Circus of Horrors Reviews

Just after WW II, a brilliant but demented German plastic surgeon (Anton Diffring) is forced to flee England after a socialite female patient removes her bandages too early and finds her face horribly scarred. In France, the surgeon changes his name to Schuler and continues to practice clandestinely, using a traveling circus he has acquired as a front. Sexually attracted to disfigured women, Schuler seeks out badly scarred female criminals (thieves, prostitutes, murderers) and fixes their faces, making them his beautiful concubines. In return, the grateful women agree to work in his circus as aerialists, lion tamers, and equestrienne ballerinas. If they attempt to leave, however, they suffer fatal "accidents" that occur before the horrified crowd. British film studio Anglo Amalgamated produced three remarkably similar and disturbing horror pictures during 1959-60, all of which feature a perverse sexual obsession with voyeurism, disfigurement, and murder. Arthur Crabtree's HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959) was followed by CIRCUS OF HORRORS, then came Michael Powell's magnificently depraved masterpiece PEEPING TOM (1960). CIRCUS OF HORRORS, while quite good, is the weakest of the lot, marred by some bad direction, poorly integrated circus footage, and two "dangerous animals"--a dancing bear and a gorilla--that are obviously stuntmen in ratty costumes.