Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks

The Italians were the kings of the Horror genre from the 60s to the 80s, and, as far as yours truly is concerned, the combination of this genre, era and country is as great as cinema can possibly get. The rise of Italian Horror/suspense cinema started with atmospheric Gothic tales (such as the brilliant films by the ultimate master Mario Bava, Antonio Margheriti and Riccardo Freda) in the late 50s and early 60s. In the 70s, a time when the Giallo genre had replaced the Gothic tale as the dominant sub-genre Italian suspense cinema, some (but by no means all) of the Italian Gothic Horror films that were still being produced were very low-budget and sleazy, but nonetheless elegant Exploitation efforts.

TERROR! IL CASTELLO DELLE DONNE MALEDETTE aka. FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS (1974) is a super-cheesy slice of 70s Italian B-movie Gothic Horror which will certainly not give anybody the creeps, but which is incredibly entertaining nonetheless. Directed by the American Dick Randall, the movie puts a lesser emphasis on the typically Italian elegance and atmosphere, and, sometimes looks more like one of the many contemporary Spanish Gothic Horror films (which is probably due to the low budget). Sleaze-fans should not be scared off by the PG rating (as according to IMDb), since this little trash gem contains plenty of female nudity, perverted characters and some very cheesy gore effects. The film doesn't take itself too seriously, and the demented characters alone make it worth a look for my fellow Euro-Exploitation fans.

Count Frankenstein (Rosanno Brazzi) lives in a castle with a bunch of freaky helpers including a necrophiliac midget, a hunch-back who has rough sex with the housekeeper when her sadistic husband (Luciano Pigozzi) is not around. His hot daughter (Simonetta Vitelli) comes to visit with her fiancé and an equally hot friend (Christiane Rücker). Both of the women have exhibitionist tendencies. What follows is a sleazy and incredibly entertaining succession of very absurd horrors.

While FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS is below-par in terms of style and elegance by the high Italian Gothic Horror standards it is still very stylish for a rather nonsensical B-Movie of the kind in international comparison. The most well-known faces in the cast are former strongman and B-movie regular Gordon Mitchell (in the role of the undertaker) and the Peter-Lorre-lookalike Luciano Pigozzi, a great supporting actor who was in all sub-genres of Italian cult-cinema, including several films by Mario Bava and Umberto Lenzi.

Overall FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS is a sleazy, very cheesy, and often unintentionally funny trash-gem that is incredibly entertaining and should not be missed by true lovers of European Trash flicks. However, one should definitely be acquainted with the many great Italian Gothic Horror films before watching fun trash like this one. For Italo-Cult buffs like myself this film is often hilarious and vastly entertaining.

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.

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.

The daughter of Dr Frankentein : Simonetta Blondell pays a visit - along with her boyfriend and a friend : Christiane Rucker- to her father Doctor Frankenstein : Rossano Brazzi. While the mean Doctor is creating a monster named Goliath : Loren Ewing. Meantime , on the contryside inhabits a Neardenthal Man : Sal Boris or Salvatore Baccaro attacking villagers , the latter befriends a nasty midget : Michael Dunn, a helper who was dismissed by Count Frankenstein and is seeking vengeance. Later on , a police inspector, the prefect Edmund Purdom is investigating the kidnap of young girls and subsequent murders.

Disjointed Psychotronic B movie with chills, thrills, nudism and disconcerting events. It results to be a mixed bag in which various monsters in Universal style are unexplainingly jointed. There shows up a Neardenthal Man, a monster named Goliath created by doctor Frankenstein, a lascivious dwarf , the ordinary hunchback, among others. All of them are reunited with no much sense and along the way causing destruction, wreak havoc and deaths. Here appears some familiar faces of the Italian B genres such as : Gordon Mitchell as Igor, Salvatore Baccaro under pseudonym Boris Lugosi , and Luciano Pigozzi nicknamed as Alan Collins considered to be the Italian Peter Lorre . The motion picture was regularly written, produced and directed by Dick Randall. He was a regular producer who financed a lot of exploitation films , such as : "Pieces" , "Supersonic Man", "Angkor Cambodia Express", "Pleasure Island" , " Slaughter High" , "The Mad Butcher" , "La Casa Della Paura" , among others . Rating 4/10.