the audience applauded

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I always enjoyed this film from the first I saw it, I found it to be a well acted and solidly directed effort all around, it had a nice atmosphere to it that was very eerie at points, and it had one of the best kinds of monsters - the sympathetic one. It might be directed by the from my experience consistently entertaining Stuart Gordon but it's nothing at all like the gruesome manic splatter fun of Re-Animator or From Beyond, but is a little less fantastical and more slow burning and character driven, although it certainly does have some violent gory scenes in it where it counts. I was surprised when I saw that it was made in 1995 I really thought it had a more eighties vibe to it. I love all the sparse Gothic grandeur of the Italian castle where most of the story takes place, it's gorgeous and brings a lot of atmosphere to the movie and the setting makes for such a distinctive tone. The film does have something of a mystery element to it, even though thanks to the DVD cover art and the opening prologue there's no question about who the killer is.. I thought Jeffrey Combs gives a good performance, it was nice to see him play something a little more dramatic and normal instead of an eccentric type, and he's effective as a tortured father and alcoholic who's inadvertently responsible for the death of his young son and the blinding of his daughter, and who yearns to redeem himself in some way, which in the worst way he ultimately does.. And another Gordon regular, Barbara Crampton is good as well, she and Combs have a certain well-established old chemistry together as actors, and they both really kind of come full circle in this movie, having gone from playing enemies, to people that were close, and finally a couple that were once in love but now genuinely seem to hate each other! Jonathan Fuller was fantastic as the craven, repulsive and quite impotently lustful freak, he's terrifying yet pitiable. I love the scene where the kindly old housekeeper tells the tale of poor monstrous Georgio, it's such an unimaginably cruel fate to suffer when you think about it. He was once a regular human being who, through complete isolation and his only human contact being decades of horrific abuse and torture at the hands of his own insane mother, who took a cold hearted and evil lifelong revenge on her own innocent child for the sins of his father, became a virtually mindless subhuman beast who on some twisted level remains that child, he's a most tragic monster. The most disturbing and vicious scene is when the freak does some awful things to a prostitute, ladies of the audience take note, this part of the movie is likely to make you squirm.. So I like this pretty grim violent horror flick a lot, it has a scary human monster in it and is a tense creepy and very underrated gem of the Full Moon back catalogue and is well worth checking out, you may be quite surprised by it.

If there was any justice in the world, everyone would hold director Stuart Gordon in the same high regard as genre greats George Romero, John Carpenter, and Tobe Hooper. He might not have such a well recognised 'classic' in his resume as those guys (although Re-Animator comes close, I suppose), but it could be argued that the overall quality of his output has been consistently higher than these better-known horror luminaries (who, let's face it, have had their fair share of turkeys over the years).If you don't believe me, check out the director's dark fairytale Dolls, his twisted Lovecraft adaptations From Beyond and Dagon (and Re-Animator, of course), and the gritty shocker King of the Ants—all solid films worthy of a place in any self respecting horror fan's DVD collection. But better than any of those, in my humble opinion, is Castle Freak, a splendid Gothic horror that really does deliver the goods in practically every department: it's stylish, atmospheric, sexy, emotionally charged, scary, gory, and more than a little perverse, and even features the classic combo of Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton amongst its cast.Combs plays John Reilly, who along with his estranged wife Susan (Crampton) and blind daughter Rebecca (played by teen hottie Jessica Dollarhide), has travelled to Europe to take up temporary residence in the 12th century castle that they have recently inherited. As John sets about writing an inventory of the castle's contents, Rebecca explores her new home, unaware that a monstrously deformed freak lies chained up in the dungeon, and he's very, very hungry...In the hands of a less daring director, this could so have been an instantly forgettable piece of cheesy B-movie hokum, but Gordon's unique, twisted approach elevates it way above your usual direct to DVD fare, and guarantees a few eye-openers along the way. Be honest, how many horror films do you know that offer full frontal shots of their creature's mutilated genitalia? And can you name more than a couple of titles that depict a woman's nipple being bitten clean off? Or have you ever seen Jeffrey Combs bury his face deep in a hooker's crotch before giving her a quick knee-trembler? I'm guessing that you answered 'no' to at least two of those questions.

This was simply an offer I couldn't refuse, basically the dish was served and I just took it, I mean when Halloween is near you can find at certain stores you can find a shelf with only horror films on special offer, certainly that low price is only during the days of Halloween. Then more than a week ago I was at my local store and I decided to get some horror DVDs, I found 3 movies (each one for about $2): Subspecies, Trancers and Castle Freak. So especially with Castle Freak I found that offer I couldn't refuse, after all it is a film directed by Stuart Gordon and the cover art is just amazing. However I' still a "beginner" with the work of Gordon, in other words I haven't' seen yet Re-Animator and actually I have seen just 2 other films by Gordon which are Dagon and H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House (actually this is a Masters of Horror episode), both came from stories by H.P. Lovecraft just like Castle Freak and both are films that I found terrific just like Castle Freak. I watched it with a couple of friends last night and we more or less knew what to expect from it but actually this was still a really pleasant surprise for me since Castle Freak have certain elements that really surprised me and that I really liked. This has a simple story, we have that John Reilly (Jeffrey Combs) has inherited a castle that is located in Italy. The castle belonged to a duchess, in the very first sequence of the movie we see her and we see a certain action, we know that someone named Giorgio is also in the castle and John together with his ex-wife and his daughter (Barbara Crampton and Jessica Dollarhide) soon will see Giorgio. So we learn certain things, we learn that now John and his wife doesn't have a good relationship, a terrible chapter in the past marked their lives, John was an alcoholic and one night he was driving, his companions were his daughter and his son, his daughter is now blind and his son died that night. Then there's nothing to say when we see that John's wife is now away from him. John has been sober for a long time (I think he says that for 9 months) but during his stay in Italy he will drink again, he will not return to home. Giorgio is certainly the most important character, some kind of monster that at first was thought to be just part of the imagination of Rebecca (John's blind daughter). "There's someone else in the castle" will repeat Rebecca, his father will think that also however that chapter will be back and as I wrote he will drink again, he will take a prostitute to the castle, that his ex-wife and daughter are there is not an impediment once drunk mainly because the castle is an immense place with hundreds of rooms. Castle Freak has certain scenes that I wasn't expecting and certainly are graphic enough to can make that some persons cover their eyes. Of course Giorgio is the protagonist of those scenes, one that I like is when he loses some of his fingers while trying to be free again but is when he start to kill when those scenes happens. Giorgio is witness when drunken John is doing certain, obvious, things to the Italian prostitute. "I didn't kill her, I fu***d her, Okay?" will say later John to the police and certainly he was saying the truth however he "teach" Giorgio to do those certain things however Giorgio boy did something more. Giorgio is one hell of a disgusting character however is story is a tragic one, he is the son of the duchess and of the father of John who ran away with the sister of the duchess (mother of John). Then the duchess did her "revenge", she made of her son some kind of monster, she forgot that Giorgio was also her son. Now Giorgio can't be, the very last scene is really great. Then I had my third pleasant time with a Stuart Gordon movie, if you come across with the DVD of Castle Freak or you find it on TV don't think twice, watch it, is amazingly entertaining, watch it with your friends and have a really good time!

This movie was a disappointment. The story is essentially The Shining with a castle (or a very cheap set masquerading as a castle, to be specific) substituting as the hotel and a monster instead of the ghosts. The budget is the same you'd see from a Cinemax softcore porn, as is the photography, sets, lighting, and video it was shot on. The story is a failed attempt at sincerity: there's no easier way to make your audience feel sympathetic for your characters than to show them experiencing emotional trauma. And the trauma in this movie is pretty trite. Want an example? A blind girl listening to a language tape teaching the Italian words for colors begins to cry at what she will never see.This movie had a few things going for it, however: the monster is actually pretty cool, pretty scary-looking. And there is a pretty decent amount of nudity from Raffaella Offidani, herself a star of Italian "erotic" films. The gore, however, leaves much to be desired, as does the acting, even from the experienced Jeffrey Combs.Other than this I've only seen two other Stuart Gordon films: Re-Animator and From Beyond, both of which were outstanding. But I won't let this little footnote in his career keep me from watching many more of his movies.