Circus of Horrors

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Circus of Horrors is a 1960 British horror film directed by Sidney Hayers. It starred Anton Diffring, Yvonne Monlaur, Erika Remberg, Kenneth Griffith, Jane Hylton, Conrad Phillips, Yvonne Romain and Donald Pleasance.

It was the third in what film critic David Pirie called Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadian trilogy", focusing on sadism, cruelty and violence (with sexual undertones) rather than, say, the supernatural horror of the Hammer films in the same era. The previous films in the trilogy were Horrors of the Black Museum and Peeping Tom, both in 1959.

[edit] Plot

In 1940s England, Dr Rossiter (Diffring) is a plastic surgeon wanted by the police after an operation goes hideously wrong. However, believing himself to have brilliant abilities as a surgeon, he and his assistants (Griffith and Hylton) evade capture and escape to the Continent. There Rossiter changes his name to Schüler, and befriends a circus owner (Pleasance) whose deformed daughter (Carol Challoner, growing up to become Yvonne Monlaur) he operates on.

Schüler manipulates his way into running the circus, taking it over when the owner dies in a freak "accident". A decade later, he is running an internationally successful circus, which he uses as a front for his surgical exploits. He befriends deformed women and transforms them for his "Temple of Beauty". However, when they threaten to leave, they meet with mysterious accidents which raise the suspicions of local police (Phillips among them), who are soon on his trail.

[edit] Production

The film was shot at Beaconsfield Studios, with location filming on Clapham Common in London.

The score was provided between Franz Reizenstein and Muir Mathieson. Douglas Slocombe was the cinematographer.

[edit] External links

• Circus of Horrors at the Internet Movie Database

The "Sadian Trilogy"
In 1959 and 1960, Anglo-Amalgamated produced three British horror films which, because of their emphasis on sadism, cruelty and violence, with sexual overtones, were dubbed the "Sadian Trilogy" by film critic David Pirie.
Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) | Peeping Tom (1959) | Circus of Horrors (1960)