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Castle Freak
It's one of the Full Moon stable of schlock horrors from the late 80s/early 90s. On the face of it it's a fairly standard if somewhat gothic tale, with an American family inheriting, by some mad line of descent, a castle in Europe. Italy I think it was. The castle is 'haunted' by a twisted remnant of humanity (the Freak) who lives down in the cellars.
The freak is the result of a hideous act of abuse. A child kept in a dungeon and raised like an animal, horribly scarred and without the power of speech. Oh, and a taste for human flesh. His mother ( I seem to recall) was the relative from whom the family have inherited the castle, and nobody else ever knew of the existence of the child. All that is known of the horrors of the castle is that it is 'haunted'.
So far so fun, and typically horror. But the film surprises with a really intriguing character study of the family. They themselves are broken people and the family has already been shattered. The father is a recovering alcoholic dealing with the guilt of having crashed their car whilst drunk, killing their youngest child and blinding the surviving daughter. Though still married, the wife will not let him near her, or allow him to share her bed. She cannot forgive him any more than he can forgive himself.
It's one of my favourite movies. Despite the cheesiness in places (goes with the territory), the acting from the leads is excellent, particularly the couple. Jeffrey Combs is a fantastic character actor and this is one of those rare films where he is playing an ordinarily flawed human rather than the quirkier Re-animator type role.
Some of the smaller roles aren't played as well ( standard Italian horror film cop for instance) but some of them are awesome. There's an old woman who works as a housekeeper at the castle and she's just brilliant. I imagine she's probably a really well known actor over there.
It's packed with little moments that still play in my head now and then.
One of the things I like about it is that it leans more to Frankenstein's Monster than it does to a ghost story. The freak is a threat but he's also a tragic figure.
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