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Chains of Creation: Stuart Gordon’s Castle Freak and the Prison of the Gothic

13 Thursday Nov 2025

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By the mid-1990s, Castle Freak found Stuart Gordon at a fascinating crossroads — caught between the transgressive brilliance of his early H.P. Lovecraft adaptations (Re-Animator, From Beyond) and the low-budget constraints of Charles Band’s Full Moon Productions. The result is a lean, mean Gothic chamber piece that struggles against its limitations but ultimately bears the unmistakable fingerprints of its director: bodily horror, familial guilt, and tragedy masquerading as terror.

Working once again with his creative muse Jeffrey Combs and the always-captivating Barbara Crampton, Gordon turns what could have been a cheap European monster movie into something strangely mournful. The story — of an American family inheriting a crumbling Italian castle, only to discover a deformed, feral creature locked away in the basement — feels familiar, yet it’s given a raw, unsettling emotional core. Combs’ performance, as a guilt-ridden father trying to hold his fractured family together, brings unexpected pathos to the proceedings, while Crampton’s quiet sorrow grounds the film’s more grotesque flourishes.

What separates Castle Freak from the endless churn of Full Moon’s ‘90s horror output is Gordon’s eye for discomfort. Despite being shot on a shoestring budget and with a skeletal crew, he still finds moments of painterly dread — the cold stone corridors, the echo of chains, the creature’s mournful moans. And yet, for all its ambition, the film is tethered by its financial and creative confines. The gore lands, the atmosphere lingers, but the pacing sags. It’s a haunted house story without quite enough haunting.

In retrospect, Castle Freak stands as a minor but meaningful entry in Gordon’s canon — a film where his thematic obsessions (sexual repression, guilt, the monstrous within) are filtered through Full Moon’s direct-to-video pragmatism. The collaboration with Charles Band may have clipped his wings, but Gordon’s voice still resonates through the decay. There’s a sadness to the film’s cruelty, a sense that the freak chained in the cellar isn’t just a monster, but a metaphor for Gordon’s own creative captivity within the B-movie machine.

The Prognosis:

Castle Freak may not reach the delirious heights of Re-Animator or From Beyond, but as a bleak Gothic tragedy disguised as exploitation, it remains one of the most distinctive horrors of the Full Moon era — a mournful howl echoing through the ruins of genre cinema’s most daring mind.

  • Saul Muerte

Re-Animator (1985) – Mad Science, Maximum Splatter!

17 Friday Oct 2025

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“Herbert West has a very good head… on his shoulders. And another one… in a dish on his desk.”

If you haunted the horror aisle of your local video store in the 1980s, chances are you’ve seen Re-Animator glaring back at you from a lurid neon-green VHS sleeve. Released in 1985, Stuart Gordon’s cult classic is the stuff of midnight movie legend: a delirious cocktail of Lovecraft, gore, black comedy, and mad science that set a new standard for splatter cinema.

Loosely adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West—Reanimator, the story plunges into the twisted experiments of medical student Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs, in a career-defining role). West has discovered a serum capable of reanimating the dead—though what comes back is never quite what was lost. As corpses twitch, shriek, and explode back into grotesque parodies of life, West’s obsession pushes medicine, morality, and sanity to their breaking point.

What makes Re-Animator endure, 40 years later, is the sheer precision of its madness. Stuart Gordon, in his feature debut, creates a bold visual aesthetic: sterile hospital halls colliding with garish splatter, glowing syringes of radioactive-green fluid cutting through shadow, and a pace that never lets you catch your breath. It’s both theatrical and grimy, like Lovecraft dragged kicking and screaming into the grindhouse.

Then there are the performances. Jeffrey Combs doesn’t just play Herbert West—he becomes him. Clinical, arrogant, and perversely charismatic, West is one of horror’s most iconic creations, a character whose clipped delivery and maniacal focus have carved him a permanent place in the genre pantheon. Beside him, Barbara Crampton brings heart and vulnerability to Megan Halsey, grounding the film’s madness in a performance that makes her both victim and survivor. The chemistry between Combs and Crampton, along with Bruce Abbott as the conflicted Dan Cain, is the human spine of the film’s monstrous body.

And then, of course, there’s the gore. Re-Animator doesn’t just dip into blood—it wallows in it. Heads roll (literally), entrails spill, and practical effects run wild with gleeful excess. This is splatter at its peak: not just shocking, but imaginative, choreographed chaos that keeps finding new ways to disturb and delight. Gordon walks the razor’s edge between horror and comedy, and somehow, miraculously, never loses balance.

Four decades on, Re-Animator is still a head of its class. It’s soaked in Lovecraftian dread, powered by unforgettable performances, and dripping with the kind of splatter that defined an era of VHS horror. Whether you’re a first-time renter or a long-time cult devotee, Re-Animator remains that rare horror feature that shocks, entertains, and endures—an unholy hybrid of brains, blood, and black humour that refuses to die.

📼 Staff Pick!
“One of the goriest, funniest, and most unforgettable horror films of the ‘80s. Jeffrey Combs IS Herbert West. Be warned: once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it… and you won’t want to.”

  • Saul Muerte

Little Bites (2025) – A Slow Burn That Barely Smolders

16 Sunday Feb 2025

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Premiering exclusively on Shudder and AMC+, Little Bites is the latest horror offering from director Spider One, known for his work on Allegoria. This time, he crafts a slow-burn psychological horror that takes its time unraveling its mysteries—perhaps too much time. While the film eventually delivers a striking conclusion, the road to get there is uneven, relying on atmosphere and suggestion rather than sustained tension or narrative drive.

At the heart of the film is Krsy Fox, who also edited the feature. She delivers a subdued but emotionally raw performance as a single mother grappling with an unseen force, her weary expressions and hushed delivery emphasising the toll of her situation. The film leans heavily on her ability to carry the story, and while she does an admirable job, the script doesn’t always give her enough to work with. For much of the runtime, she feels trapped in a cycle of quiet suffering, with little forward momentum until the film’s final stretch. When she finally gets the chance to break free in the climax, she commands the screen—but by then, some viewers may have already checked out.

One of Little Bites‘ most notable draws is the inclusion of horror icons Barbara Crampton and Heather Langenkamp. Unfortunately, their roles are brief, more like cameo appearances than substantial contributions to the narrative. While their presence adds credibility and a nostalgic thrill for genre fans, it’s ultimately underutilised, leaving the film feeling like a missed opportunity to fully embrace its horror lineage.

Visually, the film is draped in a bleak, muted aesthetic, reinforcing the protagonist’s isolation and dread. Spider One’s direction is methodical, favoring slow, creeping tension over jump scares or overt horror spectacle. While this approach has the potential to be effective, the film struggles with pacing, often lingering on scenes that don’t add much beyond mood-setting. The ambiguity of the horror elements is intriguing at first but becomes frustrating as the film continues to withhold key developments for too long.

Despite these flaws, Little Bites does have its moments, particularly in its final act. The slow burn finally ignites into something far more compelling, delivering a climax that is both visceral and visually impactful. It’s a glimpse of what the film could have been had it maintained that level of engagement throughout.

The Prognosis:

Ultimately, Little Bites is a film that asks for patience—perhaps too much. While Krsy Fox gives a solid performance and the conclusion lands with force, the journey to get there is underwhelming. For those who appreciate methodical psychological horror, there’s something to admire here, but for most, the film’s lethargic pace and lack of urgency may leave them craving something with more bite.

  • Saul Muerte

Little Bites will be streaming on Shudder from Fri 21st Feb.

Movie review: Suitable Flesh (2024)

24 Wednesday Jan 2024

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Music in film achieves a number of things: it establishes setting; it creates atmosphere; it calls attention to elements; it reinforces or foreshadleaningsows narrative developments; it gives meaning to a character’s actions or translates their thoughts; and it creates emotion.

(K. Kalinak, 2024)

Such is the weight that music has in films that to find the right balance is imperative in delivering the right intonation or mood to a piece. If it’s off kilter in any way, then you risk thrusting your audience out of the narrative and falling into an abyss of disconnection.  Unfortunately, this becomes common place during Joe Lynch’s latest offering from the directorial chair. It feels intentional but the choice to mix up the erotic ambience with mystery and intrigue, ends up feeling like a late night straight to tv from the 80s. 

One might argue that Suitable Flesh is aiming to present itself in this field, tipped as a successor to Stuart Gordon’s Lovecraftian classics, From Beyond and Re-Animator, it even boasts one of stars from both of these features, Barbara Crampton. And thank God as she is head and shoulders, one of the most interesting components to the film.

There is plenty to praise on the basis of its premise alone, but its execution gets too muddled through amplifying different genres with a hazy mix of confusion. Another example of how the composition never hits the right note throughout. 

When psychiatrist, Dr. Elizabeth Derby (Heather Graham) becomes involved and obsessed with one of her clients, Asa White (Judah Lewis – The Babysitter) she soon becomes entangled in an ancient curse; one with octopedal ramifications, another of Lovecraft’s signature themes arises. 

The first and second act hinges on this lustful interaction, accompanied by murderous deeds, and psychological leanings. So embroiled in this component that Lynch neglects to add any depth to the proceedings and skates along the surface hoping that the intrigue is salvageable enough to keep the plot afloat.

The supporting roles from Johnathon Schaech (Quarantine) and Bruce Davison (X-Men) are woefully underused, with the exception of Crampton who plays Derby’s confidante and lifelong friend, Dr. Daniella Upton, this is Graham’s picture to deliver, but too often she is trapped in a two-note affair, struggling to break out of her fixed portrayal of a woman in crisis.

Suitable Flesh’s saving grace comes in the final act, when Lynch finally decides to dial up the tension and leans heavily into a gripping climax, with a disappointing and predictable final reveal.

The Prognosis:

What promised to be a reawakening of Lovecraftian themes brought to light in the 80s, Suitable Flesh leaves you floundering, in search of something to grip onto, waiting all too late in the final act to serve up anything remotely appealing to its audience.

  • Saul Muerte

Suitable Flesh is available on Shudder from Fri 26th Jan. 

Kalinak, Kathryn, ‘What does film music do?’, Film Music: A Very Short Introduction, 1st edn (New York, 2010; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Sept. 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780195370874.003.0001, accessed 24 Jan. 2024.

Movie Review: Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls (2023)

05 Tuesday Sep 2023

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Since the early 2000’s Director/Actor Andrew Bowser has been honing his craft with a unique blend of comedy and fantasy. It’s fair to say that in recent years, his greatest creation thus far is Marcus J. Trillbury aka Onyx the Fortuitous, a comic book enthusiast, video game player, and quirky nerd, and features in a number of youtube clips that have gone viral. It’s little wonder then, that Bowser would invest in bringing his fabrication to a feature length scale in Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls. 

Onyx is struggling in life, both at home and at work, drifting aimlessly with his heart on becoming a successful occultist, when he gets a call to the mansion of his idol Bartok the Great with an invitation to raise the spirit of an ancient demon. 

Like a warped wonka-esque tale in which the golden ticket promises a wondrous experience, Onyx along with four other devotees have been carefully selected to take part in the ritual. Each taking on a specific role that may condemn their souls for all eternity. Is Onyx destined to fall once more and succumb to the greater evil or has destiny something else in store?

The Prognosis:

Bowser has no option but to go all in to enhance his alter-ego Onyx the Fortuitous on the big screen. There are some that may not warm to his persona but his eccentricity but others will find it warming and infectious. Beneath the comical, fantastical exterior is a smart and enduring narrative with a steady rhythm pulsating to a satisfying climax. 

Bowser also brings in the strength of a solid supporting cast to add weight to the proceedings, namely Olivia Taylor Dudley (The Magicians), and the reuniting of Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator). Where he stretches the believability with his vision, it taps into an unearthly charm and resonates with an insatiable charisma. May Onyx the Fortuitous find more tales of the occult to lure you into his zen.

  • Saul Muerte

Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls will be screening as the Closing Film for Sydney Underground Film Festival on Sunday, September 10, 2023. 

Movie review: Superhost (2021)

12 Sunday Sep 2021

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On face value Superhost begins by focusing on insipidly vacuous couple Claire (Sara Canning – The Vampire Diaries) and Teddy (Osric Chau – Supernatural) are unbearably false and vain, which is the point right?
But as the story unfolds there are glimpses of their former selves, prior to the burning desire to boost their social ratings. 

Claire’s and Teddy are a duo travel vloggers who spend their time residing in airbnb’s and promoting their thoughts of the locations and more importantly their hosts online.

Worried that their numbers and fanbase appear to be dwindling they start to up the ante in how to turn around their bad fortune.

So at their next location, when things appear to be hitting a dull point, they encounter more than they bargain for, but is it from the psychotic former host, Vera (Barbara Crampton – Re-Animator) from a previous location that they stayed at leaving unfavourable reviews? Or will it be the slightly off-kilter host Rebecca (Gracie Gillam – Fright Night) from their current place of stay?              

The Diagnosis:

Director Brandon Christensen (Still/Born; Z) much like his previous films manages to generate  some genuinely cool moments.
Here it is notably enhanced by the performances from Crampton and Gillam, but the end result is a mediocre affair and doesn’t generate much of a flicker outside of originality.

There’s enough here to entertain but not necessarily to stimulate.

  • Saul Muerte

Superhost is currently streaming on Shudder

Movie Review: Jakob’s Wife (2021)

16 Monday Aug 2021

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For his sophomore outing in the director’s chair, Travis Stevens (Girl on the Third Floor) he serves a refreshing take of the vampire tale through the lens of a middle-aged couple who have lost their zest for life. Anne (Barbara Crampton – Re-Animator), the titular character has been playing the role of the dutiful pastor’s wife in a small rural town for the past thirty years, bottling up her emotions and constantly under the shadow of male oppression. This is exactly how the nosferatu preys on this weakness, hunger for new victims or brides to bring into her fold.

Pastor Jakob (Larrey Fessenden – The House of the Devil) is equally lost in his world. Set in his ways and with no real vocation, he has succumbed to the rituals that his position has provided to him. 

When tempted by an old flame, Anne falls into seduction and it awakens a dormant part of her life. This too coincides with the arrival of the Master (Bonnie Aarons – The Nun) and soon she begins to pick apart the remnants of the town. 

Anne reaches a crucial crossroads in her life… choose her existing life, give-in to the darkness, or find a way through turmoil and create a new path of her own.

In many ways, Jakob’s Wife defies the stereotype of middle-aged life where Stevens presents the world as a slow-paced, dull exposition, but as soon as the first kill happens, this world and our expectations get suddenly thrust onto its head. With every kill that follows, there is no holding back and the blood pours forth to the extreme. This choice in direction is what keeps us engaged and coupled with his two leads in Crampton and Fassenden, we’re provided with some depth to the extreme circumstances with some dry humour to make sure we stay tuned in.

The Diagnosis:

It’s a painfully slow start and I thought that it was going to drag, but it then suddenly unleashes with a lot of fury.

While it struggles to keep the momentum going, Jakobs’ Wife inflicts enough torment to satisfy and keep you engaged with a peppering of decent humour to boot.

  • Saul Muerte

Jakob’s Wife streams on Shudder from Thursday, August 19th.

Press Release: MidWest WeirdFest Announces First Programming Wave for 2019

20 Sunday Jan 2019

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Eau Claire, Wisconsin, January 16, 2019 – MidWest WeirdFest announces its first programming wave for 2019 today. The third annual festival – a cinematic celebration of all things fantastic, frightening, offbeat, and just plain weird – takes place March 8-10, 2019 at the Micon Downtown Cinema in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. 

“This year’s fest line-up is set to delight fans of cutting edge horror, sci-fi, underground, and documentary cinema”, says festival founder and programming director Dean Bertram. “We’ve put together a heady and eclectic mix of speculative genre offerings, underground strangeness, and paranormal revelations: From a psychedelic Manson Family reimagining and a post-apocalyptic dance-off epic, through tales about a reanimated electrokinetic teenager, haunted stoners, and inept buddy superheroes, to a bonkers lake monster adventure and the most in-depth Bigfoot documentary ever produced. And that’s just from MidWest WeirdFest’s first programming wave of 2019!” 

Discounted festival passes are now on sale at: www.midwestweirdfest.com. Individual tickets to each film will go on sale closer to the festival; both on the fest’s website, and directly from the Micon Downtown Cinema in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. 

Full program details and filmmaker guests will be revealed in February. 

The first seven feature films announced follow: 

FP 2: BEATS OF RAGE (director: Jason Trost)

Despite hanging up his boots following the events of the cult classic “THE FP”,  JTRO must return to the blood sport of Beat-Beat Revelation one last time.  JTRO and KCDC – his mystical hype man – will quest deep into The Wastes, a land decimated by the Beat Wars, to compete in the ancient Beat-Beat tournament, called “Beats of Rage”, face AK-47, and, hopefully, save the world.  Imagine a MAD MAX style future, where battles to the death are fought via the video game Dance Dance Revolution, and you might have an inkling of the crazy and hilarious post-apocalyptic world of THE FP.

THE INVISIBLE MOTHER (directors: Matthew Diebler and Jacob Gillman)

When lesbian stoner Marcy returns to her grandparents’ home to help care for her mentally declining grandmother, she discovers they are being terrorized by a malevolent force from a Victorian post-mortem photograph. THE INVISBLE MOTHER is a giallo-styled, terrifying descent into supernatural terror.

LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER (director: Ryland Tews)

The eccentric Captain Seafield hires a crew of specialists to help him plot revenge against the creature that killed his father. After several failed attempts, Seafield is forced to take matters into his own drunken hands. What began as a simple case of man verses beast, soon turns into a rabbit hole of mysterious unknowns and Lovecraftian hijinks. LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER — banned in four lakes! 

THE LAST OF THE MANSON GIRLS (director: Lonnie Martin)

Convinced there’s more to the Manson murders than meets the public eye, counterculture journalist Paul Krassner embarks on an LSD tinged investigation of the last of Manson’s disciples: Brenda McCann, Sandra Good, and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme. What he finds could change how the world sees the 60s… if he lives long enough to tell the story. A riveting, speculative, and psychedelic journey into one of the darkest byways of 1960s Americana.

ON THE TRAIL OF BIGFOOT (director: Seth Breedlove)

From Small Town Monsters, and MidWest WeirdFest alumni filmmaker Seth Breedlove (THE MOTHAN OF POINT PLEASANT, THE BRAY ROAD BEAST), comes this enthralling documentary examining the history of the Bigfoot phenomenon. ON THE TRAIL OF BIGFOOT was filmed coast to coast during 2018 and features witnesses and investigators of the elusive creature.  Prepare to go deeper into the Bigfoot subject than you’ve ever gone before.

REBORN (director: Julian Richards)

A stillborn baby girl is brought back to life by a morgue attendant using electrokinetic power. On her sixteenth birthday she escapes her captor and sets out to find her birth mother leaving a trail of destruction behind her. Don’t miss this stunning modern twist on 70s and 80s horror classics like CARRIE, FIRESTARTER, and THE FURY. Stars genre legends Barbara Crampton (RE-ANIMATOR, BEYOND THE GATES) and Michael Parle (STREETS OF FIRE, THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT).

ZEROES (director: Charles Smith)

After leaving a Halloween party dressed as ninjas, Kenneth and Ray – two drunken roommates – thwart a robbery and their heroics go viral. No litterer or public urinator is safe until an actual serial killer begins to ravage the city. Our inept crime-fighting duo, with the help of the enigmatic and insanely wealthy Gary, must catch the killer before Kenneth’s crush Kate becomes the next target. Hilarity abounds in this superhero spoof.

For more details visit the festival’s website: www.midwestweirdfest.com

Movie review: Death House

12 Wednesday Dec 2018

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When Gunnar Hansen of Texas Chain Saw Massacre fame wrote and pitched a who’s who of horror films pitted in a hellish place forming a macabre version of The Expendables, it would be a genre fans’ wet dream.
The very idea of Jason aka Kane Hodder sharing the same screen as Tony Todd (Candyman), and Bill Moseley (The Devil’s Rejects) along with the queens of horror, Dee Wallace and Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator) would leave them salivating at the prospect at what could be an Uber-scare factory.
What we do get is a lot of piss and wind in a lacklustre affair that never measures up to its promise.

Before I start lambasting this film though, I do want to focus on the positives.
The very premise of staging a prison break containing some of the most vicious criminals known to mankind housed in a state of the art vicinity, which placates to the criminals whims in virtual space whilst using real victims from the homeless and deprived smacks of genius. It projects a utopian world that humanity could easily travel down if there were no morals or guiding principles attached.

Kane Hodder delivers to a tee and never falters from his iconic presence in front of the camera as the lead antagonist Sieg as he steers those fallen from grace further down into the pit of the jail system – level nine, a place where the five evils preside in a nod to Dante’s Inferno.

Equally Dee Wallace proves once again that she can offer intelligence, vulnerability, and apathy in her character, Dr. Eileen Fletcher and is always a welcome presence on screen.

And full props to Director Harrison Smith who saw fit to carry out Hansen’s vision in his honour, gifting him also with an on-screen presence in holographic form as the father to one of the prison inmates, Leatherlace, which was a nice touch.

And lets not forget those delectable sultry tones from Adrienne Barbeau as the narrator of the movie…

Sorry. Where was I?

Ah yes, all these elements are enough to keep you engaged, at least for a while. Even the strange dark arts that are heavily present throughout adds a decent hook to an intriguing narrative, but those who delve into Death House may find it a struggle as the further down the rabbit hole we go, the more far-fetched and ridiculous the concept goes.

And that’s where it starts to lose me. It doesn’t help that our two lead protagonists, Agents Novak and Boon who are so two-dimensional that not even their strange deep and meaningful conversation about how they became Agents whilst casually sharing a unisex shower cubicle can generate even a twinkle of interest… well, maybe. Which is a shame, because you want to be vested in their journey, but you really don’t care.

The Diagnosis:

This is clearly an attempt to ignite the passion that fans of horror through the 80’s and early 90’s by grouping some favourites of the genre together. Whilst the premise did provide a decent hook, the journey leaves you floundering and left adrift without much care to its conclusion.
A lost opportunity.

  • Saul Muerte

Movie review: Puppet Master – The Littlest Reich

15 Saturday Sep 2018

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There are some films where the director and writer make choices that make you go: “These guys are invested. They are deliberate. They are proper film-makers, and they know what they’re doing”.
And then sometimes you realise “nope – it really was an elephant with a paint brush all along”.
And that was exactly what went through my mind when I watched Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich. Or Puppet Master 23 (or whatever number the franchise is up to now).
Although it IS easy to mock such a long-lived series, it does play on a sort of primeval fear of being sliced by a small sharp blade moving very quickly (and in this case – where the “monster” stands at a foot tall, it has to do a LOT of fast slicing). But that’s pretty much it for the scares.

As a horror fest it very much falls into the gore category – and not a lot of it clever. In fact, some of it is pretty tasteless in a “I bet you believed this was hardcore when you thought of it, but it’s really pretty effing stupid. And your execution is even worse” kind of way.

The movie does start off with an earnest attempt at dialogue between characters where the acting is decent and the direction very considered – everyone gets their own clean shot all the way through, no dirty frames or unnecessary camera movement.
But then you realise they are not being minimalist, they’re just being frickin’ basic.

Starring Thomas Lennon (a perennial “oh THAT guy” actor if there ever was one) as Edgar – a recently divorced lead character who decides to sell a creepy doll he finds in his recently deceased brother’s bedroom. You assume the brother was killed in the previous film, but it’s hard to tell as the order in which the films have been released don’t go in a linear in-film timeline. Plus, some of the sequels are considered “non-canon” and others re-boots…

Anyway – Edgar – a 45-year-old comic book artist is soon pursued by incredibly hot twenty something girl-next-door archetype Ashley (Jenny Pellicer), because if these films can’t be the deluded projections of middle-aged straight men, why make them? (We also get to see her breasts in a make out scene later, so in case you had any doubts…)

Together Edgar, Ashley and the best friend character – played by Nelson Franklin – go to a puppet convention to try and sell their doll at a hotel that was the site of a notorious Nazi murderer getting shot by police for reasons I can’t really remember (because – upon rewind – it wasn’t explained…)

Anyway, from there all the puppets come to life and blah blah blah, you can guess the rest. At one point one of the characters suggests to all the surviving hotel patrons (after the initial puppet attack) that they split up and lock themselves in their various hotel rooms until the authorities arrive. Not only did the writer write that, he also had every character think it was a good idea…

The movie also has great slabs of missing moments that forces you to fill in the blanks, NOT in a cool “we’re challenging the audience to be engaged” sort of way, but because the film-makers have no idea how to make a movie. Or they ran out of money. Or both.

Speaking of “oh that guy” moments – it also stars Michael Pare as a detective. For any child who grew up watching American film & TV in the 70’s, he is Eddie from Eddie and the Cruisers and the John Travolta wannabe from The Greatest American Hero. Yes, that’s how old he is. He was trying to be a knock-off of Saturday Night Fever John Travolta, not Pulp Fiction John Travolta. Truth be told it was his voice that gave him away. Although his face has had some pretty good work, considering he’s older than Tom Cruise!

Speaking of which Barbara Crampton is also in the film, who is no stranger to 80’s B-grade horror flicks, and appears to be making something of a comeback of late with this movie, Replace, and Beyond the Gates.

The Diagnosis:

The Littlest Reich is a 90 minute stretch you won’t get back, unless you’re into gore for gore’s sake, or teenagers wanting to have a sleepover/video night.
Apart from that – if you’re a fan of dolls in horror – be sure to check out the excellent podcast on the subject which can be found here!

– Antony Yee