There’s a moment, somewhere around the point where the castle monster rapes the boyfriend, when you realize Castle Freak (2020) isn’t just going off the rails—it’s doing donuts in a burning train yard while screaming “Yog-Sothoth!” in your face.
This remake of Stuart Gordon’s 1995 cult film (itself a loose Lovecraft mash-up) is technically about cosmic horror, inheritance, and family trauma. But really, it feels like someone smashed The Dunwich Horror, a soap opera, and a Pornhub search for “medieval dungeon monster” into Final Draft and just… hit export.
Let’s unpack this gloriously unhinged mistake.
Becca, John, and the World’s Worst “We Need to Talk”
Our heroine is Rebecca “Becca” Riley, who was blinded in an accident caused by her boyfriend John drunk-driving. So we’re already starting in “this relationship should’ve ended with a lawsuit” territory.
Instead, they’re… still together. He maimed her. She forgave him enough to keep hanging out. The film tries to frame this as tragic tension, but it mostly plays like:
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Becca: blind and traumatized
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John: human red flag in a leather jacket
Their dynamic is: she hears things, he gaslights her; she wants answers, he wants to drink and hook up with Shelly. It’s less “romantic tension” and more “please dump him and seek legal counsel.”
Then an estate agent named Marku shows up from Albania and says, “Hey, surprise, your creepy biological mother just died and left you a castle.”
And like absolute idiots, they go.
Welcome to Albania: Sorry About the Architecture and Interdimensional Horror
They arrive at the castle, which looks exactly like the kind of place where:
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Nothing is up to code
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Every corridor is legally haunted
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Something wet is always somewhere it shouldn’t be
Unbeknownst to Becca, there’s a creature in the castle. A deformed sibling chained up by her mother, recently freed by someone with terrible judgment and zero regard for pest control.
Becca starts hearing noises and having visions. John, naturally, thinks she’s overreacting.
You’d think, after blinding her in a DUI, he’d maybe err on the side of compassion.
You would be wrong.
House Guests, or: How to Die in a Castle in 10 Days
John, being the walking bad decision that he is, invites more people to this obvious murder castle:
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Shelly – the hot girl he’s been flirting with, because nothing says “sorry I blinded you” like bringing your almost-side-piece on your gothic inheritance trip.
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Larry and others – mostly there to be body count.
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The Professor – a guy from Miskatonic University (yes, really) who’s into the occult and is the only one who takes Becca even remotely seriously.
They poke around and find:
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The Necronomicon (because of course they do)
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A hidden network of tunnels
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Lavinia’s journal, which is basically a cursed family scrapbook
We learn that:
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Becca’s mother Lavinia Whateley was impregnated by her own father during a ritual to Yog-Sothoth.
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She gave birth to twin girls.
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Becca was adopted out.
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Her twin was born deformed and kept in a secret dungeon.
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The journal warns that if the twins reunite and join hands, they’ll open a gate to Yog-Sothoth.
In other words: your standard “Hi honey, you’re a cosmic key” revelation.
The Creature, or: Why Practical Effects Sometimes Need a Script Too
The creature—Becca’s sister—is supposed to be a tragic, monstrous product of cult abuse and cosmic meddling. In practice, she’s a feral nude thing that mostly creeps around the castle like a rejected Silent Hill enemy.
She:
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Murders the houseguests
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Lurks in tunnels
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Eventually rapes John in one of those “we’re going for transgressive horror” moments that lands squarely in “oh, come on” territory
It’s supposed to be shocking and disturbing. Instead it feels exploitative and juvenile, like someone scribbled “monster sex?” in the margins and nobody erased it.
Lovecraft’s big fear was unknowable, cosmic horror. This film’s big fear is apparently “what if a man had to experience sexual violence,” and the way it uses that to “punish” John says a lot more about the filmmakers than it does about Yog-Sothoth.
The Professor, the Cult, and the “Sure, Why Not?” Third Act
While everyone else is getting stalked, dismembered, or defiled, The Professor is off having his own little spiritual awakening.
He meets Becca’s sister in the tunnels and, instead of running, basically goes:
“Have you heard the good word about Elder Gods?”
He manages to recruit themself into the cult mid-apocalypse, which is honestly impressive. Most people take a brochure first. This man pledges body and soul on sight.
He becomes a true believer in Becca’s supposed “destiny” as key to Yog-Sothoth, and starts cheerleading the apocalypse like it’s grad school orientation.
John’s Redemption Arc, Sponsored by Absolutely Nobody
Eventually, everyone but John is dead. He stumbles through the tunnels and finds Marku, who’s been captive. Marku explains that the whole thing was a setup to unite the sisters and open the gate.
So yes, the estate agent was evil. He’s not just “guy who tricked you about property taxes” evil. He’s “realtor for cosmic horror” evil.
John frees Marku—only to be attacked by him. He kills Marku in self-defense, then gets attacked by the creature again.
He actually nearly kills Becca’s sister and for a second you think, “Huh. Maybe this walking human disaster will do something actually decent.”
Then Becca arrives and begs him not to hurt her sibling.
John responds by… hitting Becca.
My dude. You blinded her. You cheated on her. You dragged her into a literal cult castle. And now you’re hitting her for not letting you kill her long-abused twin?
Becca, finally done with his existence, injures him. The creature finishes him off. It’s honestly the only death in the movie that feels fully earned.
Yog-Sothoth, Now Leasing Your Local Reality
With John dead and her emotional support toxicity removed, Becca lets herself be led to the ritual site by her sister, with The Professor egging her on like a TA on thesis day.
She takes her sister’s hand.
The gate opens.
Yog-Sothoth begins to enter the world.
Becca begins to transform, her body mutating into a monstrous, otherworldly form. It’s a cool concept, but by this point you’re so numb from the tonal whiplash that it barely lands. The film wants this to feel operatic and inevitable; instead it feels like your Netflix queue auto-played a cutscene.
The Stinger: “Hey, Lovecraft Fans, You Still Awake?”
In the post-credits scene, The Professor returns to his office, where his nameplate reveals he’s “Mr. Armitage” (a nod to The Dunwich Horror). He greets a man named West (as in Herbert West from Re-Animator), with a glowing vial on the desk.
So yes, they’re clearly trying to launch a Lovecraft Cinematic Universe off the back of this movie. It’s like ending a bad karaoke performance by shouting, “WORLD TOUR COMING SOON!”
Cosmic Horror, Human Stupidity
The real horror of Castle Freak (2020) isn’t Yog-Sothoth. It’s the script.
The film constantly flirts with compelling ideas:
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Trauma, guilt, and bodily autonomy
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The horror of being born as a ritual object
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The ethics (or lack thereof) of cults, academia, and family
Then it throws those ideas aside to spend time on:
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Monster rape
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Randomly horny castle tourism
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Discount “shared universe” cameos
Clair Catherine as Becca does what she can, but she’s stuck in a script that treats her more as a delivery system for prophecy than as a person. Jake Horowitz leans into John’s sleaze, but there’s no arc—just a slow slide toward “you deserve that death, actually.”
The creature effects are occasionally solid, but never anchored in emotion. You’re told to pity the sister, fear her, and see her as a symbol… but the film doesn’t do the work to make her anything more than a writhing plot device in a basement.
Final Verdict: Less “Lovecraftian Terror,” More “Lovecraftian Fanfic”
Castle Freak (2020) is like a group project where:
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One person read the Wikipedia summary of Lovecraft
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One person only cared about gore
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One person really wanted to impress Full Moon Features
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And no one proofread the final draft
It’s not the worst thing ever made. It has moments of atmosphere, some gnarly kills, and the occasional flash of ambition. But for every good idea, there’s at least one baffling creative choice that undercuts it.
In the end, this isn’t cosmic dread. It’s just messy, mean-spirited, and weirdly proud of how “edgy” it thinks it is.
If you want real Lovecraftian horror, read the stories or watch the original 1995 Castle Freak, which at least knew how to be nasty with a soul. This one?
It’s all freak, no castle. And somehow, even the freak feels underwritten.
