Island of Lost Souls (1933) is a truly perverse film and was recognized as perverse almost as soon as it was released. On Dr. Moreau's island there are some "strange looking natives."
The hyper-talented Charles Laughton portrays Dr, Moreau, who has created a tribe of animal-men who worship him as their God. He rules his subjects with an iron hand, always with the threat of returning them to The House of Pain, where he performed brutal unanesthetized surgeries on the island's animals to transform them into "men." He has deputized the Sayer of the Law (Bela Lugosi) to remind his "men" of the three laws: "Not to run on all fours. Not to eat meat. Not to spill blood."
This was bad enough, but then the real fun starts: Moreau attempts to spark a love match between a shipwrecked man and one of his "girls" named Lota (the beautiful Kathleen Burke), who began her existence as a panther.
This film was more than controversial. Remember that this was 1933. The film hints at brutality, sadism, animal abuse, torture, human-animal sexuality, unprincipled science run amok, and a man who has basically made himself into God the Creator. Add to this the fact that Laughton clearly portrays Moreau as a soft, self-pampering homosexual.
Moreau's world begins to fall apart when his subjects ask the question, "Are we not men?"
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