Watch Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks For Free

Just perfect...

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

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.

Working under the pseudonym of Robert H. Oliver, prolific exploitation producer Dick Randall has a crack at directing with the wonderfully titled Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks; although Randall's inexperience in this particular discipline is evident from the film's poor pacing and frequently awkward visuals, the final result delivers such a hefty dose of cheesy Gothic nonsense and random silliness that it's hard not to enjoy just a little bit.The daft plot throws in everything one might expect from the genre—a perverted, vengeful dwarf, a hunchbacked assistant, a mad scientist's lab, a thunder storm, buxom beauties, and villagers armed with pitchforks and flaming torches—and then goes one better by introducing Neanderthal cavemen into the mix!! Rather surprisingly, the film delivers very little in the way of gore, but Randall compensates somewhat for the lack of blood by providing exploitation fans with some sleaze instead, including frequent female nudity, voyeurism, rape, adultery, and even a spot of corpse fondling (courtesy of the deviant dwarf).

I had been wanting to view this notorious film ever since catching its trailer on the "Extra Weird Sampler" DVD from Image a couple of years ago; however, now that I have, I found the experience not nearly as rewarding in a 'so bad it's good' way as I had anticipated. With so much that is wrong here, it is almost a pity the end result is not more entertaining; in fact, I would go so far as to say this is the nadir of the Italian Gothic Horror genre! Former matinée' idol Rossano Brazzi is Count(!) Frankenstein who experiments on Neanderthal beings (apparently, they can still be found in certain European caves!) with the help of his henchmen – lecherous dwarf Michael Dunn (a long way from his Oscar-nominated role in SHIP OF FOOLS [1965]), top-hatted(!) Gordon Mitchell, Luciano Pigozzi and the obligatory hunchback (who has the hots for Pigozzi's unattractive wife)! For what it is worth, here we get the luxury of two cavemen (who naturally get to grips practically at first sight!): one has a prominent dome-shaped forehead and the other is played by an 'actor' under the hilarious assumed name of Boris Lugosi! Edmund Purdom, another veteran presence, has little of substance to do as the local Police Chief (in the classic tradition of Universal horror movies, the townsfolk are forever on the point of picking up their torches to storm the Frankenstein castle!) but he does get to utter the would-be profound closing line: "There is a bit of the monster in all of us"!! Also involved, needless to say, are two girls – one is Frankenstein's daughter (played by the attractive offspring of hack film-maker Demofilo Fidani) and the other her best friend, who catches the eye of both the Count and one of the Neanderthals! – with a penchant for skinny-dipping in the steaming waters of the caves. After being banished from the castle for setting the Police onto Frankenstein's grave-robbing antics by way of his tiny footprints, Dunn takes to the caves himself and proceeds to instruct the Lugosi character (who seems to have nothing on his mind but the profuse consumption of raw meat!) into the ways of love-making; his first attempt, however, results in the horribly mangled body of a local girl!! As I said at the start, the film is certainly among the goofiest of its kind ever made (a poor extra named Mike Monty playing a "Paisan" is even credited twice during the end credits!) but, unfortunately, not that much fun while it is on – the fact that helmer Randall was more typically employed as a producer, and whose sole directorial effort this proved to be, may have had something to do with it.

It's Italian, it's horror...but it's not very good. The movie is cheap looking and the story is just terrible. For an horror movie it certainly isn't original and the movie is severely lacking on multiple levels.Perhaps the biggest problem with the movie is that it doesn't have a real main characters. Who exactly was supposed the hero in this one? And who exactly were the good and bad guys? It makes the movie confusing and messy to watch. It also is terribly boring all, since rarely ever something interesting happens.The movie is filled with nudity and voyeurism. The movie is basically about the servants peeping on naked women and the movie doesn't focuses enough on the horror aspects of the movie.The musical score by Marcello Gigante is just plain awful and truly laughable at times.Both the editing and cinematography are also severely lacking. The movie is incredibly simple and cheap made and its horrible put together with the editing. The cinematography looks very amateur like and it seemed that they didn't used proper lighting or a focus-puller.This Italian take on the Frankenstein franchise, in which for some odd reason also Neanderthalers are involved, is a terrible one, in which basically nothing interesting ever happens.2/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/