Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

LobotomousMonk The film opens with a bizarre sequence where Marceau's character is performing a puppet show for a small audience of children. There are certain avant-garde editing techniques used which set the mood for the film and are reminiscent of the intro sequence to The Night Walker. Castle decides to employ intertitle cards, however, they function as a self-reflexive prompt for the audience in lieu of a surrogate for vocal expressions by the lead character (a mute character throughout the film although Marceau plays a second role with spoken lines). The directing has little finesse in its execution. The shot-reverse-shot seeks to suture but is too clumsy and overt - there is no alternating use of sound. Staging/blocking uses frontality as dominant and much of the interesting mise-en-scene is wasted for observation when redundant and sterile cut-ins continuously disrupt the mood while providing no extra insight to character psychology. The two roles played by Marceau are quite genius and provide great uplift for an otherwise pedestrian production effort. The two roles play into Castle's own authorial voice quite well and it is very surprising that he didn't direct this film better (keep in mind that it was his last). The two roles played by Marceau and the theme of the film itself concern concepts of interiority, exteriority, surrogacy and symbiosis (it is my thesis that Castle's gimmicks operated along these lines as well). There are some other provocative ideas at play within this script and its presentation by Castle (for the Freud and Lacan enthusiasts). There is a critical commentary about the corruption of sexual desire and the animation, re-animation and death of sexual drives in young and old bodies. There are criminological science ideas at play (issues of mens rea, Manson, culpability, etc.) rendering the film text richer and more relevant to its genre. Castle adds in some more self-reflexive touches that play well, including his bit role as shop owner, a horror film playing on a TV set, and a well shot and choreographed rooster attack which borrows significance from Strait-Jacket. The narrative frame keeps the fiction fenced in and frankly given Castle's oeuvre he could discard it pretty quickly in favor of a more open and interactive ending. The film is interesting and moderately entertaining but gets too cute pretending to be a fly caught in a spider's web when it should have been stampeding as an elephant until running into a frightened mouse.

Michael_Elliott 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.

The_Void Shanks is the final film of director William Castle; a man famous for his gimmicky horror films. This film breaks away from many norms and that has lead to it being called 'weird' by many that have seen it - but to me, this is Castle doing what he always does, namely making a film full of gimmicks...only this time the gimmicks don't work so well and the film is not much better than passable. Apparently Castle was going for a sort of grim fairy tale feel; but unfortunately he wasn't able to capture it, partly due to some truly lacklustre performances, but also because of the dull script and plotting. The film focuses on Malcolm Shanks; a deaf and mute puppeteer who lives with his sister and her boyfriend who abuse him. He is forced to get a job, and finds one with a mad doctor who is doing experiments on the dead in which he attempts to bring them back to life. Our hero's job is to move the corpses like he does his puppets. However, when the doctor turns up dead; the puppeteer seeks revenge on those he dislikes.The first gimmick featured is the casting of the central character - Marcel Marceau, a famous mime. Secondly, Castle tells his story via the use of storyboards which gives the film a silent movie type atmosphere. This fits the central character as he's a mute and thus doesn't speak; but it doesn't really serve any relevance to plot and feels like weirdness simply for the sake of it. The lead character is also really difficult to get into, which is a huge flaw because the plot isn't nearly interesting enough to carry the film on its own. The idea of reanimating the dead is about as morbid as it gets; but it's all done in a kind of pantomime fashion and this saps all the horror from the story; leaving the audience with nothing much to do other than roll their eyes at most scenes. The film is very difficult to find (unsurprisingly it hasn't been given a wide release like most of Castle's oeuvre) and I'm not really surprised at that. I can give plaudits to the film for some of the ideas on display, the originality and the score which is excellent; but really this is far too uneven to be successful and I can't say it's really worth going to the trouble of tracking down.

sanjr1 When one thinks of Marcel Marceau they think of the world's most famous mime. A performer who has entertained millions of people throughout the years with his mastery of pantomime. You certainly don't think of him as a manipulator of dead bodies!! But that's what he is here in this very strange film. He plays Malcolm Shanks, a mime who loves to entertain the neighborhood children. He lives with his sister & brother-in-law who are a shrew & a drunk & abuse him constantly. He is hired by a scientist who has perfected the art of reanimating the dead. I must stop for a second and let anyone who is reading this know that the film, while it sounds intriguing, doesn't play out the way you would think. It is at heart a fairy tale. A morality story perhaps. But most definitely NOT a horror story. To continue, The scientist dies & having learned his secrets while working with him, Malcolm reanimates his corpse & becomes very proficient at it. I'm not gonna get any deeper into it at this point. Suffice it to say that more than a few people get their corpses reanimated by Malcolm and no good can come from that.....Marceau plays both Malcolm & The Scientist(Walker) & performs admirably in both roles. There is a scene where Malcolm learns to animate Walker's facial muscles that is very effective. He goes from slack-jawed to smiling so slowly & eerily that at first you think the film is frozen. Almost like time lapse photography. It really shows off Marceau's expertise. There is very little dialogue in the film. It plays like a silent film(It even has title cards)because it is 90% silent. The score by Alex North is therefore very important to the tone of the film, & it is very effective in conveying the mood that the filmmakers were trying to achieve. It was so effective it was nominated for an academy award.I enjoyed the film but there are VERY SLOW PASSAGES in it. So slow that it will turn many people off. It also ends very curiously. It is a very odd but lyrical film that is a great attempt at a Grim fairy tale. But ultimately it fails because of it's terrible pacing & low budget. You might dig it if you're willing to accept it's idiosyncracies. If not...well give it a try anyway. Who knows??