The third team-up between a legacy director and a beloved character actor struggles to pick a mood despite its all-star leads carrying it.
Our final entry of Full Moon February brings us a treat with famed character actors Jeffery Combs and Barbara Crampton, the big guns in Full Moon’s arsenal (Combs previously made appearances in two other Full Moon films, Doctor Mordrid & Lurking Fear, while Crampton has been in too many Band films to count). So, what did they bring these two horror legends on for?
Castle Freak, of course.
This film is another team-up between Combs, Crampton, and director Stuart Gordon, helming an adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft tale yet again; this time around, he tackles a fusion of two short stories, mashing up the monster from “The Outsider” and the lore of the estate and family from “The Rats in the Walls.” The two leads and Gordon work with the same efficiency as they did in From Beyond and Re-Animator; it’s very palpable that the two have this synergy that, when combined with Gordon’s command on set, makes a scene work smoother on-screen. This film is a reminder of how important directors are when it comes to guiding their cast and not just the camera.
We get very strong performances from all our core cast of the Reilly Family. Combs is acting his heart out as recovering alcoholic husband John, while Crampton plays bereaved wife Susan, who struggles to find forgiveness for her desperate husband; the two are still on rocky ground following the death of their son JJ in a drunk driving accident. Keeping this contentious relationship glued together is their first child, daughter Rebecca who was blinded in the accident that took her brother’s life. She’s played by Jessica Dollarhide, who is very charming but very underutilized for most of the film.
These two bring a tenseness that I didn’t expect to feel, and they really do know how to bring that misery of a shattered marriage to life. The sorrow of their relationship settling in the wreckage of a life-changing event is great; it really elevates the film and keeps it afloat…
It just feels weirdly heavy for a film about a deformed, cannibal sex pest who lives in the castle dungeon.
And that’s kind of the overarching problem of mine with this film. It has the slow burn drama and exposition of a ghost story, with truly wonderful acting, but the plotlines of a gonzo, B-horror movie, and it ends up being tonally broken in two for it. Sleazy and gory, but not in quantities that reach the splatter house levels that would do our villain justice. Dramatic and tragic, but regularly having that drama detracted from the fact there’s a hobbling pale orc of a man moving around the castle.
Giorgio, the eponymous freak, still brings pain to his victims along with a gnarly thumb severing, which Johnathan Fuller’s physical acting and makeup SFX sold. But I was hoping our mutated distant relative would have more frightening imagery to serve up than just being a sleazy, slimy-looking people-eater, especially since he leaped out of the pages of two separate Lovecraft stories. The man is being outclassed by a gang of puppets and Radu in terms of generating fear, and he has a way more tragic and messed up look to boot, so it’s a strange loss. Regarding that jacked-up look, it’s still great makeup to this day. Industry veteran Everett Burrell’s makeup on Giorgio is fantastic, as expected from someone with his reputation.
Unlike Subspecies which puts the location to good use, Castle Freak, I feel doesn’t fully utilize the location for all its scare potential. There’s one very good chase scene in which Giorgio crashes through a window while hunting down Susan and Rebecca and a particularly powerful symbolic scene where John sees a mural of Saturn devouring his son (painful to watch as you see the realization wash over his face). But aside from those two moments, I can’t think of many things that made this setting special that aren’t facts about the movie’s production itself.
For instance, the fact that this is Charles Band’s real-life castle.
No, seriously, he owns the castle and everything. Most of the interior shots of the castle are of his personal castle in Italy. They had to clean it up as they were wrapping because he was having family over, and it would be hard to explain all the bloodstains and meat chunks Giorgio’s rampage left behind.
RATING: 6 (Child Sized Empty Styrofoam Decoy Caskets)/10. Gordon produces a bizarre and almost hard-to-watch experience that hinges on Combs and Crampton’s exceptional collaboration, oscillating between grotesque and depressingly dark to mixed success. I wished it went to more extraordinary lengths but, running on a low budget and a lot of heart; this still makes for an interesting watch that you’ll have a hard time forgetting, especially with the climax it gives.
You can sign up to stream ‘Castle Freak’ here.
