CINEMATIC TITANIC'S FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS REVIEW

[Andrea Speed]

Reviewer: Andrea Speed andy@comixtreme.com
Quick Rating: Very Good

An early '70's Gothic horror film is viewed this time out, and what a steaming pile of film it is.

Starring & Written By: Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, J. Elvis Weinstein
Directed By: Stoney Sharp & Tim Ford
Distributor: Cinematic Titanic


What an awful film. Awful in a good MST3K (or in this case, Cinematic Titanic) way. I think they've found their groove with the type of movies they are good with, although who couldn't be funny with this film? It's just bloody godawful in just about every measurement you could come up with. Poorly made, poorly acted, poorly written, poorly dubbed, it's just appalling. It's so bad you'd think it'd have an odor, like mildewed library book and mothballs. There's wonderfully sexist, exploitative elements to it as well.

Basically, Frankenstein lives in a sinister castle (well, he wouldn't be living in a bouncy castle, would he?) with a poorly made up hunchback, a dwarf, and other assorted “freaks”, including a voyeur and a masochistic woman. Meanwhile, his daughter and future son in law come to visit, bringing a hot blonde with them for no obvious reason (except to get naked and be menaced), and there are cavemen (?) running around the countryside, not to mention grave robbing that the brilliant local inspector doesn't at all connect to Frankenstein. To call the movie thoroughly loathsome doesn't even begin to describe this embarrassingly amateurish rip off of far superior Hammer horror films. (Yes, even the sucky ones are better than this.) Perversely, I enjoyed it immensely. It's like there was a committee put together to make a list of the things that would make for a truly horrible movie, and then someone filmed it. There's even a needless flashback to the beginning of the film, which wasn't that good the first time around. Stuff happens, somehow both randomly and predictably. There are several good laughs here, and while the “breast blimp” is an obvious joke (it floats in to hide the nudity, all of which is breast based – sorry guys), it's still pretty funny to have a zeppelin just drift in and hide the hot girl.

Maybe it was just my mood upon viewing this, but I think this is their best one to date (I know I said that last time, but I'm updating). It helps that there isn't a single good thing about this film; it all sucks in a loud, obvious way. Even the pacing of this film is horrible, and the music doesn't help either, but the bad fight scenes near the end of the film left me howling. And it ends with a message! How awesomely idiotic of them. It's not the screamer that “They tampered in God's domain” was in Bride of the Monster, but it isn't fair to compare anyone to Ed Wood, the master of inappropriate movie morals.

I should warn some people that while the nudity is blocked, there is at least one bad word, and certain themes and references that probably aren't appropriate for kids. But it's a good one for lovers of ridiculously bad films everywhere.