Bonehead-XL Few filmmakers understand the absurd's potential for horror: The German Expressionists, Luis Buniel, Roman Polanski, David Lynch, maybe a few others. Of that number, I'd never think to include William Castle. Though Castle's gimmick films weren't without effective shocks, most were content to be charmingly campy. His final feature, "Shanks," saw the filmmaker moving into new creative territory, creating a film that mines the absurd to uncanny, dream-like, humorous, and unnerving affect."Shanks" does have a gimmick, of course. It's the only starring role of Marcel Marceau, world-famous mime. Large portions of the film lack dialogue and silent movie-style intertitles are inserted throughout. The plot revolves around Malcolm Shanks, a deaf-mute puppeteer. His only friends are the neighborhood children and, at night, Shanks suffers abuse at the hands of his cruel sister and her alcoholic husband. When an elderly mad scientist, also played by Marceau, takes notices of the boy's puppetry skills, he hires him as a lab assistant. Inside of his sprawling Gothic manor, the scientist has been experimenting with animating dead corpses through diodes and remotes. After the scientist dies, Shanks continues his work, creating twitching, stiff corpse puppets for revenge and amusement."Shanks" features some truly unforgettable imagery, much of it deeply creepy. Marceau's double role allows him to employ his mime skills as the creaking mad scientist meat puppet. The moment when the scientist is first revived has Marceau slowly, stiffly moving through the house, Shanks learning the ins-and-outs of the puppetry. A slow-motion attack by an undead rooster, featured in close-shots and quick cuts, should be absurd but Castle's direction creates a truly unnerving effect. Once the sister and husband are killed and revived, the movie truly begins to use its gimmick fantastically. The corpse-puppets robotically moving while shopping at a convenience store is both surreal and absurdly funny, especially the image of the two bending their bodies in half to step down a curb. Though I wish Marceau could have done more mime work himself in the film, Tsilla Chelton and Philippe Clay are both excellent in the roles. They lean in the wind, gyrate on the ground, stiffly move about, and perform bizarre, contorting dances.The film takes a hard left turn in the last act. Shanks' closest friend is the young girl Celia. It's clear she has a crush on him and the film is ambiguous over whether the adult man shares the girl's affection. At first she is frightened by Shanks' new puppets but quickly learns to love them, especially once he gets them to stand up and dance. While having a birthday party in the scientist's dusty, creepy mansion, a group of cartoonishly evil bikers suddenly ride into the film. They invade the house, rape the girl, tie up Shanks, and steal the puppets. The film signals the story shift by having one of the intertitles go up in literal flames. The conflict is created for the purpose of the climax, in which Shanks revives his first people. The cliché of a corpse digging its way out of a grave is repurposed in a fresh, spooky, uncanny way. The last half features the most impressive mime work, even Marceau's sudden transformation into an action hero comes out of nowhere. The sepia-toned penultimate scene is poetic and bizarre, while the final scene suggests the whole film might have been a dream. That would certainly fit the surreal tone.Alex North's vibrant score propels the film and was rightfully nominated for an Academy Award. Unseen for many years, "Shanks" was recently released on Blu-Ray by Olive Films. Olive is slowly trying to win my heart by releasing oddball obscurity like this and "The Hellstrom Chronicles." However, if they truly want to be the Criterion of cult films, they'll have to work a little harder then this. The image transfer is sometimes lovely but too often scratchy and dusty. Worse yet, there's nary a special feature on the disk, not even a trailer. Still, "Shanks" warrants rediscovery. It's bound to be the only horror film you see about mime, at the very least.

wes-connors Wearing tight pants and a wig, mute puppeteer Marcel Marceau (as Malcolm Shanks) takes over an expired old man's practice of re-animating the dead. Naturally, he begins by bringing back the old man. This process turns out to be more lifelike on chickens than people. Marceau gets a lot of grief from his brother's ex-wife, Tsilla Chelton, and her alcoholic husband, husband Philippe Clay. Pretty blonde Cindy Eilbacher (as Celia) is Marceau's girlfriend. Understandably, the underage girl's birthday is a cause for celebration, so Marceau has a party. An uninvited gang appears, stealing Marceau's puppets and abducting Ms. Eilbacher...This might have been a better film if director William Castle had settled upon a style. There are silent film "title cards" throughout, which are obviously there to accentuate the fact that Marceau is a mime playing a mute; but, other silent film techniques are unemployed. Incongruently, an obvious soundtrack seem the biggest strength. The visuals are tepid schlock horror. The more silent final segments, Eilbacher looking lovely in a sepia-tone and Marceau leading the cast in a bow, are most successful.** Shanks (10/9/74) William Castle ~ Marcel Marceau, Cindy Eilbacher, Tsilla Chelton, Philippe Clay

VinnieRattolle Malcolm Shanks is a deaf/mute street puppeteer who's enlisted by a aged scientist to assist in experiments to reanimate dead animals. When the mad scientist abruptly dies, Shanks carries out his work, using the dead doctor's own body... and before long, more bodies begin stacking up.Love it or hate it, "Shanks" is one of those films that leaves an indelible impression on everyone who's seen it. Sadly, that seems to be very few. This is not a mainstream movie by ANY stretch, but it certainly deserves to be better known than it is. I first caught the film on TV decades ago and, while I didn't clearly remember the specifics of the plot (of which there's very little) until I caught it on TV again last night, I vividly remembered the corpses skulking about the screen. There's something intensely and appropriately creepy about the actors' performances as the dead bodies.Although "Shanks" is artier than the usual William Castle fare, there's traces of the director all over the movie, from the camera-work to the humor to the makeup (the dead doctor looks uncannily like the blind woman from "House on Haunted Hill") to the hallucinatory sequence to the gimmicky silent-film cards (there's very little dialogue) to the director's cameo. Unfortunately, like most William Castle films, it loses steam as it nears its conclusion. The climax features a group of bikers who appear out of nowhere to threaten the titular hero. I love a bad biker flick, but it was an element that felt wholly out of place in this film. Further marring the movie, the final minute or two felt like an insult to the previous 90 minutes of surreal grotesqueness.Still, despite the shortcomings of the finale, the performers are incredible to watch, the production design is beautiful, the use of sound and music is superb and it's nice to see Castle was still making unique films right up to the end of his career. If only Paramount would give this never-available curio a widescreen DVD release, I'd be a happy camper.

Earl Roesel (Sanguinaire) And that's not an exaggeration. I searched for this movie for a long time, and I'm glad I found it. Marcel Marceau plays Shanks, a deaf puppet maker, and Walker, an old scientist who has discovered the secret of reanimating the dead. He plays both beautifully, using his pantomime skills to achieve silent movie style acting. In fact, that's what this movie reminds me of - a silent fairy tale (the use of title cards to introduce scenes further suggests this), with a little George Romero thrown in! It's incredible that something this abstract and individualistic was made; I wish more movies would be as bold. The opening credits sequence, with tinted photos of kids watching Shanks' puppet show while the weird Oscar nominated (!) music plays is incredibly strange, memorable, and disturbing.William Castle, of all people, directed. This movie shows, more than any other, that he was more than just the "King of Gimmicks". To see such an expressionistic and disturbing vision.......is to regret that this was his final film as director.