FRANKENSTEIN’S CASTLE OF FREAKS (1974)
(a.k.a. TERROR! IL CASTELLO DELLE DONNE MALEDETTE)
Article #1683 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 10-23-2005
Posting Date: 3-22-2006
Directed by Robert Oliver
Featuring Rossano Brazzi, Michael Dunn, Edmund Perdom

Frankenstein works on a monster while various assistants yell at each other and a voyeuristic dwarf plots revenge with the help of a caveman named Ook.

This compendium of Frankenstein movie cliches has:

– a rating of PG despite having scads of nudity.

– SOUTH PACIFIC star Rossano Brazzi walking through the role of Dr. Frankenstein

– one time Oscar-nominated dwarf actor Michael Dunn in the embarassing role of the voyeuristic dwarf. He doesn’t even dub his own voice here.

– an actor billed as Boris Lugosi playing the part of Ook, the Neanderthal Man. His real name is Salvatore Baccaro, and he apparently made a career playing characters like this. He looks more Avery Schreiber than either Boris or Bela.

– a mad scientist, a monster, a dwarf, a hunchback, some women with bad clothes sense who like to take baths in front of the dwarf, some mean servants, and angry villagers.

– no sense of discernible style.

– body-builder and Sword-and-Sandal star Gordon Mitchell as Igor. I spot him in a few scenes, but he’s given precious little to do here.

– bad dubbing.

– a final message. Apparently, there’s a little bit of monster in all of us.

– a scene where the dwarf teaches the Neanderthal how to kidnap and rape a woman. Based on the rule that all the horrible people in the movie are to be killed by the monster at the end of the movie, I find it curious that the dwarf is allowed to live.

– nothing about it to recommend it, unless you find the moral profound, or just have to see Michael Dunn embarrass himself, or must see the naked women, or just like seeing Frankenstein cliches glumly trotted out without purpose or style. Though it’s not boring, it’s rather pointless and not particularly fun.