Circus of Horrors starts in England during 1947 where Evelyn Morley (Colette Wilde) sees the mess that demented plastic surgeon Dr. Rossiter (Anton Diffring) has left her face in after an unsuccessful operation, Rossiter manages to escape the country & ends up somewhere in France with two allies Angela (Jane Hylton) & Martin (Kenneth Griffith). They try to make their way across France & meet up with Vanet (Donald Pleasance) who runs a circus & has a young daughter named Nicole (Yvonne Monlaur) who has scars on her face, Rossiter who now goes by the name of Dr. Schueler senses an opportunity & offers to perform an operation on Nicole to repair the damage. The operation is a success but Schueler thinks he's on to a good thing & after he lets Vanet be killed by a bear he takes control of the circus as a front to hide behind while he continues his experiments on various criminals who he then turns into performers in his circus...
This English production was directed by Sidney Hayers & I'm amazed at how many people seem to like it, I don't really care that I have a different opinion of it but it didn't do anything for me at all & it took me two attempts to sit through it. The script by George Baxt doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, is it a horror or a thriller? I think the film doesn't manage to balance the two that well. I'd say it's more of a thriller than a horror as it's not scary, it focuses more on the investigations surrounding Schueler's plastic surgery rather than any more traditional horror elements. What it boils down to is that I simply didn't like the film & it's as simple & straight forward as that. The character's & dialogue seem stiff & very dated much like the rest of the film, it plods along at a reasonable pace but it's not what one would call quick & it just failed to engage or entertain me in any way. I was also thinking why did Schueler carry on with his experiments? I mean judging by the film the circus was doing rather well & must have been making decent money so why not just stick with that & not try to attract any unwanted attention while on the other hand if he did want to be a plastic surgeon why didn't he just reveal his 'groundbreaking' findings & get a grant & of course he'd become famous within the medical profession which is what he seems to want anyway.
Director Hayers does OK I suppose, another problem with Circus of Horrors is that I can't relate to circus' as an attraction & the constant clips of the performances & crowd reactions bored to to death. I've never wanted to go to a circus & after watching Circus of Horrors I still don't. There's virtually no gore despite what anyone says, there's a shot of a woman with a knife in her neck but nothing else & there's a hilarious bit where a woman is attacked by a snake but this snake looks so uninterested, slow & nonthreatening that the scene falls flat on it's face & the best it can do is wrap itself around her feet.
Technically the film is alright, it has a nice bright colour scheme & is quite garish, the production values are good although some of the sets are a bit fake looking & as a whole the film has dated quite badly. The special effects are poor & the man in a fury bear suit looks terrible. The acting is OK although I thought Diffring's accent was annoying.
Circus of Horrors was a disappointment to me, as far as I'm concerned there's nothing here that I particularly enjoyed. A lot of people seem to like it so maybe it's me but overall I didn't think much of it.
This English production was directed by Sidney Hayers & I'm amazed at how many people seem to like it, I don't really care that I have a different opinion of it but it didn't do anything for me at all & it took me two attempts to sit through it. The script by George Baxt doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, is it a horror or a thriller? I think the film doesn't manage to balance the two that well. I'd say it's more of a thriller than a horror as it's not scary, it focuses more on the investigations surrounding Schueler's plastic surgery rather than any more traditional horror elements. What it boils down to is that I simply didn't like the film & it's as simple & straight forward as that. The character's & dialogue seem stiff & very dated much like the rest of the film, it plods along at a reasonable pace but it's not what one would call quick & it just failed to engage or entertain me in any way. I was also thinking why did Schueler carry on with his experiments? I mean judging by the film the circus was doing rather well & must have been making decent money so why not just stick with that & not try to attract any unwanted attention while on the other hand if he did want to be a plastic surgeon why didn't he just reveal his 'groundbreaking' findings & get a grant & of course he'd become famous within the medical profession which is what he seems to want anyway.
Director Hayers does OK I suppose, another problem with Circus of Horrors is that I can't relate to circus' as an attraction & the constant clips of the performances & crowd reactions bored to to death. I've never wanted to go to a circus & after watching Circus of Horrors I still don't. There's virtually no gore despite what anyone says, there's a shot of a woman with a knife in her neck but nothing else & there's a hilarious bit where a woman is attacked by a snake but this snake looks so uninterested, slow & nonthreatening that the scene falls flat on it's face & the best it can do is wrap itself around her feet.
Technically the film is alright, it has a nice bright colour scheme & is quite garish, the production values are good although some of the sets are a bit fake looking & as a whole the film has dated quite badly. The special effects are poor & the man in a fury bear suit looks terrible. The acting is OK although I thought Diffring's accent was annoying.
Circus of Horrors was a disappointment to me, as far as I'm concerned there's nothing here that I particularly enjoyed. A lot of people seem to like it so maybe it's me but overall I didn't think much of it.