nip pinch and side shed.

Dr. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks (AKA Frankenstein's Castle, Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, Monsters of Frankenstein, Terror Castle, The House of Freaks, 1974)
Dir: Dick Randall.
Cast: Rossano Brazzi, Loren Ewing, Edmund Purdom, Simonetta Vitelli and her playful puppies, Christiane Rucker, Eric Mann, Luciano Pigozzi, Michael Dunn and Mr. Boris Lugosi as Ook.

Terror stalks the castle when the secret of life falls into the wrong hands.

Somewhere in deepest, darkest Europe a bunch of inbred local yokel types in designer footwear and tracksuits (we call them Neds) have decided, with it being a Sunday and all, to spend the afternoon stoning a topless, manbreasted Neanderthal (Ewing from Venus in Furs) to death.

No reason is given for this frankly loutish behaviour other that they must be a wee bit bored.

Fair enough then.

Luckily for our hapless brute, who should come a-riding past but the one and only Count Steve Frankenstein (Brazzi from such classics as South Pacific and The Italian Job obviously getting stung by his ex wife for a new swimming pool) who has other plans for the big man.

Yup you guessed it, the 'mad' scientist reckons this towering titan would make a great starting point for his latest experiment.

An experiment into the world of urban dance beats.


Probably.

"Mary Doll! whit's fae dinnah?"

However nothing ever goes smoothly for our favourite nutty professor as while he's performing (very complicated) surgery to transform his new plaything from a big beast into a fairly passable - and typical Glaswegian (complete with 'heid' bandage) who should turn up out of the blue but his sensible shoed yet large of breasted daughter Mary (Vitelli, ask your granddad), her hunky fiancé Eric (Mann the director of Manhunter and The Keep, possibly) and their dirty blonde and dirty pillowed anthropologist 'friend', Krista (Rucker best know by teevee fans for her long running role in Kottan Ermittelt) all intent on enjoying a holiday at Mary's old man's pad.


And his expense obviously.

"Now why don't you and your
little friend get wet n' naked before dinner?"

Playing the good host, Frankenstein wines and dines his guests, regaling them with funny science stories whilst secretly sending out his freakish posse (including Genz the necrophiliac porn dwarf fantastically played by Dunn) to steal more corpses for his experiment to recreate the entire rosta of BBC Scotlands' early 90's comedy talent.


Well he already appears to have Rab C Nesbitt.

"Whit?"

During one such midnight foray, the dim witted Hans (Yor's Pigozzi) forgets to clean away Genz' tiny footprints and, rather than admit his mistake, puts the blame on the little fella, causing the Count to banish him from his castle (of Freaks) without even having his supper first.



The size-ist bastard.


Genz, understandably annoyed by this (well, it was kippers on the menu) swears the wrath of the little people on the Count and begins to plot his revenge, luckily bumping into yet another Neanderthal named Ook (Lugosi AKA The Beast in Heat himself, Sal Boris ) who just happens to be prowling the woods for tottie.

Or at the very least for a pretty mooth to shite in.

"It's awight wee Jimmy, ah
checked the beanstalk".

Whilst all this is going on, Krista and Mary have discovered a soothing hot spring in the caves below the castle and have decided the best thing to do would be to get naked and go frolic in a sexy manner at any opportunity.

Obviously this adds nothing to the plot but it does mean you get quality dialogue like:

"This dress was designed to get out of quickly!"

and scenes like this:

and this:

Which is nice.

Anyway, back to the plot; Genz sneaks back into the castle (disguised as a small doll or a gnome no doubt) and frees a very angry Goliath (he looked in the mirror and was disappointed that he wasn't made to look like Wee Burnie) who then proceeds to smash the castle up and chase everyone whilst going "Gggrrraaaaahhhh" a lot.

Ook, meanwhile is slowly wandering through the dark tunnels below the castle looking for a quick shag and almost immediately comes across a naked, glistening (and very bouncy) Krista preparing for a soak.

Ook's leering grin, straining groin and outstretched hands say it all.....


Tissues ahoy!


Just as things couldn't get any worse the locals are still bored and have decided to organise another dads n' lads stoning and have decided that Frankenstein should be next on the list.

Wandering about the forest they soon come across Goliath (even tho' he looks completely different with his head bandaged) and give chase, following him into the caves where he hides behind a rock pretending to be a cat.

Surprisingly this ploy seems to work and Goliath is about to escape scott free (no idea what that means if I'm honest) when our brutish buddy spies poor Krista, covered in egg, sweat and semen (and on whom he has a wee bit of a schoolboy crush), being manhandled and arse whacked by the drooling Ook.

How can this horror end?

Rucker: bacony passage.

From the legendary director/producer/dwarf fetishist Dick Randall (the man who brought us Weng Weng's For Y'ur Height Only, Supersonic Man and Don't Open Till Christmas amongst other classics), Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks' appears to be the bizarre lovechild of the no-budget, lo-fi drive-in movies of the mid 60's and the studio bound Euro-exploitationers of the the early 70's, lurching as it does between Hammeresque horror and bouncy boob fun.

This schizophrenic approach coupled with a general sense of unevenness and a totally threadbare plot is made even more enjoyable when the action and horror is repeatedly hijacked by scenes of Christiane Rucker's ample arse and Simonetta Vitelli's glorious breasts.

"Laugh now!"

Quite rightly most of the rude stuff is instigated by the movies true star, the pixie like perv that is Michael Dunn. Whether he's pinching a dead woman's nipples or giving Ook a quick lesson in seduction using a kidnapped farm girl as an unwilling volunteer, Dunn's portrayal of the pube bearded, hunchbacked mini-molester is a riot of over the top twitches, snarls coupled with an overpowering sense of sexual deviancy.

It's like a pocket sized John Leslie is running around in your living room wearing your dad's pants.

Plus he has that wibbly wobbly run that's so endearing.

Frankly fantastic Friday night film fodder, plus as an added incentive to trawl thru' the bargain bins is that the UK DVD release on Something Weird Video is double boxed with the Victor Buono classic The Mad Butcher (AKA Meat is Meat).

And usually for under a tenner!

worriers of the waistband.

Warrior Of The Lost World (AKA The Executioner of the Lost Earth, Mad Rider, Raiders of the Omega Year. 1983).
Dir: David Worth.
Cast: Robert Ginty, Persis Khambatta, Donald Pleasence, Fred Williamson, Robert Kilroy Silk and Bruno Bilotta.

“Very bad mothers!
Very bad mothers!
Very bad mothers!”

World War III has been and gone in a big puff of stock footage-less explanatory dialogue. From the ashes of conflict has risen a new society, the totalitarian government known as Omega run by professional bad man Prossor (Pleasence wearing his old Blofeld costume) from his highly fortified shopping centre base.

Opposing this faceless, emotionless regime is the individuality loving The New Way, lead by the silver fox like Professor McWayne (orange skinned, Arab hating former talk show host Kilroy Silk) and his crack squad of nappy clad Nepalese wise men.

Legend has it (isn't that always the way?) that a mysterious (well, unshaven and piss stained) Warrior will appear to help in their battle against the bad men, leading them into battle astride a cardboard and MDF enhanced 'supercycle'.

His name?

Lesley Warrior.

A smoother ride than your mum.

When we first meet 'Warrior' he's whiling away the afternoon by racing along a country lane playing tag with various Omega security cars obviously still obsessed with people adhering to the speed limit whilst Einstein, his bikes onboard computer does it's best to annoy the fuck out of the viewer by repeating everything Warrior says in a voice reminiscent of a child with a badly fitted voicebox.

Cue twenty minutes of racing, shooting and playground style stunts as Warrior battles everyone from police-types to Nadsat spouting 'teens' with tights on their heads and finally a group of Nazi Stormtroopers who live on a newly mowed football pitch scattered with a dozen or so junked cars and attack passers by from their heavily armoured kiddies go-karts.

None of these are any cause for concern to a warrior of, um, Warriors standards unlike the huge cliff face he singularly fails to see before driving headlong into it.

Arse.

Luckily for the rest of the movie this inconvenient accident doesn't kill Warrior or destroy Einstein (unfortunately in that case) and he's soon seen lying naked except for a fluffy towel whilst those pesky mystical types wave their hands over him, watched by a bemused Barry Henchman (Williamson, whose alimony bill must have been fucking huge that month).

Resting up (but not shaving) Warrior is approached by the sexily snooty Nastasia McWayne (Khambatta from MegaForce and Star Trek: The Motion Picture) who explains that her dad has been grabbed by the Omegas (sounds painful) and is to be executed the next day unless they mount rescue mission.

As opposed to mounting a wee boy.

"I'm shagging your weans!"

To make sure he'll agree to the mission Nastasia threatens to shoot him in the cock if he tries to leave.

No surprise then that he eagerly agrees to help and is soon decked out in a pair of Devo overalls, navigating a secret underground tunnel chock full spiders, snakes and ball headed mutants by torchlight in an attempt to break into the Omega fortress.

Entering Omega city via a warehouse cum nightclub our heroes are subjected to some eighties style leather-clad Europop dancing before making their way outside and along to execution plaza as dastardly Donald's voice booms over the cities sound system reminding folk that emotions (and collars by the look of things) are a crime.

Oh and that there's a special offer on baked beans, four tins for a pound.

"Do you expect me to talk?"
"No Mr. Bond I expect you to shite in mah mooth!"

Arriving at the execution area our heroes take a seat and prepare for action by watching three (obviously less important) prisoners pull sex faces whilst getting electrocuted before one of the guards, armed with a huge flame-thrower comes out and roasts the corpses.

Just to make sure.

As soon as daddy McWayne is dragged out for his (s)execution Nastasia and the Warrior take out the guards (and anyone else in their way) with some handy machine-guns before running thru' the city and decimating what looks like at least 70% of Prossor's army and smashing a few windows for good measure before escaping in a handy helicopter that was parked in the street.

Unfortunately in all the excitement Nastasia (after getting shot in the arse) gets left behind to be captured by Prossor's men whilst his elite crop spraying team try in vain to stop Warrior and the professor reaching the relative safety of hills.

Persis Khambatta, up the casino, 1979.....Yesch!!

Back at hippy central, McWayne decides that maybe he should have tried to help his daughter and uses her rescue as an excuse to raise a rag-tag army of misfits (about twelve of them) to overthrow Prossor and turn his superstore empire into a collection of pound shops.

The only way to get these outsiders (or 'marginals' as the script calls them) on side tho' is for Warrior to go to the local kiddies playground and offer to fight them all, which of course he does (tossing a midget for good measure), winning the title of 'Mr. Lost World Top Fighter' and the respect of his peers.

It's now time for Warrior to lead this makeshift military mob into battle against the forces of darkness and destroy the Omega fortress by means of kiddies scooters, some second hand mobility cars, a few old taxi's with cardboard fins stuck onto them and a milk float whilst The Professor and Mr. Henchman monitor the attack from the air.

Just imagine the climax of Mad Max 2 re-enacted by a gypsy convoy and you're halfway there.

Some muthas do 'ave 'em.....dig?

This (scarily) successful attack on consumer culture is brought to a sudden halt when Prossor unveils his ultimate defence.

A giant, matt black bin lorry with huge wooden spikes attached and a head mounted flame thrower that thunders very slowly up the road and can't take corners.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the 'Megaweapon'.

The deadly Megaweapon earlier today.

Everyone stops what they're doing and just stands staring as it trundles slowly toward them, not knowing whether to run scared or piss themselves laughing Warrior asks Einstein "How the Hell do we stop that?" before receiving the chirpy reply of "Forty megatons!"

Yup, that's right, a glorified removal van that can only be destroyed by a nuclear strike.

This film must be like hard core porn to Jeremy Clarkson.

Clarkson: masturbatory fantasies.

With Megaweapon looming ever closer and the evil Prossor preparing to wipe Nastasia's mind (that wont take long), it will take a miracle (or some shady plotting) for Warrior and his friends to succeed in bringing what amounts to anarchy to Prossors well ordered society.

Will they overcome the dreaded Megaweapon?

Will Einstein get crushed under it's wheels allowing Warrior to find the off switch?

or Will Prossor turn out to be an android replica all along?

There's only one way to find out!

You can't help but feel envious of director/writer David Worth.

Not only has he directed three of the greatest movies ever made; Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, Kickboxer and the Cynthia Rothrock starrer Lady Dragon but admits that when he was hired to direct Warrior Of The Lost World he was given free reign to make it about anything he wanted as long as it looked a wee bit like the poster they'd designed.

So how on earth did he manage to make something featuring super fast cars and bikes so pedestrian seeing as he had carte blanche and a budget well in excess of £78?

Too much freedom perhaps?

James Cameron please take note.

It's like coming in halfway thru' the last episode of a six part teevee series, you kinda guess who everyone is, you know what's going on and you think you know where it's going.

Just just don't care why.

It's not all bad tho', the thing is fairly enjoyable in a 'what the fuck's going on?" kinda way and the cast (bar the annoying little fucker playing Einstein) are top notch, well midway notch...well they're notched in some way.

And what a cast it has; The Exterminator himself Ginty resplendent in stonewash denims and teabag stubble, dear old Donald Pleasence, Persis Khambatta with hair and Fred Williamson in a beret.

Just when you think it can't get any better in the cult actors stakes tho' Geretta Geretta turns up as a foxy Amazon and kicks the shite out of our hero whilst a plaid covered dwarf looks on.

It's worth it just for this alone.

Oh that and the fact that everyone shakes their guns in a pow! pow! motion whenever they are called on to fire them.

Frankly if this is how the post-apocalyptic world is gonna be then start dropping those bombs now.

I'll just go cut the collar off my shirt and blow up the wheels on my trike.

...and the fathers who love them.

eggs and baker.

The Mutations (AKA Doctor of Evil, The Freakmaker, The Mutation. 1974).
Dir: Jack Cardiff.
Donald Pleasence, Tom Baker, Brad Harris, Julie Ege, Michael Dunn, Scott Antony, Jill Haworth, Olga Anthony, Esther Blackmon, Hugh Bailey, Felix Duarte and Willie Ingram the pop eyed man.

Professor Nick Nolter (Pleasence) is just your average everyday science lecturer at some nameless English polytechnic splitting his time between teaching over forties who want to get better qualifications to get back into work (well from the look of the cast this seems to be the case) and conducting frankly bonkers experiments in an attempt to create a human/plant hybrid.

As you do.

But the professor needs a fresh supply of people to work on, so to this end he employs the fucked of face, scraggy haired Mr. Lynch ( Baker), a local bad man who just happens to co-own the local carnival. Lynch happily obtains young men and women for Nolter's mad experiments on the understanding that one day the professor will fix his face for him.

Anyway, back at the Restart classes, three trendy 'young' students; blonde buxom Hedi ( Ege), luscious Lauren (the bobble headed beauty Haworth star of Tower of Evil) and Tony (Antony, from Ken Russell's Savage Messiah) decide to have a word with visiting scholar and token American hunk Dr. Brian Redford (B movie lunk Harris from The Mad Butcher amongst other classics) regarding rumours they've heard about Nolter’s research.

Being a nosy bugger Redford agrees to look into it.

"Shite in mah....oh, someone already has".

Meanwhile back at the carnival, suspicions are raised at the amount of new freaks suddenly appearing on show. Lynch's partner, a pre-Simpsons Mr. Burns (Dunn) tries to calm his regular workers by saying he put an ad in the paper.

Could he be lying?

All this talk of bearded ladies and tiny men in hats is beginning to annoy Lynch tho', and when his co-workers bake him a cake it sends him into a violent (and dribbly) rage that can only be sated by a visit to a dirty, baby doll night dressed whore.


Talking a break from their investigations, our tricky trio reckon an evening at the fair taking the piss out of those less fortunate than themselves is in order and head straight for the tent of freaks.

And this, dear reader, is the reason we're watching; there's an old lady with a hairy face (looking a wee bit like a sexier Bill Oddie), a lady with really bad excema dubbed The Lizard Woman (Blackmon), a boy with no bones in his legs (no, really) non-sensationally named Frog Boy (Duarte), the bendy backed Human Pretzel (Bailey), a scarily sexy Monkey Woman and everyone's favourite, the fantastic Popeyed Jeff (Ingram) a man who can make his eyeballs pop out from their sockets.

"Eye son".

Now part of me wants to say that exploiting those born differently to what we call 'the norm' for cheap entertainment is distasteful and somewhat sickening in this more aware climate.

But fuck that, this guy can make his eyeballs buldge out of his skull! How cool is that?

Anyway, as you can probably guess Nolter's experiments get more and more freaky climaxing with poor Tony getting turned into a hideous venus flytrap/human/vagina hybrid with a taste for tramps and blondes (and trampy blondes) whilst the Professor makes a speech arguing the case for the creation of a race of super-humans and poor old Lynch is hunted down by a gang of dwarves using attack dogs.

Donald's cum face.

There's no denying that The Mutations is a bona fide classic of British exploitation cinema, what should be a crass and tasteless excuse to show differently-abled folk for cheap enjoyment is surprisingly entertaining and almost apologetic when it comes to it's subject matter.

It's mad mix of gore, girls and gro-bag induced terrors give the film a totally schizophrenic feel; the plight and humanity in the storyline regarding the (real life) freak show workers at odds with the main plot about man eating plants and a saliva slopping man with a potato stuck to his face.

The Mutantions is utterly brilliant and totally crap in equal measures.

Up the casino.

Scarily The Mutations was directed by an honest to goodness Oscar winner, Jack Cardiff (who won best cinematographer for 1948 movie Black Narcissus), showing that he had either a secret love of shlock horror or the onset of Alzheimer's - it's your choice, and it's this unsure style, coupled with his almost erotic obsession with time-lapse footage of plants growing, topless dolly birds and the real life freak show performance at the movies half way point that makes this the cinematic equivalent of drunkenly shagging your best mates mum.

It might be great at the time but with hindsight you end up feeling coyisly guilty and even a wee bit itchy from enjoying it so much.


Worth watching, but only if you're alone.

Or just very lonely.

get shorty.

Auch Zwerge Haben Klein Angefangen (Even Dwarfs Started Small 1971).

Dir: Werner Herzog.

Cast: Helmut Döring, Paul Glauer, Gisela Hertwig, Hertel Minkner, Gerd Gickel and Pepi Hermine.

In a grimly hostile and starkly lit black and white world populated by dwarfs a group of ker-razy inmates have taken over their asylum in retaliation to the discipline and incarceration of the stoically silent (except for his manic Tarbie like laugh) tough guy Pepe (Gickel).

The institution's director (Hermine), pleading for calm, is holed up in his plush office with Pepe as a hostage as a dozen or so of Pepe's drearily dressed pals try at first to break down the door and free him before getting bored and running riot, smashing stuff, setting (tiny) fires and systematically tormenting any blind people they happen across before committing the totally evil and barbaric act of pushing a truck down a deep hole.

As you would if you were an angry mad little person.

Pepe proudly displays his golden Lego brick.

Every so often the rebels and Hermine shout abuse and threats at each other from afar with Hermine even going so far as threatening to kill Pepe if everyone doesn't return to their cells.

Unfortunately the fact that they're shouting across a vast expanse coupled with the main protagonists tiny ears means that the rebels mishear these rants as an invitation to indulge in comedy food fights, cock fighting (phnarrr) and pig slaughtering competitions followed by frantic masturbation to old porno mags (sadly the last bit is off screen).

After a terrifying scene of crockery based abuse never matched in cinema before or since (they chuck dinner plates at a passing truck) the rascally rebels strap a tiny monkey to a crucifix and set it waddling off towards Hermine's office.

Anti RTD protesters attempt to steal
Peter Davison's celery from his lapel.

Deciding that they need a break from all this wanton destruction our merry band force two of the shortest dwarfs ever seen on screen (a foxy track-suited young Mel C alike and a prune faced old geezer by the name of Hombre - played to pant wetting perfection by Döring) to get married (nice work if you can get it cos she's really not that bad a catch if I'm honest).

At home with Ant and Dec.

After the (genuinely heartwarming) ceremony the 'happy' couple are packed off to the nearest bedroom to consummate the union (it's like a little Big Brother), but unfortunately (for him) Hombre is too little to get up onto the bed (which is good news for us as it means she's still on the market, unsoiled by his wrinkly little hands...hurrah!).

Bored by all these sub-reality Teevee antics, the asylum boss decides to give Pepe a bloody good (off screen) kicking anyway before legging it out of the compound and threatening an old tree.

"...and this is the actual beanstalk
wee Jimmy Krankie fell off!"

The movies final, striking image has never been bettered (to my mind anyway) either artistically or stylistically in the history of cinema, featuring as it does Helmut Döring laughing hysterically as a camel kneels in front of him and has a pooh.

Being used to Silk Cut Lights, Hombre was
justifiably concerned when his friend
offered him a Camel.

Much has been written about Werner Herzog's 1971 Auch Zwerge Haben Klein Angefangen, sometimes even by people who've seen it.

Critics often praise the film for its rich allegorical bent, citing everything from the partition of Germany and the Vietnam war as its underlying central theme, its sparse narrative structure and surrealist improvisational script hailed as cinema transcending into pure art.

Sounds good doesn't it?

Well it's a pity that's all bollocks, because what we really have here is a postmodern industrial version of The Terror of Tiny Town spliced together with the best bits of The Prisoner but minus the songs, horses and Patrick McGoohan shouting loudly in an Irish accent whilst wearing a boating blazer.

And if that's not enough to getting you ordering this masterpiece from Amazon them I don't know what is.

An indispensable film that you MUST own.

Right now.