User Reviews

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.

I'm not sure to this day whether I've ever seen a complete print of this movie. I have a couple of VHS tapes which are both much stronger than the version I saw on television in 1970, but questions remain. There are plenty of plot holes, unanswered questions and general loopiness, but if you can sit back and be entertained by this rather sadomasochistic story, you'll find it perverse fun. Without a doubt, this movie would be nothing without Anton Diffring in the role of the kinky surgeon. This may well be his best known and most effective role, in a long career playing assorted Nazis and mad scientists. Diffring is a good enough actor to make the Rossiter character believable and reasonably well motivated. He seems more of a colossal egotist, who is vain and glory-seeking, rather than truly mad in the usual sense. His two assistants, Angela, and her brother Martin, are less well developed as to their reasons for staying with him and helping him in his evil actions. Character development throughout the movie is pretty sketchy, including the police detective investigating the " Jinx Circus" , and the tragic Evelyn Morley. One question I've always had is whether Evelyn Morley and Rossiter were supposed to have been lovers, as well as doctor and patient? It almost seems implied, but perhaps not really. The ghoulish atmosphere surrounding the various surgeries and fatal accidents at the circus is well caught, and certainly there is an intriguing quality to the way traditional mad scientist horror clichés are combined with the circus big top motif. The use of actual footage of circus performances and audience reactions is cleverly edited to go with the storyline. The aspect of the movie that must have made it fairly controversial in its day was the very strong sexual undertones. SPOILERS AHEAD: We have the unhappy Angela sticking with Rossiter in a loveless relationship, and his casual elimination through " accidents" of circus women who are no longer willing to be his mistresses. There is an uneasy theme of voyeurism that runs through the whole movie, from the first sight of Evelyn Morley's ruined face, to the beautiful prostitute Rossiter plans to exhibit as Helen of Troy. The sideshow barker lures a crowd of male gawkers at one point with an offer to "come see the Temple of Beauty", in which half naked women are displayed in pseudo-historical settings. Buried beneath all the lurid story developments is a not so hidden theme of women as objects to be manipulated and displayed for men's gratification. Evelyn Morley takes a terrible risk of outlawed plastic surgery in an attempt to be more attractive, and ends up disfigured, due to Rossiter's overconfidence in his own abilities. When the woman who is to be displayed as Helen of Troy complains that she will have to stand for hours and be stared at, Rossiter practically purrs, "Not stared at, my dear, worshiped." The movie is certainly far from dull and Diffring raises it from an indifferent script to something astonishingly perverse in its implications. Worth checking out at least once by fans of late Fifties English horror flicks.

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 horror film stars Anton Diffring, a name you probably won't recognize though it's very likely you'll recognize his chiseled Nordic face. He was a prolific actor in supporting roles but was most often cast as German soldiers in such films as WHERE EAGLES DARE, THE BLUE MAX, OPERATION CROSSBOW, THE HEROES OF TELEMARK and ZEPPELIN (among others). You also might remember him as Montag's boss in FAHRENHEIT 451. He one of those familiar and reliable actors that you had to have seen if you saw many films made in the 1960s.

The film begins with Diffring and his two friends traveling throughout Europe. He is obviously on the run--but from who and what we don't know. On a lark, the three hide out by taking over a small circus and casting disfigured women in the leading roles. It seems that Diffring is a plastic surgeon and once made beautiful, the ladies learn the trade and stay with the circus. However, oddly, when any of these women try to leave the show, an 'accident' occurs to them--killing them. The first they show is particularly nasty and vivid for 1960. We can see that one of Diffring's friends is behind the murders but whether he (Diffring) knew this was the case is uncertain. While the idea of the murders at the circus is interesting, why Diffring and his friends invest so much energy in the scheme is odd--I mean, why do this?! And, after several of these murders, how could the black-haired lady been so insane as to make threats against the circus?! You'd think she'd tread lightly in light of the killings--there's already been 11 before this one!! And, for that matter, why didn't they just close that horrible circus?! And, the guy in the cheesy gorilla suit was not one of the film's better moments. And, when the doctor was trying to stab the hero, why did the young lady just stand there and watch?!? Sloppy--especially near the end, though the speeding car was kind of cool.

While I wanted to really like this film, there was a problem that I began to notice after a while. There really were not that many killings--they talk about there having been some but only show a couple. This is quite unlike excellent horror films like THEATRE OF BLOOD or the Dr. Phibes films or the similar plotted CIRCUS OF TERROR (which, actually isn't all that excellent). Plus, there was lots and lots of talking--a bad thing for a film in the genre. I was aching for more action--more action and less inconsistencies in the script. Still, despite these problems, it is interesting enough to merit watching.

I vividly recall the evening nearly half a century ago when the accident to the knife-throwers' assistant was shown from behind and I observed "that's all we're going to see", only (SPOILER COMING:) to be promptly disabused by a huge closeup of the poor girl with the knife sticking out of her neck and realised we were in the hands of maniacs (it comes as no surprise to learn that Herman Cohan was involved).

Probably the least of Anglo-Amalgated's trio of lurid Eastmancolor shockers (each shot by a top cameraman) 'Circus of Horrors is certainly the goriest and definitely lives up to it's title.

Sharing with it's predecessors a morbid fascination with facial disfigurement and trading on that base instinct that visitors to the circus always secretly harbour that tonight will be the night that a fatal accident will take place, it delivers in spades in pristine colour by old pro Douglas Slocombe and gets more class than it deserves from the score by Franz Reisenstein.

I'll give this credit for being better than "Carnival Story" and "Berserk" (forgettable outside of Joan Crawford's participation), but it is a rather boring big top grand guignole that in spite of a few horrific scenes is quite dull. Anton Diffring does what he can to create a fascinating villain, but the film itself is slow-moving and mostly filmed with circus act that we've seen a hundred times before. It does show what circus life is like, but we are not watching "The Greatest Show on Earth" or "Circus World" or even "Big Top Pee Wee". Audiences who watch horror movies require elements of terror, and this only provides a few.

I enjoyed this more the second time around, although not by much because the first time I saw it, I rated it a bomb. So it is not as bad as all that, but outside the opening scene where a female circus star screams when she realizes that her face has been badly scarred and a few horrifying murders during live acts, this is nothing but a cheap exploitative thriller that promises a lot but delivers little outside of cliched characters and a modern sounding crooner repeating the song "Look For a Star" throughout to great annoyance.

The best aspects of the film outside of the circus acts if you come in wanting that sort of thing is the colorful photography and some of the flamboyant costumes. Other than that, it is not very thrilling and jealous why circuses have dwindled in popularity over the past few decades. As far as the tension is concerned, there are so few moments that bring on anxiety that when they do occur, the audience can only think of themselves, it's about time. That means that we are aware that nothing is really going to happen until the last few minutes of the film, and that the windows any interest in what does on beforehand.