Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, Hide the Fair Maidens

Vivien Leigh is thought to have landed the most coveted of all Hollywood roles, Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind." However, rivaling that cinematic coup is Simonetta Vitelli, landing the role of Krista in today's feature. I think we can say for certainty that no one takes a bath better than this Italian actress, or that no actress has used baths with more consequence than Ms. Vitelli. To avoid an overly gratuitous review, I will not mention her very gratuitous bath in a tub of warm milk...or her steamy bath with Count Frankenstein's daughter in which the two smear mud all over each other...or the steamy bath she takes as she is abducted by a neanderthal.  Nope, we'll keep this review free of sexploitation as we delve in to the Italian horror film from 1974, "Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks."

The nubile Krista (Vitelli) joins her nubile besty Maria Frankenstein (Christiane Royce) for holiday at Frankenstein's castle...what could go wrong? Count Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi) falls in love with his daughter's blonde BF immediately. Krista will then spend a lot of time nude and in baths as she tries to seduce the Count. Oh...I should mention the Count has created a monster in his laboratory called Goliath (Loren Ewing), who will also fall in love with Krista. Oh yeah, I should also mention that a neanderthal prowls the nearby caves, his name is Ook (Boris Lugosi)...and yes, he will also fall in love with the bathing Krista. As luck has it, Krista has the same hobbies as her new beau, creating monsters from corpses...it beats scrap-booking.

Okay, as Krista begins helping the Count, the Count's perverted midget-helper Ginz (Michael Dunn) gropes female corpses and is sent packing. Ginz, by chance, meets Ook and he teaches him to abduct and rape fair maidens. The duo do this just fine but Ginz wants to up the risk factor. As Ginz heads back to the castle to abduct Maria Frankenstein, Ook finds Krista taking a bath.  This is when everything goes crazy and Goliath escapes from the lab and commences his own search for the bathing Krista.

Will the bathing Krista survive the advances of the monster and the neanderthal and wed Count Frankenstein? Will Maria be the humiliated object of Ginz' twisted revenge against the Count? Do Neanderthals and created monsters deserve love, too? Does bathing in warm milk really help our skin stay youthful looking? This Italian take on Frankenstein is filled with gratuitous bathing scenes and damsels in much distress. For a monster film Mary Shelley would have been proud of (okay, maybe not), see "Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks," directed by Dick Randall.