10 Freakiest Mad Scientists In Cinema

10. Dr. Moreau - Island Of Lost Souls (1932), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), The Island Of Dr. Moreau (1996)

The mysterious antagonist of H.G. Wells€™ 1896 novel The Island Of Doctor Moreau, the story has been adapted to cinema no less than six times. A vivisectionist with a chequered past, notorious physiologist Doctor Moreau now lives in secret with his assistance Montgomery and the results of his experimentation on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific. His obsession is with the transformation of beasts into a more human form: why, exactly, is a little unclear. To that end, he€™s devised a system of checks and balances to prevent his bestial creations from harming him or ruining his life€™s work, crafting a system of ethics that he enforces by fear and intimidation. Moreau is a classic mad scientist of the introverted type: not for him the posturing of world-conquering megalomaniacs, for the most part he merely wishes to be left alone to conduct his horrifying, unethical studies in peace. He€™s not above using humans in his foul research should they interfere, however€ In each of the three major film adaptations of Wells€™ novel, Moreau €“ played by Charles Laughton, Burt Lancaster and Marlon Brando, respectively €“ has his work interrupted by the shipwrecked protagonist, whose presence is sufficient to upset the careful balance of power on the island between scientist-father and beast-children, leading to Moreau€™s death at the hands of the subjects of his experimentation. Given that each of the films€™ heroes is a different iteration, separated by decades, of the same shipwrecked interloper that appears, destroys and then leaves, there€™s a theory that states that Moreau€™s island is in a perpetual state of reset. Something about the island itself will not allow change: after each damaging interference Moreau is somehow resurrected, left alone to continue his doomed research, forever the head of a family of abominations€