Are We Not Menacing?

Who cuts up the lowly, untamed?
Who guts the poor souls, unashamed?
Who alters a screech
To halting, beast-speech?
This nut named Moreau's to be blamed.


Charles Laughton as Doctor Moreau in Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton; 1932).

Doctor Deranged

What kink made the doctor create her
And think some poor blockhead should date her?
Will this feline, all girl
Give a heman a whirl?
The stinky old crock should just crate her!


Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton; 1932) stars Charles Laughton as Dr. Moreau, and
Kathleen Burke as Lota, the Panther Woman.

BallyHOO BOY!

MDs in such schlock will play God 
This cheesy film doc's rather odd

The weasel's all hands 
As he seizes the glands

From pleasing pleasin' Miss Todd's rockin' bod.

Psychiatrist John Carradine is the nominal star, but curvaceous Playmate Sally Todd is all over the promotion of The Unearthly (Brook L. Peters aka Boris Petroff; 1957).

A Big Gland For the Little Lady

To this trap many victims are lured
Where the saps are made sicker, not cured
With new organs inserted
Become horrors perverted
Perhaps for such tricks they're insured?


Tor Johnson carries Sally Todd in a lobby card for The Unearthly ( Brook L. Peters aka Boris Petroff; 1957).

Rehab of the Vampire

At housing of Drac you're restored
No longer despised and abhorred.
Whatever your curse,
You'll see it reverse.
For monsters, it's like Betty Ford.

Although of the cases we've had,
Our doctor himself is quite sad.
A minor amount
Of blood from the Count
Turned him mad, I tell you! He's MAD!

Donald B. Benson

Jane Adams and John Carradine give Onslow Stevens a confusing transfusion in House of Dracula (Erle C. Kenton; 1945).

Wrist Cure

A maniac's dining on gland
Why chain the guy minus one hand?
He gets fresh and frenetic
With flesh that's synthetic
Which explains how the swine can expand.

 David Cairns

Preston Foster in Doctor X (Michael Curtiz, 1932), a twisted pre-code horror gem, eerily hued in two-strip Technicolor.

Blanket Coverage

Her trauma’s beyond all endurance
(And she may need that treatment with currents);
But the doctors’ first task
Is, as always, to ask:
“Does this cute little mite have insurance?”

Paul Truster

William Schallert and James Whitmore rescue Sandy Descher, traumatized by THEM! (Gordon Douglas; 1954).

Growth Industry

The doctor, a humanitarian,
Had approaches one might term contrarian;
His cry was ‘more meat!’
But the task had him beat
Next time, Doc, try something agrarian.

Paul Truster

Scientist Leo G. Carroll seeks a solution to world hunger in Tarantula (Jack Arnold; 1955).

Whelp Wanted

Going mad, into secrets they pry,
Create addled, sick freaks that won't die  
When the work and the gore
For these jerks proves a chore
They place ads for a sneak like D Frye.

Your friendly neighborhood mad doctor is at it again. Boris Karloff as The Monster, Dwight Frye as Fritz, and Colin Clive as the doc, Henry Frankenstein (James Whale; 1931). Title by David Cairns, wanted in North and South Dakota.

May Cause Lousiness

Mad doctors, ignore that wild notion!
Concoct not deplorable potion!
One pour of the stuff
Is more than enough
To set schlock film horrors in motion.

Fredric March as stirs up trouble in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Rouben Mamoulian; 1931). Title caused by David Cairns. Happy Halloween from the mad scientists at LimerWrecks!

Stay tuned, fright fans.. In the coming weeks we'll continue our horror theme, with limericks about the films of Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur, 1950s sci-fi monsters, Hammer Horror and more!

Doghouse of Frankenstein

He's noxiously evil and clever
Sends shocks with one squeeze of a lever
He's mad -- lost his grip -- 
Your shadow he'll snip!
It's this doctor's most fiendish endeavor.

The Mad Doctor (David Hand; 1933) is a classic Mickey Mouse cartoon co-starring Pluto. Due to its unusually scary content, at one time it was banned in the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany. Title by dog-eared Donald B. Benson.

A Pullet With His Name on It

 

Full of dread, Pluto's heart starts to quicken
Will his head become part of a chicken?
Will he nest and lay eggs?
Will his breasts, thighs and legs
Be breaded, then served "finger lickin'"?



Pluto is one half of a bizarre experiment in the memorably macabre Mickey Mouse short, The Mad Doctor (David Hand; 1933). Title by name-dropping Donald B. Benson.

Disneyland of Lost Souls

This madman's a medical nut
A baddie who's ready to cut
This sicko's a pest
With chickens obsessed
The cad tries de-heading your mutt!

Pluto is threatened by The Mad Doctor (David Hand; 1933), a very scary and eerily atmospheric Mickey Mouse cartoon. The doc's experiment: transplanting Pluto's head onto the body of a chicken.

May the Beast-Man Win

This jackal cuts out all your "flaws"
He hacks at your snouts and your paws
At each scalpel foul
You screech, yelp, and howl
But strike back when he flouts his own laws.

Doctor Moreau (Charles Laughton) and Montgomery (Arthur Hohl) operate in the "House of Pain": Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton; 1932).

Cuts Up Doc?

Disdainful of nature's selection,
Through pain he creates a collection
An island he'll rule
Through science most cruel
His reign one of hateful dissection.

Doctor Moreau (Charles Laughton) looks down on his creations: Island of the Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton; 1932).

Practice Make Perverts

His practice is far from benign
Whips cracking keep part-men in line
Sick Doctor Moreau
Concocts a freak show
This quack out-bizarres Frankenstein!

Charles Laughton as Doctor Moreau in Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton; 1932). Donald B. Benson makes funny titles.

To Moreau

Dear Doctor, your questionable work
Is shocking, distressing, berserk
You've doddered, insane
Into God's own domain
A debacle, at best, you big jerk.

David Cairns

Richard Arlen, and Charles Laughton as the sadistic Dr. Moreau in Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton, 1932). Continuing the Countdown to Halloween, a month-long celebration of creepy movies and creepier verse.

Isle Be Sewing You

If you plot a course east from Bikini
There's this spot that's policed by a meanie
So sadistic a man
Here's his twisted life plan:
Making lots of he-beasts halloweeny.

Charles Laughton is the sadistic Dr.Moreau in the decidedly pre-Code horror classic, Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton, 1932). Stay tuned to LimerWrecks for the Countdown to Halloween, our month-long celebration of spooky movies and monstrous verse.

Heavily Medic-Hated

The ladies are tempting the doc
One's shady, unkempt in her frock
The other's a pippin
But he turns to a Crippen
A jaded, contemptible crock.

David Cairns

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Rouben Mamoulian; 1931): Miriam Hopkins is prostitute Ivy Pierson, and Rose Hobart is Jekyll's fiancée Muriel Carew, the "pippin", meaning "an excellent person or thing." Hawley Harvey Crippen, known as Dr. Crippen, was a homeopath convicted of murdering his wife in 1910.

Marquee de Sade

The public will flock to this show
In scrubs they'll see Doctor Moreau
He's been making a man
Out of hake and toucan
Lion's cub, dormouse, octopus, crow.

David Cairns

Ballyhoo for Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton; 1932).