the part she plays." Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times declared to be "extraordinarily bristly work" noting the "suffocating atmosphere" and the performance of Laughton as Dr. Moreau. The review concluded that the film was a "genuine shocker" that was "hard to shake off afterward. As art, it begins and ends with Charles Laughton." In New York, The New York Herald-Tribune critic declared that the film had "the quality of a hangover" while praising Laughton and described Burke's performance as possessing "a certain bewildered, sad-eyed quality that manages to be rather touching." B.M. of Brooklyn Times-Union stated that the film might suffer in comparison to films like Frankenstein, Doctor X and White Zombie. The review also praised the performance of Burke and Laughton declared that the film will "even provoke some of the more serious to speculative scientific thinking." Martin Dickstein of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle recommended the film to horror fans, stating it was "as horrifying as anything the screens have offered in months", finding that the film was "immensely thrilling, in a few spots, you will probably find it a terrible bore in others." concluding that "personally, it left us cold." "Waly." of Variety reviewed the film at the Rialto on January 11, stating that the film had good imagery and that "there are undoubtedly some horror sequences which are unrivaled", while finding the plot poor, comparing it to cheap adventure magazine stories and "grammar school mysteries". The review also praised Laughton in the role, while finding Burke to be "too much like a girl" than a proper panther-human hybrid. Mordaunt Hall reviewed the film for The New York Times declaring that "the attempt to horrify is not accomplished with any marked degree of subtlety, there is no denying that some of the scenes are ingenously fashioned and are, therefore, interesting." while praising Laughton as "the best actor in the tale" whose performance enhanced the film greatly. Retrospective From retrospective reviews, Carlos Clarens declared in his book An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967) that nothing in the film approached the climatic terror of Wells' original novel, finding its crowning achievements to be Laughton as Dr. Moreau, and the film "seldom convinces, it never bores." and that Kenton had achieved "a minor, not ineffective film." William K. Everson, writing in his book Classics of the Horror Film (1974), that Island of Lost Souls suffered from