REVIEW DATE: 6:19:9:9

I haven't flogged a lot of crap at the 1960s lately. Why is that? Simple: I've been too lazy to check dates. I just spot a movie in the video store, go "Oh, that looks like a keeper," and off I go.

Strangely, I seam to only be able to pick out bad sci-fi movies from the 50s of late. Weird, huh?

This one sure breaks the mold, though. Yes sir. Castle of Evil is a bad sci-fi movie from the 60s! Totally different.

Here we go. Castle starts out well enough with murder, extortion, and even more murder. All the things that make life fun. The local mortician, Muhcado (Natividad Vacío) is called to embalm a body by a strange, duplicitous woman named Lupe Tekal d'Esperanza (Shelley Morrison). Boy, try signing checks with that name. During the course of the embalming Muhcado happened to discover that the happy corpse wasn't really dead. Of course, he takes a swig of the house's poison liquor, so that's the end of him. One guy dead and the credits haven't even started! This can only get better, right?

Fat chance. The scene then switches to our Main Characters. These six characters are headed up to the Castle o' Evil to hear the reading of a will. The will is that of rich, weird, villainous, scientist guy, Kovic (William Thourlby). Kovic has harmed each of these six characters in some dastardly way, and thinks that one of them is responsible for his death. The deal is that he'll give five of them all of his cash if the murderer among them is reviled. This leads to some general confusion, and some hearty chunks of exposition, as our characters play Who Done It with each other.

However, deep in the bowls of this Castle, Esperanza and her pet gecko watch from a secret control room. Not content to wait for her guests to sort it out themselves she releases nothing short of Kovic's robot duplicate. Robo-clone, pre-programmed to kill the Kovic's murderer, finds itself lacking a target, so it goes to plan "B": kill every damn person in sight.

Using the castle's network of secret passages, Robo-Kovic goes on a little killing spree. Eventually the other occupants discover the secret passages and (surprise) split up. Square jawed Heros in the front, while the (sorta) sensitive guy Dr. Corozal (Hugh Marlowe) stays behind to guard the woman folk. All this takes much to long, and seams longer. Let's face it, seeing people walk around dimly lit passageways is not very high on my list as a form of entertainment.

Since we're in the 60s our woman characters, Sable (Virginia Mayo) and Carol (Lisa Gaye) exist for basically two reason: (1) To be love interests (Sable is Korvic's former LI and Carol is our hero Matt's) or (2) To scream. Both do their parts as well as can be expected. Just don't expect much. Carol not only screams but also gets chased by the Kovic Astro Zombie until she runs smack dab into the secret lab. Just as Kovic is walking verrrrry slowly toward her with the intent to kill, our hero Matt (Scott Brady) finds a laser gun that just happened to be lying around and shots the robot dead. The End.

If Castle of Evil where a good movie this would be the part where I would praise whoever was involved for the good job they did. Too bad CoE is so crappy.

As actors go the motley crew collected here isn't that bad. If forced to chose I would pick Ernest Sarracino as the best of the bunch. He plays Tunki, chief of a native tribe that Kovic scammed, but, even he suffers from some crappy writing, as he goes on and on about his people relentlessly. Snore.

Matt, supposedly the hero acts like. . .well. . .a hero. This means he basically stands around and takes charge of the situation. He can recite lines with no problem but ask him to show an emotion and its no dice for you, pal.

Though, if you want to talk about inanimate objects let's talk about Kovic. Talk about walking through your role. Man, this guy does nothing the whole time he's on screen, he's just there. In the same way a potted plant or piece of wood is just there. Snore.

Snore" would describe this sucker nicely, actually. The set-up is so cliched it's almost funny. Every actor has his/her moments, but nothing really interesting to say. There's just no kinetic energy. Usually I just ignore directors and rag on screenwriters for crappy movies, but here I feel both screenwriter Charles A. Wallace and director Francis D. Lyon need equal bashing for this. Castle of Evil might have been a decent thriller, but thanks to these two it has all the suspense of watching water freeze. A few times I actually started counting down as to when this sucker was going to end. it's not so bad that I had to get on my knees and shout "Please, God, make it stop," but it is bad enough to make me glance at my watch every 5 seconds.

Though, if you have insomnia, this might just be your movie. However, Castle of Evil is only a treatment. The Poseidon Adventure. . . now there's the cure.

RATING (OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE)

YOU'LL HEAD ON OFF TO SLEEPY LAND.