Castle Freak

A lady licks an old wine bottle that’s been collecting dust in a cellar for probably decades and I thought “gross” not even ten minutes prior to this I watched some castle freak chew his own thumb off and nothing registered upstairs.

Some surprisingly entertaining family drama to go alongside the genuinely unsettling titular "castle freak" horror make this Stuart Gordon and company film an enjoyable watch for genre fans. Filmed in the personal Italian castle of low-budget horror legend Charles Band, Gordon and co. take a trope heavy/borderline cliche horror/drama and elevate it to an engaging story. Definitely worth the watch for your Gordon-Combs-Crampton completionist, as well as anyone merely intrigued by the boob eating.

Gordon has never really been an artist of a director, and Combs has never gained any recognition beyond being a cult movie mainstay. "Castle Freak", like "Re-animator", is not a good movie by any metric. It's blue collar schlock. It works as intended, I have no real complaints.

Performances aren't always what they should be, but the rest of this is very well-made. Gordon's crafted a remarkably efficient horror film w/ a tight script; highly effective creepy lighting & composition; & moments of horror that are genuinely gross & repulsive w/ uncomfortably disturbing sexual undercurrents. It also seems like he didn't have a big budget (you get the impression that Gordon shot this as quickly as he could once he got his hands on a castle), which makes this extra impressive

Despite what you may have been told: no one rips their own ding dong off. Therefore, this movie sucks.

(Viewed in 2014): An awkward cross between a monster flick and a domestic drama, C.F has many things wrong with it and is a complete piece of shit when judged 'objectively', but Gordon really knows how to polish a turd with just enough finesse to make it oddly appealing. Combs gives a laughable but sincere performance as a grief stricken father, and his character's redemption arc is silly, yet somehow it works, and the grimy aesthetic is a remarkably lurid throwback to old grindhouse fare.

Have you ever seen a boob bitten off? Here's your movie.

Incel in cell

It has some interesting stuff going on, but a number of odd choices along the way make it tough for it all to come together in a way that works. That's part of the movie's charm I suppose, as there's a lot of weird stuff in this movie, and I'm not just talking about the titular freak. The whole thing takes a while to get going though, and the dramatic conclusion feels a little anti-climactic. If anyone ever tells you to watch this because a guy rips off his own ding-dong, that person is a liar.

An American family inherits a creepy old European castle and discover that it is inhabited by a disfigured maniac. Somewhat typical "killer in the haunted mansion" plot with no real surprises, but the gore effects are pretty nasty and Jeffrey Combs manages to make the remorseful alcoholic dad character into a decent hero. Barbara Crampton plays the mom but she doesn't get her boobs out.

Bad. Even for a Stuart Gordon film and I love Stuart Gordon films.

Wow what a surprise, this one is so much fun. While usually "Dellamorte Dellamore" is considered the last great Italian horror, I feel like actually this is the one, even though it's not really Italian, but feels exactly like it is.

Leave it to Stuart Gordon to take the schlockiest premise and use it to explore grief, shame, and transgenerational pain. Turns out we were the freaks all along. (Okay...the Castle Freak was too.)

So I watched the 2020 movie first so my rating of this film might be a bit skewed. I liked the start of the film as it just gives you enough to get interested. This is much more the gothic horror movie than the other Gordon films I've seen. The ending was quite fun and I found the movie to actually get better as it went along.

You got Jeffrey Combs, you got Barbara Crampton, you got a freaky castle freak, you got Stuart Gordon in serious-mode, and you got flashes of nasty gore, what's not to enjoy? You even got the good guy bashing a police officer over the head with a big stick, ACAB all day, baby, let's go!

Reasonable acting and story for a cheap horror flick, but the freak makes the movie. Not only is it disgusting, the character has actual depth; he's not a crazy maniac killing people just because.

Em honra de Stuart Gordon (1947 - 2020) filme #4. Não esperava que esse filme fosse tão excelente e... horrível. Horrível no sentido de tudo do horror encontrado no ser humano condensados aqui em 90 minutos, tantas vezes no decorrer do filme quis parar de assistí-lo porque era demais para o meu estômago. Box Versátil Lovecraft no Cinema Volume 3.

Jeffrey Combs & Barbara Crampton come together yet again a decade-ish after From Beyond & Re-Animator to star in this very low-budget, very creepy flick based on yet another Lovecraft story. The acting from both of them, as well as Jessica Dollarhide & Jonathan Fuller, is solid, and the plot is actually not bad either. It's dark, not pleasant, and is much more of a tragic drama than its title lets on. Not perfect, far from it even, but worth a watch just for its two leads.

Once I saw one of the Hooptober 3.0 categories included Stuart Gordon, I knew, as a listener of the flophouse podcast, it was time to watch Castle Freak. It played as a fun adventure with horror elements, and it was a blast to watch. I enjoyed the over the top acting and music. I liked how it took place in Italy. I have always been curious about Re-animator, and now I am going to have to check it out. Though this movie was not made in the 80's, I think it might have opened my mind to 80's movies

This starts off with promise in terms of drama, but as a horror film from Stuart Gordon, it drops in quality when the titular character in first seen onwards.

_Re-Animator_ alums Gordon, Paoli, Combs, and Crampton combine their considerable talents to come up with a strong, textured terror film. While never stinting on gore (including a cat-eating scene) or suspense, Gordon and Paoli craft a solid horror movie that doubles as a layered, often wrenching meditation on the themes of parental guilt and responsibility. Combs contributes strenuous work as the self-tortured family man

Never liked that flick...the masks are ok but that's not enough for a movie.

okay movi

Pretty poor horror. Best part is (obviously) Combs and there are a few good jump scares, but mostly a waste.

Many of the Re-Animator team worked on this one (and it's even based on another Lovecraft story, "The Outsider") but this is a wretched embarrassing piece of crap. How could you, Mr. Gordon?