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Rating: 
Summary: A unique film!
Review: Devotees of the horror genre must see this film!
Rating:
Summary: interesting and not so bad as the say
Review: Just seen this DVD..., i happened upon this title searching information about Xiro Papas and Frankenstein 80... If Frankenstein 80 is REALLY REALLY BAD, I think Castle Freaks is much better... i mean: lighting is sometimes good, editing is made by someone with minimum talent, and directig and performings are equally apropiate for this kind of movie. These things doesnt mean this was a good movie..., but it deserves one viewing at least. When you see it, you got the feeeling that the guys WANTED to do a creditable job..., and here the value is. Moreover, movies like Dracula VS Frankenstein(Adamson) are REALLY BAD( altough i love this title) and got a hit status and this one is able to make you feel sick or sad..., and it is almost unknown...Watching Castle Freaks will leave you with a bitter taste... i dont know exactly why, but i felt it...
Now watch how are portrayed the "freaks" specially the dwarf and the monster(Ewing)... dont you feel something unhappy???Enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: Frankenstein¿s odd bedfellows
Review: Nineteenth Century Italy is beset by attacks from Neanderthal men living in a cave- when the villagers manage to overpower one of them, beating him to death Count Frankenstein uses the body for experiments. A quick shave and a brain-transplant later and the Neanderthal man is transformed into a monster called Goliath complete with goofy Hong-Kong Phooey hair. Grave robbing is specialised in by Frankenstein's '..., a randy hunchback, a misfit butler, a man in a black hat and Genz the evil dwarf (Michael Dunn). The thorn in Frankenstein's side, Genz is always getting into trouble, and eventually is thrown out of castle Frankenstein. Vowing 'I'll get my revenge on Doctor Frankenstein' Genz befriends local Neanderthal Ook ('Boris Lugosi'/Salvatore Baccaro). And with Ook the brawn to his brains the dwarf embarks on a second career as a ..., for when he's not spying on people undressing, he has his Neanderthal right hand man abduct village girls and take them back to a cave. The villagers already planning to storm Castle Frankenstein when dead girls go missing ('I'd go with you myself if I wasn't so crippled' moans one have-a-go villager) become even more enraged when live ones start to disappear as well, and the torch waving mob are only kept at bay by Edmund Purdom's Prefect of police who does his best to sustain law and order. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks is an uncharacteristic slice of Italian horror, in that it seems more influenced by the old Universal horror films and the peek-a-boo ... of American ...-cuties than anything coming out of Italy at the time. No combination like that could be completely without interest but Frankenstein's Castle never quite lives up to its potential (or its English language title) and is crippled by slow pacing and too much dead air in-between brain-transplants and wench worrying. Veterans Edmund Purdom and Rossano Brazzi both look to be fighting back the boredom as the Prefect and Count Frankenstein. Brazzi makes for an uncharismatic, unenthusiastic Frankenstein and when Purdom's character remarks 'I just don't understand this kind of madness' you can't help wondering the actor's reaction to the script was any different. Even less swinging times were had by Xiro Papas and Michael Dunn- both of whom passed away after acting in Frankenstein's Castle. Dunn who wasn't actually a dwarf per se (he suffered from a childhood disease that causes bones to become severely arthritic) appears to have spent the final years of his life travelling the world and appearing in the most offbeat movies you could imagine. He popped up in the UK (The Mutations), France (Too Small My Friend), Spain (House of the Damned) before this stop-off in Italy. Of all these films Frankenstein's Castle offers Dunn his largest role, but bigger was certainly not better with Genz portrayed as the textbook evil dwarf, forever ogling the women, being manhandled by the rest of the cast and called a 'miserable little worm'. To add insult to injury while Purdom and Brazzi dub their own voices Oklahoma born Dunn is dubbed by someone putting on a 'squeaky' voice that robs him of any posthumous dignity.
The token/Pseudonymous nature of the credits has always made the identities of the people behind Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks hard to determine. The Something Weird/Image DVD claims that director 'Robert. H. Oliver' is really the late exploitation movie mogul/producer Dick Randall. Hmmm..... Unquestionably Randall's money, business sense and second-hand car-salesman mentality made the world of exploitation films a more colourful place as his productions like The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield, King of Kong Island (both 1968), The Bogeyman and the French Murders (1972), Pieces (1981) and dozens more illustrate- but Randall's involvement with the creative side of filmmaking is more arguable. A year or so ago I asked director Mel Welles about Randall's involvement with his film Lady Frankenstein, and while Randall was crucial in setting that film up he had minimal on-set involvement... so I'm slightly sceptical he ever directed a film. Randall probably had some involvement with Frankenstein's Castle, but more likely candidates to be the man behind the camera are co-writer William Rose who also directed the Randall-produced Girl in Room 2A or DP Mario Mancini who made the wonderfully tacky Frankenstein 80.
With nothing by way of an audio commentary (most of the cast/crew mentioned are either dead or M.I.A) or the informative sleeve notes you'll find on their releases of Bloody Pit of Horror and Horrors of Spider Island, the Something Weird DVD isn't about to shed light on this mystery production but it does do the film justice. Presented full-screen with crystal clear quality the film looks like it could have been shot yesterday, something that can't be said of the film's tape incarnations over the years.
Of the extras only one relates to the feature (the original US trailer) the others are shorts that share Frankenstein's Castle's themes (gratuitous nudity, man made monsters). 'The Monster and the Maiden' is a B/W ... short from Sonny Amusements with the mildly entertaining spin that a ... stage-bound act is interrupted by the Frankenstein monster who rises from his coffin and eventually has to be dragged off-stage by the girl. While in 'Frankenstein and the Naughty Nurse', Dr.Frankenstein leaves his monster tied to a table with a leggy nurse for company. And because 'there's a man laying there, even if he is a monster' the nurse decides to pass the time by ... to easy listening music 'after all plenty of girls ... for middle-aged industrial magnates who are uglier than he is'. All in all, it's hard to completely dislike a film full of familiar faces, top heavy females, hunchbacks, pseudo-dwarfs and all manner of self-proclaimed cripples, but of all the Italian horror DVD's on the market, Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks isn't the one you're likely to return to on a regular basis.
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