Le Château de l'horreur

Even die-hard fans of the 60's Italian Gothic horror films of Bava, Fredda, et. al. would have to admit that those films aren't known their careful, logical plotting. But in the 1970's when these films were freed from the constraints of censorship (and good taste) and fell into the hands of less talented directors, they REALLY went off the rails, veering between downright silly and completely insane (sometimes both at the same time). And nobody suffered more during this period than Frankenstein's monster.

In this film "Count Frankenstein" (apparently he was demoted from Baron) takes time off from his building his monster to woo his busty adult daughter's even bustier friend. Meanwhile he has fired his lecherous hunchback dwarf assistant after catching him feeling up female corpses (did I mention this was originally rated PG?). The disgruntled and vengeful dwarf then does what any disgruntled, vengeful dwarf would do in a movie like this--he finds a group of Neanderthal men living in a nearby cave and befriends a particularly large one named "Oog". The pair plot their revenge (although not before taking time off to watch the Count's daughter and her friend skinny-dipping). As you might imagine the end is a ridiculous battle between caveman and Frankenstein's monster.

This film is similar to "Lady Frankenstein" but not as good. Lead Rossano "South Pacific" Brazzi is frankly not as good of actor as Rosalba Neri/Sara Bay (he probably doesn't look as good naked either, but fortunately we never find out). It also doesn't compare to "Flesh for Frankenstein" lacking that film's self-consciously artistic NYC irony, but all these Italian Frankenstein films are similar enough to give lie to claims of "F. for F." co-director Paul Morrisey (the guy who replaced the tripod in Andy Warhol's home movies) that his Italian collaborators made no significant contribution to that film. On the other hand, this movie is better than "Frankenstein '80" (although its PG rating precludes the rape-by-Frankenstein's-monster angle of that one). It's also better I than "Frankenstein All'Italia" (I'm not sure though since that one's only available in Italian, and I only watched it because of my strange crush on the late, obscure Italian actress Jenny Tamburi). As Italian Gothic Frankenstein sex movies go than, this one is fair to middling. You can take that as as a recommendation or not.

Count Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi, best known as the star of the screen version of SOUTH PACIFIC) is busy at work at his castle home, sending out his gravediggers to get corpses for his experiments, and tinkering around with a tied-up cave man named Goliath (check out that unibrow). The doc's beautiful daughter Maria (played by "Simone Blondell") shows up with her fiance Eric (Eric Mann) and friend Krista (Christiane Royce aka Rucker) whom the count takes a liking to. One of his assistants is the dwarf Genz (3'4" Michael Dunn), a real sick-o type who fondles dead bodies, spies on the women bathing and having sex, and is eventually kicked out on the castle. He teams up with Ook (Boris Lugosi aka Salvatore Baccaro), yet another cave-dwelling Neanderthal man outcast, and the two plot to get back at the doctor. In one scene the duo kidnap a girl from town, tie her up, rape and kill her. Genz tells Ook, "I'm going to teach you the pleasures of life!" Meanwhile, Goliath (Loren Ewing) escapes and starts killing and townspeople with torches show up for the finale.

Helen Keller must have been serving on the MPAA ratings board when they gave this nudity and sickness-filled effort a PG rating. All in all though, it's a pretty silly combo of tried and true exploitation elements from the period and nothing much surprising happens.

Score: 3 out of 10

This is a mishmash of old Universal horror cliches done up European style by the notorious Dick Randall, who is known for marrying Jayne Mansfield and producing a string of wildly eccentric exploitation films mostly in Europe. This movie has a horny dwarf, a Neanderthal man in feather boots played an actor calling himself Boris Lugosi(!) and a Frankenstein monster who looks like Bozo the Clown. And it's always fun for fans of Eurotrash cinema to spot regulars like Gordon Mitchell and Luciano Pigozzi giving it their all. This Gothic goofiness should satisfy all fans of 70s Eurohorror.

With a trash cast consisting of Edmund '2019: After The Fall of New York' Purdom, Gordon 'Frankenstein '80' Mitchell, Luciano 'Rather a lot of films' Pigozzi and Mike 'Strike Commando' Monty, you'd come to this film expecting a lot, and leave feeling kind of let down. How can a film featuring a necrophile dwarf get it so wrong?

Well for starters it probably should have spent more time concentrating on the horror angle than all the other stuff it fannies about with in the first hour of the film. To set the scene: Count (?) Frankenstein lives in a huge castle with his band of freaks who like to do grave robbing with him, including sidekick Luciano Pigozzi, a hunchback guy who's having it off with Luciano's wife, then there's big Gordon Mitchell, and a dwarf who looks like Nicholas Cage in miniature form who gets up to all sorts of mischief, including fondling exhumed girl corpses and donking up Frankenstein's newly acquired dead Neanderthal.

These cavemen have been plaguing the countryside for ages, and the local villagers are blaming Frankenstein for that and the girl's body going missing. It's up to Edmund Purdom as local policeman to sort all that out. Plus, just to increase the cast and pad out the film more, Frankenstein's daughter, boyfriend and her top heavy pal come to visit, which gives the film and excuse for nudity and most of the staff of the house peeking in on naked ladies (through the eyes of a portrait, naturally).

The plot trundles along lamely while we watch Luciano Pigozzi scheme against the dwarf, and the dwarf gets exiled and ends up shacking up with another Neanderthal, played by The Beast from The Beast In Heat, a man who has no need for make up to play either. The movie then concentrates on the more important plot points like whether or not rabbit should be eaten raw or cooked. I suppose some skinny dipping does keep from falling asleep, mind you.

Things are all gearing up for a Neanderthal Frankenstein monster versus regular Neanderthal battle at the end, but the film completely forgets to include any horror, unless savage throttling counts as horror. Worse still, Gordon Mitchell is barely in it and has nothing much to do, and although Luciano Pigozzi at least stands out as the scheming servant, Edmund Purdom just sort of runs around pointing at the things.

Not the best Gothic horror then. Shame. It's too well made to be stupid in that sense either.

FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS is a genuine howler of a movie, an Italian "Sexy Horror" thriller made at the tail-end of the Euro Horror explosion and sleazy to a very enjoyable tee. Rossano Brazzi plays "Count Frankenstein", carrying on the family traditions of monster making using spare parts dug up from the local cemetery by his goon squad of misshapen, demented assistants. When the boneyard runs short of choice pickings he is not adversed to using the freshly murdered corpses of various supporting cast members.

The main thing to recommend this movie is it's audacity and utterly bizarre cacophony of weirdness that it hurls at the viewer. Almost nothing in the film is done in good taste, the assault on one's sense of propriety topped off by a scene where a mutated Neanderthal type & the lab midget kidnap a buxom young lass, tie her up, and enjoy the fruits of their labors. The film bombards viewers with a seemingly endless array of nude female bodies undressing, bathing, skinny dipping, and being ravished by the various goons in the gallery.

Little Person performer Michael Dunn -- best known for playing little Alexander on that weird STAR TREK episode with the telekinetic Platonians -- steals the show as the horny, vengeance minded dwarf. But the cast is actually filled with some top ranked Euro Genre talent: Luciano Pigozzi (best known for his work with Antonio Margheriti), frequent Euro Horror monster Xiro Papas, the always mousy Edmund Purdom, sexy Simone Blondell, and most fascinatingly Gladiator/Muscleman Matinée Idol Gordon Mitchell, who probably helped to finance the movie once the market for Spaghetti Westerns dried up.

I mean look, what can you say about a movie titled FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS?? It's smutty, sleazy, non-pornographic monster movie mayhem, with a heavy emphasis on atmosphere & fleshy thrills over any sense of coherency. There's a Frankenstein monster (albeit without the Universal makeup look: Get over it, Frankenstein's monster can look any way someone wants), the sex-crazed dwarf, the Neanderthal (played by one Salvatore Baccaro, billed here as Boris Lugosi but best remembered by fans of Italo Sleaze as MONKEYBOY!! from Luigi Batzella's BEAST IN HEAT), women taking hot sauna baths together, some interesting gore effects, and drippings of Euro Horror atmosphere. The complete lack of morals sets it on a different plane than the Hammer horror films that it apes, but it's all in good fun, the low budget making it seem all the more patently absurd.

The reason why I call it a "howler" is that it's practically impossible to keep a straight face while watching a movie like this. One ends up howling with laughter not so much at how "bad" it is but how absurd the whole concoction seems. You also can't make 'em like this anymore, there is zero political correctness to be found, the attractive young women are all objectified into sex mavens and Count Frankenstein is mean to the little dwarf. If you can suspend your insistence on big-budget entertainment this is actually a sick, riotous little time killer that should make a fantastic party movie, provided of course all of your friends are a little sick.

6/10 for having the nerve to show it to us.