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.

Schlock master William Castle's last film, 1974's "Shanks," is a travesty and not worthy of some of his earlier efforts. It's particularly awful considering the fact that he totally wastes the great French mime Marcel Marceau and everyone else of note in the cast. As far as movies go, this one has all the appearances of one directed by a deranged first-year film student. The pacing is entirely off, the editing is nearly nonexistent and the acting (if one can call it that) is so sophomoric as to be distracting to one's nerves. The fact that there's virtually no dialog in the movie qualifies as its only saving grace. The fault lies squarely with director Castle. He was a somewhat noted producer of low-budget yet effective fright films in his day, but directing surely was not his forte as this abomination clearly demonstrates. Lost in this mess are a few fine actors such as Don Calfa (best remembered for his role in "Return of the Living Dead") and Helena Kallianiotes (memorable in "Five Easy Pieces"). The less said about the rest of the cast, the better. As for Marcel Marceau, the so-called star of this turgid nightmare of a movie, he can only blame himself and his agent (maybe Mr. Castle too) for getting involved. The great Marceau certainly deserved better. Almost as sad as this worthless movie are the few reviewers who actually gave it a positive rating. Either they have never seen this pile of garbage or their collective expectations for what constitutes a work of art are on a par with what ends up in a cesspool.

Deaf-mute puppeteer, living with his despicable relatives, learns how to reanimate the dead from his employer; using the corpses of his step-sister and brother-in-law, he exacts revenge on a group of bikers who have crashed his castle. Ridiculous acting vehicle for mime extraordinaire Marcel Marceau, produced on the cheap in Vancouver and barely released by Paramount. Scare-master William Castle directs in a pedestrian, uncertain fashion--even the little bits and pieces that do come off well are eventually buried under the clumsy handling. A sequence where two corpses arise in unison in a country field has a small-scaled lunatic grandeur which might have been darkly comic under different circumstances; however, one doesn't know how to respond to the movie because it isn't directed toward any particular audience (it's too static and silly for adults, and too garish for kids). There's a strange romance in the film between Marceau (looking his age in a too-dark hairstyle borrowed from Tom Jones) and a teenage girl still wearing pigtails. Castle shows no finesse--it's as if he had never directed a picture before--while his cast appears understandably perplexed. The talented Helena Kallianiotes (playing a halter-top wearing biker chick in hoop earrings) stumbles about in a graveyard swilling vodka, sees a hand emerge from the earth, and stumbles away. Castle doesn't know how to make these incidents eerie and funny at the same time. With "Shanks", his final effort as director, he lost his touch. * from ****

Shanks (1974) *** (out of 4) Leave it to William Castle, the ultimate trick master, to save his strangest film for last but that's pretty much what he's done with SHANKS. In the film, Marcel Marceau plays a deaf puppet master who takes over for his scientist friend in a bizarre experiment that allows one to control the dead like you would a puppet. Soon the once abused man becomes in control of everything he's ever wanted. This is a pretty bizarre little movie and I can't imagine it being a big disaster when originally released because it's doubtful too many horror fans wanted to see a horror movie without any violence, blood, spooks or anything like that. Instead of going for cheap thrills, Castle has instead pretty much created a film that is all atmosphere and there's so little dialogue that one could nearly call this a silent film. We even get title cards to explain some of the action so it's extremely close to being a silent. Castle's direction handles the material incredibly well and I'd probably argue that this is perhaps his best made movie. There aren't any gimmicks or tricks being thrown out and instead Castle appears to be wanting to prove to critics that he was able of creating a movie without them. The atmosphere of the film is incredibly thick as it really does seem like you're watching something that doesn't take place on Earth or set during any particular time period. Famous mime Marceau is excellent in his role and really delivers a remarkable performance. His turn at playing this mute is without question one of the best I've seen from any actor as he doesn't have one false step and there's never a single second where it seems like we're just seeing an actor play a deaf man. Tsilla Chelton and Philippe Clay are also excellent especially when they're the "puppets" as it was quite amazing to watch them do their thing. The cute Cindy Eilbacher is the perfect mix to be a friend to Marceau. This isn't a very well known movie, which is a shame but part of this might be due to the fact that it has yet to ever get an official release. Hopefully one day it will get a wider release and people will give the film a second shot because it certainly deserves it and I can't help but think had it been made somewhere between the 40s and the 60s then it would be looked at as a minor classic. Being lost in the 70s, the film is in major need of rediscovery.