CIRCUS OF HORRORS

Anton Diffring

CIRCUS OF HORRORS (1960). Director: Sidney Hayers. 

A plastic surgeon flees England after a job on a woman's face goes wrong -- although he claims she didn't follow his instructions -- and winds up in France, where he re-invents himself as Dr. Schuler (Anton Diffring) and takes over a circus once owned by Vanet (Donald Pleasence). Ten years go by and Schuler has filled the circus with criminals whose faces he has changed and who have somehow developed abilities as performers. The late Vanet's daughter, Nicole (Yvonne Monlaur), thinks of Schuler as her uncle and is grateful that he healed her childhood scars. 

Griffith, Hylton, and Diffring

Schuler may seem like a hero to Nicole, but in reality he becomes very possessive of the women he remodels, and a number of them die in "accidents" while they are performing. The police and a reporter are suspicious, but there's nothing they can pin on Schuler. His latest acquisition is a woman named Melina (Yvonne Romain), who is cast as Helen of Troy and apparently trained as a lion tamer! Schuler's associates Martin (Kenneth Griffith) and his sister, Angela (Jane Hylton), who is in love with Schuler, are starting to get antsy. And we mustn't forget the lady back in England, who still has a horribly scarred face ... 

Donald Pleasence

Anton Diffring gives another winning performance in Circus of Horrors, and there is also good work from Donald Pleasence, Griffith, Hylton, and some of the ladies. The script, written by George Baxt, has to be taken with a grain of salt, as Schuler finds it incredibly easy to turn crooks, whores and so on into skilled circus performers, the deaths of so many women should have brought in the authorities much sooner, and it's especially hard to believe anyone, such as trapeze headliner Elissa (Erika Remberg),  would actually do their dangerous act after trying to blackmail the even more dangerous Schuler. Still, the movie is absorbing and at times delightfully lurid if never distastefully graphic.  Hayers also directed Burn, Witch, Burn. 

Verdict: Zesty British horror film. ***.