EL CIRCO DEL TERROR

Lurid, comic booky circus flick with stunning women, wild animals and devious murders

A couple years after WW2 an English plastic surgeon (Anton Diffring) flees to France with his two cronies (Kenneth Griffith & Jane Hylton) and ends up going into the circus business. A decade later he has a successful traveling show that’s notorious as 'The Jinxed Circus,' which draws the suspicions of an inspector (Conrad Phillips).

“Circus of Horrors” is like a thriller comic book version of “The Greatest Show on Earth” from the early 50s. It’s similar to the later “Circus of Fear,” aka “Psycho-Circus” (1966), which reportedly borrowed some of its circus footage, but this one’s more entertaining. While some of the animals featured are real (lions, horses and a bear) others are glaringly fake (a gorilla and a bear).

The story is decidedly comic booky, but the film’s luridly compelling entertainment and recommended for fans of circus flicks and Hammer-esque horror. On the female front it scores off the charts with Colette Wilde (Evelyn), Vanda Hudson (Magda), Erika Remberg (Elissa), Yvonne Romain (Melina) and Yvonne Monlaur (Nicole), all featured in alluring apparel. Donald Pleasence even shows up for a bit part (with hair).

It influenced "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies" from four years later, as well as Joan Crawford's ""Berserk!" So, if you favor those, you'll appreciate this.

It runs 1h 28m (or 1h 32m), and was shot Oct-Nov 1959 in the London area at Clapham Common, Old Amersham and Beaconsfield Studios. Billy Smart's Circus provided the tents, accouterments and background performers.

GRADE: B

Old timey glory There is a lot one could say about a movie that is over 60 years old, to put it down compared to modern blockbusters, but as far as being a movie this is a good one. Its production value is high (despite some of the hokey animal props/costumes) and the acting is rock-solid. The music is repetitive, which goes with the circus theme, and there are hooks for subplots that never go explored, leaving you with a sense of a bigger world than just the runtime of the movie itself.