[Reviews] Movie Night, episode 9.
Delving once again into the bucket of strange things I picked up from Poundland, the latest target of the Movie Night peanut gallery comes to you - via me - from the twisted brain of Stuart Gordon, better known as the man behind the legendary Re-Animator...
Castle Freak is a movie that I picked up pretty much based purely on the front cover. The copy I have shows a shot of a creepy old castle, with the gaunt, disfigured face of the titular Freak montaged in front. Since I am a sucker for pretty monsters (where my definition of "pretty" would take too long to explain but has a lot to do with "doesn't just look like a perfectly normal human soaked in ketchup") I figured I'd give it a go just to check out the FX. How bad could it be?
Well, the answer is: a lot better than I expected, actually. The premise of Castle Freak involves an American family, the Reillys (father John, mother Susan, and blind teenage daughter Rebecca) inheriting a rickety but magnificent Italian castle from a deceased duchess who was the father's aunt. We quickly find out when the Reillys arrive that they are nobody's ideal nuclear family - Rebecca was blinded in the same car accident that took the life of her younger brother JJ, and which was caused by their father being drunk at the wheel. Susan and John's marriage is, understandably, on the verge of collapse, and Susan is neurotically protective of Rebecca (who seems to have dealt with the whole affair better than either of them). The Reillys, in short, have quite enough problems already. Unfortunately, they're about to receive an entirely new one, in the form of the castle's hidden secret - a monstrous Freak, whom the Duchess had kept imprisoned in the basement and who has now managed to break free. Suspense, tragedy, and some genuinely horrible splatter violence ensue. (My copy of this movie claims to be the "director's unrated cut", and while I have no idea what was originally taken out I could hazard some guesses - not just the gore, but some genuinely disturbing psychosexual elements make this a film that I can see the censors loving to hate.)
So what makes it a good movie? First of all, Castle Freak was made in Italy and some of the low-budget-but-brilliant school of Italian horror seems to have rubbed off on it, as we're treated to such luxuries as foreshadowing, recurring motifs, ambiguous perspectives, and multi-layered characters. Tragedy stacks on tragedy, all of them linked by the motif of the mother (or father) and child and the various ways in which the parent-child bond can be twisted, warped, or broken. The horror is elaborated far beyond just "where's the monster?" or pure visual brutality; there's the more subtle horror of watching first Rebecca and then John fight to convince those around them of a truth that isn't apparent or believable to anyone else, and - as mentioned above - some psychosexual aspects as well (the scenes with the Freak and beautiful local prostitute Sylvana have to be seen to be believed, even if you do find yourself needing to watch through your fingers - eesh). As for other qualities - the acting is certainly passable, the script is a little clunky in places but not so much that it really matters, and the effects are, well, effective to say the least. The Freak is a masterpiece of latex and body-acting, twisted enough to be appalling and yet expressive enough to draw the audience's sympathy; and the gore, while very much in the raw-meat-and-strawberry-syrup mould, is viscerally nasty enough to appeal to those who like that kind of thing. And if it's storytelling you want, there's enough plotting and subplotting to keep things interesting as we watch John go down the mental spiral and then rise heroically back up it to save his wife and daughter, Rebecca fight for her independence against both her disability and her parents' seeming inability to stop burdening her with their issues, and various minor characters reveal their own relationships and involvements in the events. In short, Castle Freak comes recommended, at a solid 4/5 with genre weighting.
Oh, and just for a bonus, the credits include "Special thanks: HP Lovecraft." How can you not love that? ^_^
Laters,
Rath
Castle Freak is a movie that I picked up pretty much based purely on the front cover. The copy I have shows a shot of a creepy old castle, with the gaunt, disfigured face of the titular Freak montaged in front. Since I am a sucker for pretty monsters (where my definition of "pretty" would take too long to explain but has a lot to do with "doesn't just look like a perfectly normal human soaked in ketchup") I figured I'd give it a go just to check out the FX. How bad could it be?
Well, the answer is: a lot better than I expected, actually. The premise of Castle Freak involves an American family, the Reillys (father John, mother Susan, and blind teenage daughter Rebecca) inheriting a rickety but magnificent Italian castle from a deceased duchess who was the father's aunt. We quickly find out when the Reillys arrive that they are nobody's ideal nuclear family - Rebecca was blinded in the same car accident that took the life of her younger brother JJ, and which was caused by their father being drunk at the wheel. Susan and John's marriage is, understandably, on the verge of collapse, and Susan is neurotically protective of Rebecca (who seems to have dealt with the whole affair better than either of them). The Reillys, in short, have quite enough problems already. Unfortunately, they're about to receive an entirely new one, in the form of the castle's hidden secret - a monstrous Freak, whom the Duchess had kept imprisoned in the basement and who has now managed to break free. Suspense, tragedy, and some genuinely horrible splatter violence ensue. (My copy of this movie claims to be the "director's unrated cut", and while I have no idea what was originally taken out I could hazard some guesses - not just the gore, but some genuinely disturbing psychosexual elements make this a film that I can see the censors loving to hate.)
So what makes it a good movie? First of all, Castle Freak was made in Italy and some of the low-budget-but-brilliant school of Italian horror seems to have rubbed off on it, as we're treated to such luxuries as foreshadowing, recurring motifs, ambiguous perspectives, and multi-layered characters. Tragedy stacks on tragedy, all of them linked by the motif of the mother (or father) and child and the various ways in which the parent-child bond can be twisted, warped, or broken. The horror is elaborated far beyond just "where's the monster?" or pure visual brutality; there's the more subtle horror of watching first Rebecca and then John fight to convince those around them of a truth that isn't apparent or believable to anyone else, and - as mentioned above - some psychosexual aspects as well (the scenes with the Freak and beautiful local prostitute Sylvana have to be seen to be believed, even if you do find yourself needing to watch through your fingers - eesh). As for other qualities - the acting is certainly passable, the script is a little clunky in places but not so much that it really matters, and the effects are, well, effective to say the least. The Freak is a masterpiece of latex and body-acting, twisted enough to be appalling and yet expressive enough to draw the audience's sympathy; and the gore, while very much in the raw-meat-and-strawberry-syrup mould, is viscerally nasty enough to appeal to those who like that kind of thing. And if it's storytelling you want, there's enough plotting and subplotting to keep things interesting as we watch John go down the mental spiral and then rise heroically back up it to save his wife and daughter, Rebecca fight for her independence against both her disability and her parents' seeming inability to stop burdening her with their issues, and various minor characters reveal their own relationships and involvements in the events. In short, Castle Freak comes recommended, at a solid 4/5 with genre weighting.
Oh, and just for a bonus, the credits include "Special thanks: HP Lovecraft." How can you not love that? ^_^
Laters,
Rath