Dr. Moreau's House of Pain (2004)
* (out of 4)
Eric Carson (John Patrick Jordan) goes looking for his brother who has gone missing after visiting Dr. Moreau (Jacob Witkin). Pretty soon he sees the horrible creations caused by the doctor as well as getting lucky with the sexy panther woman (Lorielle New).
DR. MOREAU'S HOUSE OF PAIN is pretty much what you'd expect out of a low-budget movie from Charles Band. If you're familiar with Band's work then you should know what to expect here. You've basically got a very low-budget movie that is "borrowing" from countless other films. Obviously this one here is a take-off on the H.W. Wells but one shouldn't be expecting anything like previous versions of the story.
The film's small budget seems to have had most of the money spent on the actual look of the film. It's quite colorful and I must admit that it looked rather good. The biggest problem with the film is its overall tone, which is just bad and not all that entertaining. Even worse are some of the special effects and the creatures just aren't all that believable. Even worse is that you really just don't care about the lead character, his brother or any of his problems.
I will say that the one saving grace was the performance by New. Obviously she's a very beautiful woman and her nude scenes are a welcome but I thought she was also good in the role.
