A few years back, a friend and I used to misrepresent our age in order to get into R-rated features at the local Cineplex. With fistfuls of money begged from our parents and voiced forced into an almost comedic baritone, we would hit the ticket counter with smug confidence knowing that our marks, the hapless counter people, would be fooled yet again. Having our confidence bolstered by a string of good luck that had culminated with a viewing of Peter Jackson's underrated The Frighteners, we thought nothing of the new ticket lady with her lipless slash of a mouth and impossibly tight and matronly bun. She would be another scalp for our belts, another pair of tickets sold under false pretenses. She was our key into The Crow: City of Angels (I was fifteen, leave me alone), or so we thought. No matter how we pleaded our case, with tall tales of misplaced driver's licenses and other little white lies, she wouldn't budge. Finally, she recommended a PG-13 feature: The Island of Dr. Moreau. We begrudgingly bought the tickets, not admitting defeat, even though I'm sure this evil, evil woman laughed silently as we bought tickets and walked into the darkened theatre. After all, who else but a person with a Marquis DeSade level of sadism would RECOMMEND The Island of Dr. Moreau to people? Not that The Crow: City of Angels was much better, but that's beside the point.

Two hours later, we emerged silently, casting evil glares to Ilsa, Ticket Woman Of The S.S. for destroying our dignity in the worst way possible. We watched the once great Marlon Brando reduced to a murmuring sack of jiggling flesh. We watched unnecessary grossness of beast-man orgies and six-breasted women giving birth to squealing feral babies. We watched a cast of rather solid actors shuffling around zombie-like to the puppet master whims of John Frankenheimer. We watched two hours of meandering drivel that had no point besides to cause us unbearable pain. Which makes Terror Is A Man all the more intriguing. Done almost forty years prior to Moreau, and for an infinitesimal fraction of the latter's budget, it gives a campy but effective take on H.G. Wells' tale that is sure to please old creature-feature fans.

A dinghy and its unconscious passenger wash up on a beach on Isla De Sangre (or Blood Island...dun-dun-DUN!), where the mysterious Dr. Girard is up to no good. His ultimate creation has escaped, and seems to have taken a cotton to munching on the natives. William the castaway wakes up, and learns of the beast, as well as meets the handful of other people/pieces of monster chow also living on the island. There’s the good Doctor’s beautiful but understandably upset wife Frances, a few Filipino kids/underage housekeepers, and the goonish Walter. Both Walter and William are smitten with Frances (must be her sexy torpedo bra), despite her half-assed attempts to spurn their advances. Finally, the bandage-swathed beast is captured, and William is told its true nature. Seems Girard has been slowly rebuilding a panther, through massive amounts of surgery and hormone injections, into an approximation of a man. Of course, this panther-man escapes one last time, and begins slaughtering the few remaining island inhabitants.

Most amazing to me was how competently done this movie was. While by no means an excellent film, it's a rare movie where every penny spent is up on screen clear as day. All of the actors give a hearty performance (Not necessarily GOOD, but there's some feeling), the music is decent, and production values in general are pretty decent for a B-grade feature. The scares and tension are pretty genuine, although the "horrific" cry of the panther-man sounds more like somebody sodomizing Donald Duck than a terrifying beastie. Speaking of the panther-man, his makeup is top notch, using good old fashioned prosthetics and spirit gum to excellent effect, with lots of little details that show the care that went into it (like the little kitty eyebrow hairs). The scenery is pretty nice, being filmed in the Philippines, with lots of tropical beaches and muggy jungles. As for the whole concept of the panther-man, I found it much creepier than the DNA-splicing goofiness of today. The concept of rebuilding a panther into a biped simply through cosmetic surgery, muscle and bone grafts, and other purely mechanical operations is pretty ghoulish, and much more physically imaginable. Whereas the concept of fiddling about with amino acids and chromosomes and other sundry bits its fairly inapplicable to the average Joe, everybody's had a broken bone set, or stitches, or some other operation done to existing tissue. That made the whole idea that much creepier, as it's almost feasible.

Of special note to you novelty folks is the opening message of the movie. Stating that one scene in particular is very graphic, "The Management" promises a bell that will toll, signaling the squeamish to avert their eyes from the gruesomeness on the screen. The scene in particular isn't very gory, with the beast getting a minor surgical incision from Dr. Girard. The incision was actually a real cut done in the back of a shaved pig(!) for extra realism. Had anybody attempted that now, PETA would have a collective head explosion. As it stands for a novelty in the 50's, it's decently William Castle-ish, but not as interesting as others from the heyday of B film.

Wellspring, while commendable for their release of some great old classics to DVD, needs to put a little more thought into presentation. Terror Is A Man had some amazingly uneven picture quality, from decently preserved scenes with perfect levels, to the indecipherably dark, to washed out scenes with an odd green tinge. Print damage was present at virtually all times, and there were a couple frame skips and sputters. Audio was similarly crippled, with muffled dialogue and an irritating high pitched "tinkle" noise that seemed to be there with certain rustling noises, such as leaves crunching underfoot, or the splash of the surf. Extras are slim, with a few trailers and a marginally interesting interview with infamous producer Eddie Romero. While the quality of the print may be to blame for the technical issues, I think Wellspring needs to work a little harder on their titles, as I've noticed issues like this across several of their releases, and with a 14.98 SRP, I'd expect a little more.

While it’s far from perfect, Terror Is A Man is a competent vision of The Island Of Dr. Moreau without the painfulness of the Frankenheimer remake. Its smaller scale allows for more feasible scares and a more intimate backdrop. It’s not for everybody, but if you like your atom-age horror movies a little classier, Terror Is A Man fits that bill admirably.