Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks is not the conventional retelling of Mary Shelley’s classic tale, instead exploitation master Dick Randall, or was it Robert Oliver, decides to put his own spin on it and one cannot help but love all the lurid craziness to be found within. Featuring cavemen, gravedigging, necrophilia, a randy and vengeful dwarf, not to mention nudity, beautiful women and Rossano Brazzi as the Count, this movie is not what one might expect going into it.

That makes this journey worth the ride, the sheer lunacy found within this Eurotrash oddity so unexpected that the story does not necessarily benefit from it. That said, there is somewhat something of a tale to be found within the eighty-nine minutes featured here, but it is not abundantly clear on who the focus should be. One would assume that Brazzi as Count Frankenstein would be front and center, the movie revolving around him and his experiments with dead bodies. Yet, a good portion of the film is centred on Genz, the little person who likes to fondle the dead bodies of women, the dwarf who likes to peep on the ladies in the castle from all manner of hiding places and the creature who kidnaps, rapes and murders a local farm girl. The Count suffice it to say, is the focus but Genz almost steals that spotlight from him, as the insanity that he personifies nearly overtakes all. The bones of Shelley’s original story are here, a bit of it anyway and in addition to the Count’s experiments, there is a subplot which features him falling in love with his daughter’s friend as played by Christiane Royce. The creature the Count is currently working on is a giant of a man, prehistoric in nature almost, named Goliath whom he must keep tied down at all times. Genz, after being kicked out of the castle, makes friends with another Neanderthal named Ook and soon enough, the two storylines eventually come to clash just as the giants do in the final act of this picture.

Whether it was Randall or Oliver, they decided to throw in everything they could, do everything to see what worked and what did not and if one had to guess, there were probably very few cuts made to the end product. There is a decent amount of nudity to keep those watching titillated, mostly from Royce as mentioned above and Simone Blondell who starred as the Count’s daughter. The violence would come mostly from Genz and the giants during the last act and though the film might fall under the horror banner, it was more sleazy and exploitative than anything else. One could say the actions of the men in the picture were horrific enough to warrant the label and that would be true but there was nothing overly scary or frightening in the slightest and that was a bit of a missed opportunity. That being said, things surprisingly got wrapped up quite neatly once that final act was reached. Like other Frankenstein features of the past, a mob is formed as the townspeople have had enough of monsters like Ook and Goliath, crazies like Genz and doctors as mad, though not quite so mad, as the Count himself.

Some will come to this on the name alone, Frankenstein being a pull no matter how good or bad the picture might be. Some will see it as an Italian production and figure there to be some beautiful women in various stages of undress. Whatever the reason, this Euro-sleaze effort, despite any shortcomings, is worth the time due to the lunacy found within. Cheap, crazy and compelling, Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks from 1974 is not your grandfather’s Frankenstein.

3 out of 5