CASTLE OF THE CREEPING FLESH Review

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(More customer reviews)[CASTLE OF THE CREEPING FLESH aka CASTLE OF BLOODY LUST (1968)] Austrian director Adrian Hoven is probably best remembered for writing, producing and co-directing the notoriously sacrilegious 'Mark of the Devil' (1970) and its vastly inferior sequel ('Mark of the Devil 2), as well as producing films for raconteur Jess Franco. This earlier gothic horror / exploitation effort from 1968, 'Castle of the Creeping Flesh' from Sinister Cinema, does not share the notoriety of Hoven's other exploitation films, and must be one of the cheesiest, inept and trashy Eurohorror films I have ever seen, and I have a high tolerance for the ridiculous when it comes to this genre of film.
There's so much wrong with this movie, I hardly know where to start. No wait, I do know - with the ending, seeing as there really isn't one. More on that later. The story, of which there is precious little, assembles characters that each possess odd personalities with abundant sexual tension & intrigue amongst them, there's a clichéd mad scientist with blood vengeance on his mind, and it all takes place in a castle with a sinister history. Howard Vernon (a Jess Franco regular) plays Graf Saxon, another mental miscreant land baron doctor and castle owner. Some centuries ago, one of his ancestors lost his beautiful daughter as she was sexually ravaged and abused by savage woodsmen. History repeats itself here, as Saxon's own daughter also falls victim to an assault. He and his loyal servants wish to resurrect the dead daughter but they'll need essential body parts from living beings. Lucky for them, a drunken bunch of despicable, flamboyant party animals stumble into the castle and, inevitably, onto the operation table. Here we see truly grisly open heart surgery footage, probably the first of its kind in these flicks.
Among the partiers are Michel Lemoine, laughably scary with his 'horrifying' stare (due to a botched real-life eye job) and Janine Reynaud (a regular in 60's Franco films as well as those of 70's Jean-Marie Pallardy) who typifies the right combination of 60's stylish class and sleazy perversion who's undressed a good deal of the time, as if to draw our eyes elsewhere instead of the mess unfolding before us, and there are several other Eurobabes doing likewise before getting gutted and scalpeled, but these distractions prove ineffective over the long haul - it never takes too long to recall the celluloid swill we're wading through.
The film also suffers from the plot-stolen premise of other popular late 50's/60's Eurohorror - the mad scientist who kills women in order to restore the life of a loved one, which had been the topic of such masterpieces as Georges Franju's "Les Yeux Sans Visage" ("Eyes Without a Face",1958), Giorgio Ferroni's "Il Mulino Dalle Donne Di Pietro" ("Mill of the Stone Women",1959), Jess Franco's "Gritos En La Noche" ("The Awful Dr. Orloff",1962) and Jean Rollin's "The Blood Rose"(1969). Vernon's role here has similarities to that of the eponymous Dr. Orloff in Franco's film, only that Franco's film was impressive, and this one's a hilariously inept mess with Vernon spouting incoherent prattle throughout. All these great gothic horror trademarks unfold and then suddenly, it goes terribly wrong and the film ends in insanely syrupy limbo. It feels like whatever tight budget Hoven was working with swiftly ran out and he just quit in the middle of shooting, and by then the foregoing ridiculousness dominates the film's final frames as it collapses into camp without the campy humor or cult value.
It's a bit of a crime, as the flick could have been entertaining in the proper hands of a director who knew how to pace, edit and finish a film properly. Also, the print utilized here is washed out, lacks contrast, and may be edited. It will undoubtably make your flesh creep alright, but not in a good way...only for completists within the Eurohorror category, everyone else should avoid entirely.
2 1/2 stars.

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