Edward Prendick, a young naturalist, is shipwrecked on the Pacific island where Doctor Moreau, once-famous vivisector, is "humanizing" animals. Strange newly-moulded creatures inhabit the island and some have been made into Beast Men, able to think and speak. Moreau, his drunken assistant Montgomery and Prendick are the only true humans - their greatest fear that one day the Beast Men will taste blood ...