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Circus of Horrors (1960)

Dir: Sidney Hayers

Anton Diffring, in a rare lead role, plays a fanatic plastic surgeon, named Rossiter, who flees England after a botched facial on an unfortunate Woman.

With his two partners in plastic crime, Martin (the ever entertaining Kenneth Griffith, who was so marvelous in "The Wild Geese") and his Sister Angela (Jane Hylton, veteran Brit comedy actress, who also popped up in "the Wild Geese"), he changes his appearance and name to 'Schueler'.
While hiding in Europe they comes across a run down Circus owned by Vanet (a surprisingly young looking Donald Pleasence) and his disfigured young Daughter, Nicole (Yvonne Monlaur from Hammer's "Brides of Dracula").

Operating on Nicole, and fixing her face, he gets a grateful Vanet to sign over the Circus to him. Vanet then has an unfortunate encounter with a man in a floppy bear suit, and so 'Schueler' now has the Circus to himself and uses it as a front.

He decides to make up a troop of performers, made from various criminals, who he offers new lives and faces to.
With this bizarre front set up, he carries on practicing his surgery with plans to regain his status as a top Surgeon.

Ten years later (with the now grown up Nicole in the troop) the Circus is a big hit, but any of his Women performers who try to leave meet mysterious deaths...

 

Not strictly a horror film but more of a high Melodrama with a few grizzly bits.
Forget people acting or saying anything that is remotely realistic. This is Melodrama folks! High camp theatrics, melodramatic characters doing things solely to move the plot along.
You know the routine. A woman performer threatens 'Schueler' then goes off to do a dangerous circus act. One dead woman.
You knew it was coming, but somehow, to the film's credit, it just didn't seem to matter. You were spending too much time being entertained.
This is a kind of party film where groups of fans can get together and shout "Oh no! She shouldn't have said that"! And laugh at the foolishness of characters as 'Schueler' kills them off in bizarre Circus accidents (where most of the minimal blood and gore comes into play).

The plot is riddled with logic problems including:
As 'Schueler', Rossiter looks no different except that his little beard has gone.
Why pick such a public place as a circus to hide out?
Would he really meet so many disfigured people?
Would he really meet so many criminals?
Why on earth would he return to England?
Ah, forget it! This is Melodrama and things happen simply because it's more fun if they do.

It's a pretty cheap film as well. Some of the animal effects are laughable in their awfulness (the floppy Bear suit, a rug standing in as a pouncing Lion and one of the great bad Gorilla costumes) and the film relies on a lot of audience stock footage for the Circus shows, and a dodgy Lion taming sequence is made up of a real performance edited into the actresses scenes. It's obvious, but somehow it all adds to the movie's charm.

The film has a 'swinging' attitude to sex and women as well.
Many of the actresses walk around in underwear designed show off their ample charms to full effect and almost everyone seems to be a sex maniac! All the women flirt around with 'Schueler' who in turn pounces on them for some hammy, over the top grope and kiss scenes. Angela is frustrated in her one sided love for 'Schueler, and a Policeman meets one of the woman for the first time and ends up all over her, before setting his sights on innocent Nicole.
Everyone is at it, or wanting to be at it!

The performances are all enjoyable, with special mention to Diffring as a wonderfully melodramatic (that word again) villain.
Hylton as the tragic Angela also has some great 'jealous facial contortions' as 'Schueler' beds every woman in sight except her (and watch out for the mad glee in her face near the finale) and much fun bitching is supplied Erika Remberg as the fiery Elissa, an ex-prostitute/mugger turned high wire performer!

Director Hayers (who helmed Brit exploitation effort "Assault" with Suzy Kendall and the acclaimed "Night of the Eagle") has fun with the Circus setting, the characters, as well the 'we know what's going to happen' murders and, along with Screenwriter George Baxt (who also scribed the excellent "Tower of Evil" and Hammer fave "Vampire Circus"), he has turned a film that should have been a crazy, camp failure into a solid, wildly entertaining, and yes still crazy, slab of delightfully unrealistic melodramatic horror.

Anchor Bay has it on a nice looking DVD, so what are you waiting for?! Go join the Circus!