Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 11: Shanks (1974)

William Castle, king of the gimmick horror film, ended his directing career with Shanks, a gimmick-free, though truly bizarre fairy tale about a deaf and mute puppeteer named Malcolm Shanks who learns how to reanimate the dead. He's played by Marcel Marceau, who was once the world's most famous mime during a time when you could actually be a world famous mime.

Ironically, Marceau doesn't actually do a lot of stuff that one could call miming, instead he spends the majority of the movie turning dials on remote controls that reanimate the dead people around him, the majority of whom he has accidentally killed. It's those reanimated corpses that are the dominant mimes in this film. Tsilla Chelton, who was in Marceau's mime troupe, plays Shanks's cruel sister, and Philippe Clay, another mime, plays her drunken husband.

I suppose that in itself could be considered a bit of a gimmick? Mimes as zombies? Zombies as mimes? The movie is also framed like a silent film, with the main character never speaking, and intertitles used to explain parts of the plot. 

As a whole, I didn't think it really worked. It's too creepy to be funny, and too silly to be truly scary. It also has an ending that's a real turn-off, although it tries to redeem itself in a way that feels like a cop out. So, an interesting way for Castle to go out, but definitely not one of his best.

Shanks isn't currently streaming on any service, so I rented it on Apple TV.