Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain (2004) – A Movie A Day 2021 #36
Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain (2004) – A Movie A Day 2021 #36
Continuing (and maybe ending) my loosely-linked movie watching streak, today’s flick pick features one of the stars and the director from yesterday’s movie. Charles Band, a prolific director and producer of low budget movies and the creator of Full Moon Features, directed Decadent Evil as well as today’s movie, and Debra Mayer, the master vampire Morella from Decadent Evil, plays a plucky news reporter named Mary Anne in today’s feature. And so, without any further ado, today I’ll be writing about Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain, a strangely fun movie with blood and gore, mad scientists, and manimals. Yeah, manimals.
A title like Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain tells you a few things without even seeing a single frame of the film. First, the “Dr. Moreau’s” part of the title tells you that the movie will have at least some passing resemblance to H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau or any of its many adaptations. I’ve never read the novel, and I can’t remember seeing any of its adaptations all the way through, but I understand there are human/animal hybrids in it. Judging by Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain, I imagine that’s all the writer of the movie knew about the original novel as well.
The second half of the title, House of Pain, tells you that this is probably going to be a violent movie without a whole lot in the way of subtext or symbolism. I suppose you could also gather that information knowing that this is a Full Moon movie directed by Charles Band, but even if you didn’t know that (which I didn’t when I first came across the movie), the title still instills a sense of lurid shallowness. Once again, after watching the movie, the title is spot on.
And together “Dr. Moreau’s” and “House of Pain” tell you that you’re in for some b-movie campiness and cheesiness if you decide to watch it. I made that decision, and I definitely got what was promised. I think I even enjoyed it more than Decadent Evil.
Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain is set sometime in or around the 1940s, and it follows a guy named Eric, his best friend Mary Anne, and his brother’s ex-girlfriend, Judith, as they search for Eric’s missing brother. A quick trip to the local strip joint gives Eric a lead in his search. Eric follows a stripper, Alliana, whom his brother apparently had the hots for. Before Eric can ask Alliana any questions, he sees her punch her hand straight through some guy’s head for trying to force himself on her. Eric, Mary Anne, and Judith follow the woman to a huge house on the outskirts of town, and inside they discover, naturally, Dr. Moreau’s house of pain.
Eric, Mary Anne, and Judith are quickly taken prisoner, and the movie follows their efforts to try to escape with their lives and all of their body parts. See, Dr. Moreau is back from his island vacation, and he’s now being forced to repeatedly operate to try to turn some of his hideous creations into normal humans. There’s a short pig man named Gallagher, a huge panther (or something) man named PeeWee, and a fish woman named Gorgana. Gorgana is the daughter of Pak, Dr. Moreau’s former assistant who now forces Moreau to keep working until he fixes his daughter. And there’s also Alliana, a beautiful and deadly creation that looks like a human, but has enhanced strength and a huge mean streak. There is a whole bunch of drama between all the members of the house of pain, but the real focus of the story is seeing if Eric, Mary Anne, and Judith can escape before they end up next on the mad doctor’s operating table. Or worse. It get worse, but I’ll let you experience that if you decide to watch.
The movie is full of camp and cheese. Whether that’s good or not is up to your personal cheese tolerance, but I enjoyed it. The pseudo-1940s dialogue felt really cumbersome in the first few scenes, but after a while I started to find the stilted lines kind of charming. I mean, when I see a pig man spouting flowery soliloquies at people chained up in a cage, I can’t help but enjoy it on some level.
Dr. Moreau’s House of Pain is all about brightly colored, tilted camera, monstery goodness built on a base of ridiculous drama with a bit of nudity every so often for variety. I liked it fine. Am I being too forgiving? Maybe. The continuity is often laughable, the plot is stretched to its breaking point just so the movie can get to where the next scene needs to be, and lots of character moments just don’t make sense. But as a mindless way to spend 71 minutes of my life, I can think of worse things.
As a parting thought, the poster artwork for the movie is fantastic. That’s really what made me choose this movie over anything else. Also, I know the movie is going to be 17 years old this year, but I’d like to see a sequel with some new manimals (that’s Dr. Moreau’s word, not mine). Not to spoil anything, but lots of things die in this movie, so the sequel will need new human/animal hybrids. I would like to suggest half shark alligator half man, and I would like Dr. Octagon to write the dialogue for the film. If you’re unfamiliar with these references, please enjoy the following song.