Director Stuart Gordon and screenwriter Dennis Paoli return with their Re-Animator/From Beyond crew as they attempt to toss their hat into the horror-sans-comedy ring with a very liberal H. P. Lovecraft adaptation. Interestingly, if approached as a gothic thriller in the vein of Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, Castle Freak is quite appeasing yet the film’s production values negate much of the work’s would-be effectiveness.
John Reilly (Jeffrey Combs) and his estranged wife, Susan (Barbara Crampton) arrive in Italy with their blind daughter, Rebecca (Jessica Dollarhide) in order for John to survey, and quickly decide to liquidate, the assets left to him from his late aunt, Duchess D’Orsino (Helen Stirling), which includes a twelfth-century castle. However, before the John can close their affairs, he must frantically clear his name after two corpses are found in the castle’s basement before his wife and daughter leave him for good and depart for Rome.
Paoli, a longtime collaborator with Gordon, adapted H. P. Lovecraft’s very short story, “The Outsider,” to the big screen. To put it bluntly, all the writer did (who holds a doctorate in gothic literature) was lift the skeletal plot–an individual confined to a castle for most of his existence–included the pivotal prop of the story, a mirror, and filled in the remaining pages with his own gothic vision. However ironical, what results may well be closer to Lovecraft than any of Gordon/Paoli’s adaptations of the American writer to date (though Dagon is an arguable contender), at least in regards to mood and setting (a primary facet of the writer’s prowess).
The film harks back to Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now in many aspects as Gordon attempts to present and sustain a strictly straightforward, gothic mindset. The audience is thrust into a moist, dilapidated Italy as we are met by an estranged couple whose hostilities (both toward one another as well as themselves) are symbolized by what lies in the basement, i.e. a monster named Giorgio (Jonathan Fuller). Furthermore, much like Donald Sutherland’s character, John Baxter, John Reilly finds himself in a situation which must be reconciled in order to retain his sanity as well as his family.
What’s most interesting from a historical perspective is watching Gordon as he creates a strict horror-thriller devoid of comedy. The taught nature of the narrative is compounded by complications as John’s life crumbles around him after he is offered a glimpse at redemption via the money to be made from his inheritance. We watch Susan reject John’s advances after he makes a humble attempt at reconciling his failed marriage, the impetus of its failure being two-fold: John’s transference of his alcoholism to his father, which culminates in his son, J.J.’s (Alessandro Sebastian Satta), death and Rebecca’s blindness after John drives drunk one night and overturns the family car atop his wife’s unwillingness to forgive him on both counts. As a consequence of his wife’s most recent dismissal, John falls off the wagon as well as violently reacts to Susan’s negation by way of unwillingly soliciting a prostitute named Sylvana (Raffaella Offidani). Perhaps the essence of John’s character is best represented when Sylvana asks for payment after her services have been rendered and John, at first taken aback, realizes that she didn’t allow him to take her back to the castle due to any innate interest she had in him, but did so solely for business purposes.
Masterfully, as John’s life becomes more and more exacerbated, the monster emerges and becomes equally threatening (and, however paradoxically, both individuals become more empathetic as the film progresses). In this sense, the “castle freak” is a metaphor for John himself as coincidences and family history begin to ironically come together (most important of which is that both J.J. and Giorgio’s reported deaths occurred when they were five years old). Of course, retribution for the sins of the past must occur but, though formulaic, the manner in which Paoli writes and Gordon films the work brings the story to a very satisfactory conclusion. At no point does the work feel contrived or forced and, more impressively, is the director as he allows his tale to unfold naturally as we, alongside John, come to realize the complexity and density of the situation presented before us.
Yes, the metaphor of a haunted house being symbolic of a struggling marriage atop a doppelganger protagonist/antagonist might seem predictable and somewhat clichéd yet Combs and Crampton, as well as most of the Italian secondary cast, issue convincing performances, thus making such a plot more readily accessible. Only the figure of Rebecca could have been improved upon as Dollarhide jumps too quickly and moves too fluidly for a blind individual in a foreign environment. Yet, all of this pertains to the story and character portrayals. The cinematography leaves much to be desired as Full Moon bound Gordon’s hands with a work which deserved much, much more in relation to its technical aspects.
Overall, the film is to be considered middle ground for both writer and director. One comes to the realization that the power behind the duo of Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli lies within their ability to combine gruesome horror alongside pitch black humor, of which, Castle Freak possess the former while abandoning the latter. One gets the feeling that this was done in order for both individuals to try their hand at a straightforward work of gothic literature. What results in an interesting tale which is impressive in its own right but is downplayed by the production company’s inability or unwillingness to toss out the necessary cash to allow the work to come into full bloom.
-Egregious Gurnow
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- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
