Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette (1974) Reviews

• European monster trash cinema

  Eegah Guy2001-04-12

  This is a mishmash of old Universal horror cliches done up European style by the notorious Dick Randall, who is known for marrying Jayne Mansfield and producing a string of wildly eccentric exploitation films mostly in Europe. This movie has a horny dwarf, a Neanderthal man in feather boots played an actor calling himself Boris Lugosi(!) and a Frankenstein monster who looks like Bozo the Clown. And it's always fun for fans of Eurotrash cinema to spot regulars like Gordon Mitchell and Luciano Pigozzi giving it their all. This Gothic goofiness should satisfy all fans of 70s Eurohorror.

• Sleazefest...Inexplicably Rated PG!

  capkronos2004-02-24

  Count Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi, best known as the star of the screen version of SOUTH PACIFIC) is busy at work at his castle home, sending out his gravediggers to get corpses for his experiments, and tinkering around with a tied-up cave man named Goliath (check out that unibrow). The doc's beautiful daughter Maria (played by "Simone Blondell") shows up with her fiance Eric (Eric Mann) and friend Krista (Christiane Royce aka Rucker) whom the count takes a liking to. One of his assistants is the dwarf Genz (3'4" Michael Dunn), a real sick-o type who fondles dead bodies, spies on the women bathing and having sex, and is eventually kicked out on the castle. He teams up with Ook (Boris Lugosi aka Salvatore Baccaro), yet another cave-dwelling Neanderthal man outcast, and the two plot to get back at the doctor. In one scene the duo kidnap a girl from town, tie her up, rape and kill her. Genz tells Ook, "I'm going to teach you the pleasures of life!" Meanwhile, Goliath (Loren Ewing) escapes and starts killing and townspeople with torches show up for the finale. Helen Keller must have been serving on the MPAA ratings board when they gave this nudity and sickness-filled effort a PG rating. All in all though, it's a pretty silly combo of tried and true exploitation elements from the period and nothing much surprising happens. Score: 3 out of 10

• Jet Set Frankenstein Freakmania

  gavcrimson2000-08-29

  SPOILERS INCLUDED Nineteenth century Italy is beset by attacks from Neanderthal men living in a cave (complete with furs and clubs) when the villagers manage to overpower one of them. Count Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi) uses its body for experiments creating a monster called Goliath complete with Hong Kong Phooey hair. Grave robbing is specialised in by Frankenstein's `freaks' a randy hunchback, a misfit butler and Genz the evil dwarf. Billed in the credits as `Frankenstein's Monsters' they're played by Italian movie heavies Alan Collins, 60's muscle-man Gordon Mitchell and Xiro Papas. Genz is played by 3'11' dwarf actor Michael Dunn who spent the Seventies in the British The Mutations, the French Too Small My Friend and this, both he and Papas died soon after. When Genz's touchy feely mischief brings the attention of the local fuzz as represented by Edmund Purdom, he's thrown out of Frankenstein's castle. Vowing `I'll get my revenge on Doctor Frankenstein', Genz befriends the local Neanderthal, Ook (The Beast in Heat's Salvatore Baccaro, who with glued on hair is a dead ringer for Aphrodite's Child era Demis Roussos) and plans his revenge. Meanwhile Frankenstein's daughter Maria, her boyfriend, and her best friend Krista come to stay. 1963's Mondo Cane revealed Brazzi couldn't walk around New York without sex crazed housewives tearing off his clothes, a decade later, back on home soil its the women who can't keep their clothes on. Sure enough Krista soon falls for Brazzi's Latin charm, taking a nude bath with Krista in Ook's cave, Maria titters `when you arrived he became like a little boy'. Krista later returns to drop 'em again but a grunting Ook drags her off. Genz releases Goliath who kills off most of the `Freaks' but the carnage continues when Genz brings Goliath back to the cave and Ook and Goliath fight to the death over Krista. Surprisingly the film offers Genz no comeuppance, you expect a climactic game of dwarf throwing between Goliath and Ook, but no, the film ends with Genz seemingly smothered in Christiane Royce's bosom. The final word is left to Edmund Purdom as only Purdom can deliver it `there is a bit of a monster in all of us, especially when there is fear'. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks (`Il Castello della Paura') was impresario Dick Randall's extension of the scenarios he had penned for 1971's Lady Frankenstein which included raging hormone scenes between its monster and Rosalba Neri plus a nude woman thrown into a lake instead of a little girl. A big hit in Italy and the States (sans its more deviant moments) Lady Frankenstein would appear to be the blueprint for many imitators within the Italian film industry. Never one to be outdone Randall seems to have conceived Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks as the sexy Frankenstein movie to end all sexy Frankenstein movies- this one just had to have it all and then some. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks is pivoted somewhere between the childish and the perverse, its very much monster movie nostalgia incarnated as 70's kitsch, everyone seems to have names like Igor, or ludicrously fake humps and what can you say of a film that identifies one of its actors as `Boris Lugosi'. Theres a dirty paperback edge as well though, along way from South Pacific in his 70's era Brazzi was often astounded in Jet Set era actresses lack of inhibition to undress infront of the cameras for `fun' scenes. Such `fun' scenes are endlessly on offer in Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, the camera never tires of purring over its voluptuous leads like a lovers gaze. Its not all loving however, and Genz and Ook are soon taking village girl's back to the cave to be stripped and ravaged by Genz `ook, ook' barks his Neanderthal pal. The token pseudonymous nature of the credits has always made any true auteurship of Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks hard to determine, but Dick Randall's handprints are all over it, the films crossbreeding of Italian Gothic and American exploitation could only have come from someone with wheeler dealings in both- theres even a Shangri-La early nudie-cutieness to the naked bathing sequences with Royce and Blondell. Faults exist, but generally Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks fulfils its promise as a successful marriage of shameless titillation and vintage trash cinema, played out by a motley ensemble of marquee value former matinee idols, familiar faces and top heavy actresses. Even today with prior knowledge of the eccentric standards set by Seventies European horror films, Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks still stands as admirably outlandish viewing. For a true understanding of mid-period Randall Eurosleaze, the 1972 production Bogeyman and the French Murders/ Paris Sex Murders is also required viewing for the same reasons.

• Campy horror-sex mish-mash

  Rrrobert2003-01-12

  Two vaguely related storylines provide a flimsy excuse to link a series of exploitation scenes involving violent murder, kinky sex, and sexual violence. The flimsy plot threads involve a standard mad-scientist type, here cunningly named Count Frankenstein, performing experiments on a bizarre "missing link" he has captured in the local countryside. Meanwhile his former henchman, a misbehaving dwarf, befriends yet another hulking missing link creature and, partly to bring suspicion upon his hated former employer as well as to appease his own lust, commits rape and murder with assistance from his new friend. Apart from the ugly cook who enjoys rough sex with one of her freakish co-workers, Count Frankenstein's visiting daughter, her fiance and a university friend are on-hand to provide the bulk of the nude glimpses and sex scenes. At one point the daughter and the female friend share a mineral mud-bath in a cave. Since this scene fails to move the plot along, has no affect on the on-going story, and does not even lead to sex (despite some initial hints that suggest it might be proceeding down that path) we must assume it was included solely so it could be shown out-of-context in the trailer to suggest that more could be seen in the actual film. Mildly amusing and somewhat intriguing, but by no means any good.

• Wonderfully Bizarre & Endearingly Cheap

  Squonkamatic2007-05-24

  FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS is a genuine howler of a movie, an Italian "Sexy Horror" thriller made at the tail-end of the Euro Horror explosion and sleazy to a very enjoyable tee. Rossano Brazzi plays "Count Frankenstein", carrying on the family traditions of monster making using spare parts dug up from the local cemetery by his goon squad of misshapen, demented assistants. When the boneyard runs short of choice pickings he is not adversed to using the freshly murdered corpses of various supporting cast members. The main thing to recommend this movie is it's audacity and utterly bizarre cacophony of weirdness that it hurls at the viewer. Almost nothing in the film is done in good taste, the assault on one's sense of propriety topped off by a scene where a mutated Neanderthal type & the lab midget kidnap a buxom young lass, tie her up, and enjoy the fruits of their labors. The film bombards viewers with a seemingly endless array of nude female bodies undressing, bathing, skinny dipping, and being ravished by the various goons in the gallery. Little Person performer Michael Dunn -- best known for playing little Alexander on that weird STAR TREK episode with the telekinetic Platonians -- steals the show as the horny, vengeance minded dwarf. But the cast is actually filled with some top ranked Euro Genre talent: Luciano Pigozzi (best known for his work with Antonio Margheriti), frequent Euro Horror monster Xiro Papas, the always mousy Edmund Purdom, sexy Simone Blondell, and most fascinatingly Gladiator/Muscleman Matinée Idol Gordon Mitchell, who probably helped to finance the movie once the market for Spaghetti Westerns dried up. I mean look, what can you say about a movie titled FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS?? It's smutty, sleazy, non-pornographic monster movie mayhem, with a heavy emphasis on atmosphere & fleshy thrills over any sense of coherency. There's a Frankenstein monster (albeit without the Universal makeup look: Get over it, Frankenstein's monster can look any way someone wants), the sex-crazed dwarf, the Neanderthal (played by one Salvatore Baccaro, billed here as Boris Lugosi but best remembered by fans of Italo Sleaze as MONKEYBOY!! from Luigi Batzella's BEAST IN HEAT), women taking hot sauna baths together, some interesting gore effects, and drippings of Euro Horror atmosphere. The complete lack of morals sets it on a different plane than the Hammer horror films that it apes, but it's all in good fun, the low budget making it seem all the more patently absurd. The reason why I call it a "howler" is that it's practically impossible to keep a straight face while watching a movie like this. One ends up howling with laughter not so much at how "bad" it is but how absurd the whole concoction seems. You also can't make 'em like this anymore, there is zero political correctness to be found, the attractive young women are all objectified into sex mavens and Count Frankenstein is mean to the little dwarf. If you can suspend your insistence on big-budget entertainment this is actually a sick, riotous little time killer that should make a fantastic party movie, provided of course all of your friends are a little sick. 6/10 for having the nerve to show it to us.