BA_Harrison After watching a movie as thoroughly bewildering as German gothic horror Castle of the Creeping Flesh, I log onto IMDb to see if any of the reviews (all seven of them in this case) are able to satisfactorily sum up what I have seen; I can't say that anyone has successfully hit the nail on the head with this film (and I'm not about to change that).Directed by Adrian Hoven (Mark of the Devil), the film is like some kind of fever dream: disjointed, occasionally trippy, with stilted dialogue, moments of eroticism, gore and outright craziness. The muddled plot involves an aristocrat, the Earl of Saxon (played by Euro-horror regular Howard Vernon), who is attempting to bring his daughter back to life, the poor girl having been raped and killed. A group of revellers arrive at the Earl's castle and stay the night, after which I became totally lost, suffice to say that the film attempts to compensate for the fact that it makes little sense by chucking in lots of female nudity and quite a few scenes of real open heart surgery (all of which comes as quite a surprise for a film made in 1968). There's also a savage attack by a wild bear (played by a man in an unconvincing bear costume).Imagine a Mario Bava gothic horror as directed by Jess Franco on an off day, and you won't even come close to appreciating what an inept mess of a movie this is.

David-2181 Watched this film recently, it may have been controversial stuff in the 1960's but seems a bit tame by todays standards. The infamous rape scenes were well shot and although not the most pleasant subject, suited the storyline well and did not prove cringe-worthy or upsetting. There may well have been one or two continuity errors but these did not detract from the story for me. This has been described as a shocking film, all I can say is I must have been watching a cut version then. The gore content is pretty much a lot less than most horror films, the nudity displayed seems tame by todays standards and although I would not let children watch it, as adult late night fare it was an enjoyable horror film and not as bad as I was led to believe. Dated by todays standards but watchable if you enjoy traditional horror films of this era.

Coventry There's SO much wrong with this movie, I barely know where to start first. Oh no wait, I do know! With the ending, seeing there isn't really one! The plot introduces many characters that each have their own odd personalities, there's loads of sexual tension & intrigue between them all, a mad scientist with blood vengeance on his mind and everything taking place in a castle with a sinister history. All these great ideas and Gothic-trademarks and then, suddenly, it goes terribly wrong and the film ends in a minor key. It feels like whatever tight budget Adrian Hoven was working with all of sudden ran out completely and, as a result of this, they just quit in the middle of shooting. Howard Vernon – a Jess Franco regular – plays yet another mentally messed up Baron slash doctor slash castle owner. Some centuries ago, one of his ancestors lost his beautiful daughter because she was raped and abused by savage men in the woods. History seems to repeat itself, as Graf Saxon's own daughter also falls victim to an assault. He and his loyal servants want to resurrect the dead daughter but they'll need essential body parts from living beings. Lucky for them, a drunken bunch of flamboyant party animals stumbles into the castle and onto the operation table. "Castle of the Creeping Flesh" is a very bizarre film for more than just one reason. I've been using the term "gothic" already, but I'm not entirely sure if it fully counts as goth-horror! During with era are the events even supposed to take place? The characters attend fancy high society parties, yet they ride horses instead of cars. And Howard Vernon lives isolated in a creepy castle, yet he's perfectly able to perform a complex open-heart surgery? And yet, underneath all the confusion, implausible story lines and downright horrible dubbing jobs, there is an interesting and obscure exploitation effort to discover. We have gorgeous euro-babes stripping their clothes off, an occasionally macabre ambiance and some really graphic gore moments. Howard Vernon is terrible but fun to observe as always and Michel Lemoine is genuinely scary with his horrifying eyes. It's really too bad about that crap ending, otherwise I could recommend it even more.

roganmarshall This is almost a typical castle Gothic, distinguished by an extraordinarily beautiful handful of locations and actresses, weak filmmaking from a terrible script, and a distressing, lascivious fascination with rape imagery, which, I guess, was a couple of years ahead of its time. It also features extensive real open-heart surgery (intercut with a sex scene, no less!), which is probably the most interesting thing about an otherwise dull and unrewarding picture. Unless you're heavy into this subgenre, don't bother.