GamerTab
That was an excellent one.
mraculeated
The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.
Myron Clemons
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Leoni Haney
Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
jacobjohntaylor1
This is better then the original Frankenstein. Most you probably never saw the original Frankenstein. It a silent movie from 1910 that is twelve minutes long. The 1931 version of Frankenstein is better. It has better actors. It also has a better story line. It is scarier. But still this a good movie. Something that as the same story line as the book Frankenstein and has some nudity does not make it porn. It is not porn. This is an i.t.a.l.i.a.n movie. And you are forgetting i.t.a.l.i.a.n.s are very lead back about nudity a lot more then some countries are. This movie is pretty scary. The acting is pretty good. And the story line is great. If you like really scary movies then you should see this movie.
BaronBl00d
This is a major, I mean MAJOR guilty pleasure for me. The film is sick, twisted, depraved, and barely a horror film at all! Yet, I liked it...and, yes, I feel somewhat ashamed. But how can you go wrong with a voyeuristic, demonicly repulsive dwarf who fondles the breast of a dead girl or teaches a hulking caveman to have his first sexual liaison with a girl they kidnap for that sole purpose(BTW - he "kills" her with his girth!). Or that same caveman hulking about with his unibrow and eating raw flesh and coming basically from nowhere? how about the hunchbacked assistant Kreegin who is having an affair with Hans the butler's wife. She likes it VERY rough - pain kinda-stuff. Then there is Hans who is a sadist. Let's not forget Goliath the other hulking man who now has a new brain. This array of characters is quite ridiculous. It is cinematic nonsense, but this film is Euro-trash at its sleaziest best. Dick Randall(under the name Robert Oliver) directs the film - really is is his one big directorial job, but he produced many similar projects and wrote the screenplays for movies like Pieces, Lady Frankenstein, and The Mad Butcher(this film has the same feel of that one the most). He is going for sleaze, and boy does he find it. The monsters are really secondary to the sexual themes, scenes, fetishes, etc that abound. And then we have Rossani Brazzi as Count Frankenstein...not Baron but count. Really? There are also the two lovely, and I mean absolutely drop-dead lovely female leads who show us much of their acting "attributes" quite freely particularly when bathing in a warm mud pit of some kind. One is the Count's daughter - beautiful blonde Simonetta Vitelli. Hot! Then there is her friend Kris who falls in love with the Count and has both cavemen - Ook and Goliath - on her like white on rice. She is even hotter and played by Christiane Rucker. Where are the horror elements? They really are not there. Brazzi is OK, the girls really don't need to act, and the rest seem like they are happy to be acting in anything though some are fairly well-known like Luciano Pigozzi(the Peter Lorre of Italy) playing Hans or Italian sword and sandal strongman Gordon Mitchell playing Igor or cult favorite Xiro Papas as the revolting Kreegin or classy Edmund Prudhom as the prefect. Then there is Michael Dunn in all his sick glory as the conniving dwarf. Dunn can play this type so well. The sets are fairly impressive for a film like this, but the dubbing is excruciatingly bad. Again, this is not for everyone. It really isn't a horror picture but more of an exploitation picture that only could have been made in the 70s. Once again I reiterate this is my favorite decade for films. People could make what they wanted the way they wanted. I saw this as part of Elvira's Movie Macabre collection. She helps it as well with her bounteous "presence" or presents depending on how you look at it. She also has some great lines to go with what is going on in the movie.
ferbs54
It really is something, what some erstwhile big-name actors will do to continue plying their craft and collect some lira! Case in point, the 1974 horror shlockfest "Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks," starring two such former matinée stars, here slumming for a paycheck. In the film, Rossano Brazzi, who had earlier starred in such wonderful pictures as "The Barefoot Contessa," "Summertime" and "South Pacific," plays Count Frankenstein (not the usual Baron; is this a promotion or a demotion? Someone, please check the comparative rankings of 19th century German nobility and find out!). When we first encounter him, the Count has just brought back to life a recently murdered Neanderthal (!) using the brain of a local village girl. When the Count evicts his dwarf servant Genz from the castle for some minor infractions, the little person marches off into the hills and finds a caveman of his own, who he christens Ook, and who he decides to use to take vengeance upon the Count, leading to a true clash of the titans: a living Neanderthal vs. a Neanderthal Frankenstein (who resembles nothing less than The Three Stooges' Larry Fine on steroids!). Fortunately, Genz is portrayed by perhaps the most revered little-person actor in screen history, Michael Dunn, himself demoted here after having appeared in such career-defining roles as the (Oscar-nominated) observer in "Ship of Fools" and Alexander in the 11/22/68 episode of "Star Trek," "Plato's Stepchildren." Anyway, while no one in his or her right mind would ever call the resulting production a "good film," and while it is easy enough to make fun of derivative exploitation fare such as this, "Castle of Freaks" yet manages to keep the viewer slack jawed and entertained. It features an oddball assortment of grotesque characters (the three aforementioned, plus a lusty hunchback) and occasional (what Radar O'Reilly would call) nudidity, courtesy of the Count's daughter (Simone Blondell) and friend Krista (who joins the Count in his studies, and is played by the yummy Christiane Royce) going skinny-dipping in Ook's cavern. The production values in the film are surprisingly decent, the Count's castle having a convincingly moldering elegance; the direction by "Robert H. Oliver" (in actuality, exploitation producer Dick Randall) is...well, let's just say that he gets the job done; and the musical score by Marcello Gigante, largely electronic, is truly outre. In all, a surprisingly engaging piece of Euroshlock. Oh...the DVD that I just watched, from Shout Factory, looks fairly damaged in sections but at least sports some nice bright colors. My psychotronic guru, Rob, tells me that the Something Weird DVD looks a whole lot better....
Paul Andrews
Terror! Il Castello delle donne Maledette, or Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, Frankenstein's Castle, Monsters of Frankenstein or The House of Freaks as it's also known under amongst other deceptively lurid titles, starts as Maria Frankenstien (Simonetta Vitelli), her fiancé Eric (Eric Mann) & her friend Krista (Christiane Rucker) arrive at her childhood home the Frankenstein Castle. There they are greeted by Maria's father Count Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi) who has been conducting experiments on local Neanderthal cavemen, throw in some grave robbing, some mild nudity, a hunchback & a dwarf & you have a mess of a film with virtually no plot...This Italian production was directed by Robert Oliver & is total crap. The script by Mario Francini, William Rose, Mark Smith & Roberto Spano (it took four people to write a film this bad?) is a mess, there's no recognisable coherent storyline in it & it just seems a loosely connected series of incidents & character's which makes for a very tedious 90 odd minutes. The Frankenstein character is present in this film in name only as he doesn't stitch any body parts together, he doesn't play about with any brains or 'create' a creature. I have no idea what the thinking behind the Neanderthal cavemen are all about, it's just plain odd & throw in stupid annoying dwarf into the mix & one has to wonder what the makers of this nonsense were thinking. Was this meant to be a comedy? If it was it isn't funny apart from the hilarious English dubbed dialogue. Is it meant to be scary? Well, it's not scary at all & has virtually no horror elements that I see. Other than either horror or comedy I can't see what else the makers were trying to do with this film & since it fails miserably at both I wasn't impressed.Terror! Il Castello delle donne Maledette is a mess of underdeveloped ideas that go nowhere & awful character's. Despite it's many lurid & exploitative English titles this is very tame stuff, there's some brief nudity but no blood or gore to speak of. The most exploitative it gets is when it is implied a dwarf rapes a woman, it is not shown on screen though so don't get too excited. Also, what happened to the body Frankenstein stole from the graveyard? It gets mentioned quite a few times but it's never revealed why Frankenstein stole it or what he did with it. Another problem with this film is that it is just so boring, virtually nothing happens & the photography is so bland & dull it's just a chore to sit through.Technically the film is basic with shaky & jerky camera pans & zooms, rubbish special effects & lowly production values where an entire village is represented by about seven people. Some of the interior castle scenes look quite good & are quite atmospheric but that's down to where it was shot rather than any great effort on the filmmakers part. It's hard to tell about the acting since all the cast are dubbed into English but the English voice actors are terrible & the dialogue just sounds ridiculous & fragmented.Terror! Il Castello delle donne Maledette is awful apart from some unintentionally funny moments, a decent castle setting & a few naked bodies, overall I thought it was tedious & pointless in the extreme.