Castle Freak (1995)

What, exactly, were Stuart Gordon's claim to be cinema's pre-eminent adaptor of HP Lovecraft?

The hideous monster that lurks in the darkness, tormenting the innocent with his depravity.  Image Bauer Hosting

His credentials: Reanimator, a witless take on one of Lovecraft's most morbidly (literally) funny stories; Dagon, a blundering rendition of The Shadow over Innsmouth, and a few odds and ends like Castle Freak which owes a few vague ideas to The Outsider;  From Beyond (a lurid 'reimagining' of a  minor story) and a brief, camp rendering of The Dreams In The Witch House - where he added the sex scenes Lovecraft carelessly forgot to include in his original mind bending yarn.

This is the only Lovecrafty bit in the film, where monstrous Gorgio comes face to face with ... himself

Thing is, none of these films are actually any good, on any level.  Nor are they worthy failures, like the recent The Colour Out of Space.  Stuart Gordon's 'Lovecraft' films are just low grade trash that bears as much resemblance to the source material as Tromeo & Juliet does to Shakespeare's play.  It's just frat boy misogynist trash trying to attain status it doesn't deserve by hitching a ride on the source materials reputation.

(Even this comparison isn't apt; Tromeo & Juliet somehow managed to work as a lurid soft porn travesty of the story, which is what it set out to do.  And I quiet enjoyed it and found it engaging enough.  Gordon's films don't succeed, even on their own terms.)

So ... Castle Freak.

wWe start with a sinister old lady supplying food and whipping an unseen, whimpering victim in some creepy old castle sort of building.  She promptly dies and - what do you know - the castle is left to John, a relative in America who immediately drops everything to shift himself, his enstranged wife and his blind daughter over to Ital to check out their new pad.

They potter about the castle, and inevitable Gorgio, the Thing on the Doorstep in the cellar, gets out and prowls the stony corridors, leering creeping at the hapless daughter and she tap taps her way about, and sexually assaulting and slaughtering a hapless prostitute naughty John invited back to the castle because of his wife's cold hearted insistence in blaming him for the death of their son in a car crash, which also left their daughter blind.

Long story short, John and Freak take a header off one of the castle towers, killing the both of them but showing his wife that he was a jolly good chap all along and teaching her a lesson.  It isn't clear if John's noble self-sacrifice also somehow cured his daughter's blindness, but you wouldn't put anything past this witless stew of bad ideas badly done.

Now, the plot here s no worse than that of a hundred other dreadful horror films that can be found adhering to the bottom of the barrel marked Z Grade Trash.  It attracts my especial opprobrium because of of Gordon's involvement, because it was made by someone who enjoys some curious prominence in the horror genre and people even sometime call a fucking auteur.

 And because - as there often is in Gordon's work - a repulsive misogyny barely concealed, a sadistic impulse humiliate and torture his female characters in lurid shows of sexualised  mutilation.  Dagon featured a scene where a women's breasts are sliced up; Castle Freak treats us to a scene where a woman's nipple is bitten off and indicates her vagina has been savagely gnawed on until it bleeds.

Who the fuck thinks "My film will be greatly enhanced if some broad gets her nipple bitten off?"  Fuck you, Stuart Gordon.

At least Reanimator knew it was rubbish and played it for laughs. And Dagon had a bit of atmosphere and chills; but this is dross.

It is hard to believe it was made in 1995 - twenty years earlier it would have passed muster as a notably nasty Hammer Horror film, but in 1995 it was simply an embarrassing anachronism.  I amn't even going to label this with the Lovecraft tag because it isn't Lovecraft.  It is nasty, misogynistic and witless - and not frightening. Just a waste of everyone's time - the director's, the cast (who are good, far better than the script deserved), the crew, and mine. Don't let it waste yours.

STAR RATING: NO STAR