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This
movie is a steaming pile of CRAP. Frankenstein's
castle is full of feces, not freaks. That being
said, if you get your kicks by watching a dwarf
fondling a captive woman's naked breasts then
this flick's for you. It's the most unsavory moment
of the film made even more sordid by the fact
that the malignant midget Genz is played by Michael
Dunn (The Wild Wild West's Dr. Loveless),
a fine actor sadly debasing himself at the end
of his career. Also in visible decline is washed
up Italian leading man Rossano Brazzi (South
Pacific),
playing "Count" Frankenstein, who a
decade later could still be found scraping the
bottom of the schlock barrel (Final
Justice
with Joe Don Baker).
Count Frankenstein's daughter Maria (Simone Blondell)
returns to the castle of her widowed father, bringing
along her friend Krista (Christiane Royce), a
hot-looking blonde and 19th Century science student
with a '70s hair style. It's not long before young
Krista and the sixty-something Count are making
goo goo eyes at each other. (Yes, it's revolting...
the only true "horror" in the film!) Smitten,
the Count shows off his latest experiment to her:
he's reanimating the body of a pointy-headed Neanderthal
man one who was recently killed by frightened
villagers. It seems that prehistoric cavemen wandering
about this part of Europe was fairly common in
the 1800s. The Count has dubbed his new creation
Goliath. Krista is impressed with her new sugar
daddy's lab research and wants to lend a hand.
But Count Frankenstein isn't giving her all the
details. Until recently he's been assisted by
his servant Genz, a grave robbing dwarf whom the
film suggests is into necrophilia. Genz gets careless
one night, leaving a Munchkin-sized footprint
at the scene of the latest corpse snatching. Frankenstein
angrily banishes him from the castle for his clumsiness;
Genz whimpers pathetically then swears revenge.
Soon the local authorities are sniffing around
the castle. The Count wards them off by explaining
that Genz's employment had been recently terminated,
his whereabouts unknown.
Genz has found a new home very close to the
castle, however, in a cavern that houses a hot
mineral spring where Krista and Maria like to
skinny-dip together. (Lucky him.) He also finds
a new friend Ook, another Neanderthal man who
roams the countryside. Genz and Ook team up to
kidnap, then rape and kill (or is it the other
way 'round?), local farm girls. As the sleazy
dwarf plots his revenge against Frankenstein,
the Count's experiments on Goliath continue. The
villagers get restless. Naturally, Goliath and
Ook end up in a battle of the monsters (and quite
an underwhelming one at that). Frankenstein gets
his comeuppance. Genz, oddly, gets away. And you
will have blown 90 minutes of your life.
There are a couple of good
howlers in this flick the angry villager dressed
in jeans and casual shirt is fun to spot, while
Goliath's glued on papier-mβchι pinhead is fairly
amusing. But it doesn't contain enough nuggets
of unintentional humor to rise above the gutter.
Frankenstein's
Castle of Freaks
is mainly just bargain basement trash. The only
thing that could've helped would have been more
skinny-dipping. Lots more.
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