ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Bereamic Awesome Movie

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

JohnHowardReid Associate producer: Norman Priggen. Producers: Julian Wintle, Leslie Parkyn. A Lynx Films/Independent Artists Production, released in the U.K. by Anglo Amalgamated: 26 June 1960; in Australia by British Empire Films: 19 May 1961; in the U.S.A. by American International: 1 September 1960. Sydney release at The Victory. New York opening at neighborhood theaters: 31 August 1960. Registered: April 1960. "X" certificate. 8,234 feet. 91 minutes. Australian release title: "Phantom of the Circus".SYNOPSIS: A series of unfortunate and terrible accidents have made the Continental police interested in Schuler's circus, but they are never able to prove anything against him.COMMENT: One of the best of the Hammer horrors. The plot is ingenious and well developed. If the dialogue seems a little flat, this is scarcely noticeable because the pace moves so fast. Direction is unobtrusive yet remarkably skillful. The players are more than capable, the girls are most attractive, and the color photography is richly dramatic. (Available on an adequate Optimum, or excellent Anchor Bay DVD).OTHER VIEWS: Anglo Amalgamated's Circus of Horrors is lavishly mounted, richly produced and dramatically directed in exquisite Eastman Colour. In Circus of Horrors, menace and romance fly on the high trapeze, danger and deceit, murder and love grotesquely hide behind a clown's hilarious make-up and a mad surgeon's scalpel, crosses swords with a knife-thrower's deadly arm, while ugliness trades places with beauty.Anton Diffring, magnificent in the main role, plays the role of a mad surgeon who gains control of a derelict circus and builds it into one of the finest in Europe. Unscrupulousness and his mania for beauty prove his undoing. — Anglo Amalgamated Publicity.

Leofwine_draca Horror films set in circuses were popular in the '60s (check out BERSERK! and CIRCUS OF FEAR) but this film was the original classic that started them off. It's a gently unassuming film, with a leisurely pace, which takes its time before revealing the various plot strands which all come together in the exciting conclusion. Therefore, there's a lot of time for characterisation, something which rarely occurs in horror films these days, and this slow pace makes the film all the more interesting and entertaining, and the conclusion is all better because of it.Good use is made of the circus setting, with the various dangerous stunts providing some real tension, especially in the hangman's noose trick where we know the woman will die. Anton Diffring steals the show as the ruthless and evil surgeon, his cold, calculated charm being perfect for the role, and he is ably assisted by a cast of good performers which includes Donald Pleasance in a small role as a drunk, and the glamorous Yvonne Monlaur, star of that other horror flick from 1960, Hammer's The Brides of Dracula. Conrad Phillips is a dependable hero type, Kenneth Griffith a delightful henchman, and Yvonne Romain a buxom beauty.There are lots of women stripping off for the camera and canoodling (pretty racy for the time) and a gore scene, where a woman gets a knife in her neck, which is also pretty bloody. The circus music, including the classic Liberty Bell theme familiar to any viewer, becomes haunting, which only adds to the combination. All of these factors make CIRCUS OF HORRORS a truly fascinating, compelling horror film which will stand up to repeated viewing.

bournemouthbear Roll up! Roll up! Roll up for the greatest show on Earth! It's 1947. England. Witness as naughty old plastic surgeon Dr. Rossiter (Anton Diffring) changes his identity to hide from the police following a bodged, illegal operation he has performed! Gasp as he starts a new life in France under the name of Dr Bernard Shuler with his too-keen-to- please assistants (Griffith and Hylton). And scream as he takes ownership of a failing circus after watching its previous owner Vanet (Donald Pleasance) be mauled by his own bear!Using the circus as a means to continue his plastic surgery he takes criminals (deformed or otherwise) under his wing, altering their visage and turning them into circus performers. However whenever one of them threatens to leave, Shuler / Rossiter arranges for them to die via an arranged 'accident' which brings the circus to the attention of a reporter and Scotland Yard.With Hammer enjoying some success by upping the gore and sexual content in their movies, other film companies were keen to eat into that box office pie. Director Sidney Hayers' Circus of Horrors was one such product. Indeed so extreme was the content considered at its time of release that the movie was one of three British horror movies produced by Anglo-Amalgamated that was dubbed by film critic David Pirie as the 'Sadian Trilogy' (the other two movies are Peeping Tom and Horrors of the Black Museum - both 1959). The content may have been taboo at the time but its all old hat now, although none-the-less entertaining for it.Circus of Horrors moves at a nice pace and proves a lot more fun than Hayers' rather overwrought Night of the Eagle. There is much fun to be had with some of the more dated aspects of it, such as the dancing bear that ends up killing Donald Pleasance's character Vanet. It is so obviously someone wearing an ill-fitting costume, when it is not an inanimate prop that any possible gasp of shock that the scene may have intended to illicit gets lost under a barrage of sniggers. Even worse than the dancing bear is the ape thing we see permanently angry in its cage. It is wisely shown in brief shots or in shadow, but warrants a chuckle nonetheless.Anton Diffring (The Man Who Could Cheat Death) anchors the picture, making for a satisfying lead / villain. He brings to mind the actor Paul Freeman, best known for his role as Belloq in the first Indiana Jones movie. He is well supported by Kenneth Griffith and Jan Hylton as brother and sister, Martin and Angela. The characters in the movie are better defined than normal, although Yvonne Monlaur (Brides of Dracula) seems a little old to be playing the naive teenage Yvette Vanet.Circus of Horrors plays the odd surprise such as showing a knife in a girl's neck, which naturally would have been seen as more explicit or shocking on its original release, but still pleases now. There are also effective circus audience shots and trapeze performances to weigh up the absurdness of the basic plot.There is some fun to be had from seeing people tell Rossiter that they will leave after their next performance, when they know from past experience that anyone that tries to leave ends up dead during their last show. Wouldn't you just keep quiet and sneak off into the night rather than announce how dumb you are before being killed off? Also how Rossiter thinks he will not be recognised when his circus returns to London ten years later, regardless of whether people believe he is dead or not, also begs belief, with or without the earlier beard and moustache.The song used throughout called 'Look for a Star' is OK to begin with but begins to grate the more it is heard and it gets heard a lot. Funnily enough, the song went onto become a chart success on both sides of the Atlantic and was written by Mark Anthony, real name Tony Hatch - the same bugger that gave us such joys as the ancient TV series Crossroads theme. "Shudder".

ferbs54 Potential viewers of the 1960 British thriller "Circus of Horrors" should not be put off by its cast of relative unknowns; it is a real winner, despite that. This film tells the fascinating story of Dr. Rossiter, who, after performing a botched plastic surgery operation in post-War England, flees to France with his two associates, changes his name to Schuler, acquires a seedy circus, and supplies it with War-scarred women who he's made beautiful using his surgical skills. Those uppity women who get the itch to leave their performing berths soon suffer unfortunate ends, inevitably giving Schuler's show the nickname of "the jinxed circus." The picture features some suspenseful and mildly grisly deaths for several of the female performers--the knife-throwing bit is particularly nail biting--and builds to an extremely exciting finale in its last 20 minutes or so. Though the only name I knew in the cast going in was that of Donald Pleasence, I also soon recognized Kenneth Griffith and Peter Swanwick from one of my favorite TV programs of all time, "The Prisoner"; welcome presences, indeed. But this film certainly belongs to Anton Diffring, as the crazed and unethical Rossiter; he is truly excellent in the lead role, giving his completely unsympathetic character depth and even some pathos by the end. Many viewers who speak of this film can't seem to resist mentioning the "Look For A Star" tune that permeates it. This song is schmaltzy and cheesy as can be, and yes, will annoyingly stay with you for days afterwards. Still, the film itself is well plotted, colorful, moves along briskly, and has a strange undercurrent of sex and grotesque mutilation that must have made it really stand out in 1960. I enjoyed this one a lot more than I thought I would, I must say!