the way. But tcm.com has a petition page for every film that's not available on disc. Let yourself be heard here.

Until then, here you go: