Castle Freak

Fuck me! I don’t remember very well Stuart Gordon’s original from the 90s, but I gave it four stars, so it’s clear that I liked it. Tate Steinsiek, on the other hand, has done everything wrong. I wonder when was the last time I saw something so poorly directed. The only things worth praise are perhaps the main monster and the setting in an old Albanian castle, but everything else is crap: from the introduction of the characters in some sort of underground party, which left me flabbergasted wondering whether the creators were serious about all that imbecility, through the incredibly overstuffed script (the author was unleashed and included a literal reference to Lovecraft, which somewhere around the middle of the unnecessarily long runtime is explained by the most annoying character of all), all the way to the indoor scenes, which without exception look like from a cheap porno (the set design, the lightning and the cameras). There’s plenty of erotica, though, which clearly shows the direction the career of most of the interested parties is heading, because I hope I will never see another film by them. (2020.12.04)