Circus of Horrors (1960)
Directed by Sidney Hayers

Film Review

Following the staggering success of Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) on both sides of the Atlantic, Anglo-Amalgamated gave another jolt to the emerging phenomenon of exploitation cinema by distributing two similarly lurid entries in the psycho-thriller/horror genre, Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom, completing what has come to be known as the Sadean Trilogy.  The critics may not have been impressed by what they saw as an orgy of death concocted by evil sadists but audiences apparently couldn't get enough of this new kind of gorily explicit escapism.  Even before Norman Bates had sliced his way into cinema notoriety the exploitation bandwagon was already on the road, catering to one of the most basic and incomprehensible of human needs: to see others suffer in the most horrible way imaginable.

Circus of Horrors may lack the depth and sustained artistry of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom but it is still one of the more respectable entries in the exploitation line, its impressive production values, solid (albeit slightly bonkers) script and a captivating central performance from Anton Diffring making up for its gratuitous excursions into Grand Guignol excess.  (Other faults which are harder to overlook are an incongruous song that later became a hit record, some scenes involving men in monkey suits trying desperately to look ferocious and Donald Pleasence struggling with what is possibly the worst French accent in any British film.)   Independently produced by the British company Lynx Films, the film is directed with flair by Sidney Hayers, who also made the occult thriller Night of the Eagle (1962) before devoting the bulk of his career to television on high profile shows that included The Persuaders!, The Avengers, Knight Rider and Dragnet. 

This is not the first horror film to be set in a circus - Tod Browning's Freaks (1932) memorably used this setting in one of the genre's more unsettling offerings - but the use of the circus brings a particularly devious form of irony to the subject matter.  Like the audience in the big top watching the death-defying acts, we too are sitting with baited breath, waiting for the deadly slip-up that will gratify our thirst for blood.  In a similar vein to Peeping Tom, Circus of Horrors makes us aware that we are voyeurs naturally drawn to the spectacle of unfolding horror, but whereas Powell's film is so shocking that we end up feeling repulsed by this revelation, this one feeds our morbidity with no moral compunction, as though we were insatiable wild beasts being thrown big chunks of meat which we readily gorge on.
   
The fact that Billy Smart's Circus consented to contribute the big top and the acts performed therein (many of which have now been prohibited by animal welfare laws) lends the film not only a grim authenticity but also a real sense of spectacle.  Unlike many cheaply made horror films of this time (Hammer's films excluded) Circus of Horrors has the visual impact of a far more expensive production, sumptuously shot in Eastmancolor to make the most of its macabre set-pieces.  Every on-screen killing is excessively signposted (once a girl so much as hints that she intends leaving the circus you know she is next in line to be filleted) but Hayers turns this script flaw into a strength, extracting as much tension as possible before our strained patience is rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of a mangled or mutilated corpse.  The first circus death comes as shock, but as the formula is repeated again and again, it becomes increasingly funny.  There is a bleakly mechanistic quality to Circus of Horrors that makes it as much a black comedy as a decidedly grim horror film.

Another crucial ingredient that sets the film apart from the reviled genre it helped to spawn is Anton Diffring's presence as a classier example in the mad surgeon line.  Diffring spent most of his career playing German officers of varying degrees of nastiness - in such film as The Colditz Story (1955) and Operation Daybreak (1975) - so it's a treat to see him cast as a very different kind of villain, one who could so easily be mistaken for a tragic romantic hero were it not for his cold Teutonic allure and a somewhat irksome habit of killing people in the most horrible way imaginable.  Like Michael Gough's character in Horrors of the Black Museum and Carl Boehm's Mark Lewis in Peeping Tom, Diffring's plastic surgeon Dr Schüler is a potentially useful member of society who becomes a dangerous threat when an all-consuming obsession drives him to kill what he cannot possess.  His madness is an extreme form of the Pygmalion complex: he feels compelled to turn disfigured women into objects of perfection, and when they acquire a will of their own, he has no choice but to destroy them.

A master of subtlety, Diffring portrays Schüler neither as a sadistic fiend nor as a soul in torment.  He is curiously amoral, someone who fascinates us as much as he appals us, and despite the horrific nature of his crimes, we can't help pitying the tragic decline of a man who, at the outset, only wanted to do good.  It's a variation on the 'misunderstood monster' theme, and like Boris Karloff in the original Frankenstein movies Diffring compels sympathy even when he is steeped in the bloodiest horror.  As you watch the film and slowly fall under its lead actor's hypnotic spell, you can't help wondering if he was consciously making it into an allegory of the failure of Nazism.

Film Synopsis

England, 1947.  When an operation on a society woman goes badly wrong, plastic surgeon Dr Rossiter is forced to flee the country and, in doing so, narrowly escapes death in a car accident.  Assuming a new identity as Dr Schüler he arrives in France with his assistants Martin and Angela and takes over the management of a rundown circus, believing this to be the perfect cover for his line of work.  Schüler takes women with facial disfigurements and turns them into living works of art, the prime exhibits in his soon thriving circus.  Ten years on, Schüler's circus is one of the most successful in Europe, but it has acquired something of a reputation.  Whenever any of the circus's star attractions decides to leave she meets with a horrible accident in full view of the audience.  Posing as a journalist, police inspector Ames tries to get to the bottom of this suspicious series of deaths and soon realises that as well as being a brilliant surgeon Schüler is also totally unhinged...