Cheap Circus of Horrors (DVD) (Sidney Hayers) Price

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Customer Reviews of Circus of Horrors

THAT AMAZING SONG - IN A HORROR MOVIE!!
It's amazing to see so many reviewers remembering the song "Look for a Star" from this 1960 thriller gem. I saw this movie first back in 1960 when I was a highly impressionable child and was overwhelmed by its brutality and gripping suspense. The song has haunted me ever since; it's one of those melodies that stays in your head even years later.
And in addition, the movie's many scenes have haunted me: the beautiful Yvonne Romaine's fatal lion taming scene; Donald Plesance's brief role as the drunken owner of the circus; Erika Romberg's fall from grace; the actors who portrayed Rossiter's compatriates in crime--how their subtly understated performances are so well done; and of course, the finale where poetic justice is so passionately observed.
This is really nothing more than a very good thriller; it's horrors are psychological, and so well evidenced in Anton Diffring's performance as Rossiter/Schuler. His egomania and love for what he does is the soul of Diffring's performance and in spite of a sometimes difficult accent, he is perfect in this little gem.

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THE TEMPLE OF BEAUTY.....
Anchor Bay outdid themselves with this DVD. I hadn't seen this Euro-shocker in years and it's flawlessly preserved on disc. It's a grisly tale of plastic surgeon Dr.Lassiter (a deliciously over-the-top Anton Diffring) who messes up on a wealthy socialites's face and, fearing ruin and/or jail, takes it on the lam with his nurse and her brother. They discover a broken down circus kept by the drunken owner (Donald Pleasance) and his war disfigured little girl. After the convenient death of the owner by bear mauling and miraculously fixing the daughters' face, Lassiter seizes a golden opportunity and creates his own circus. Over the years he enlists disfigured shady ladies, restores their beauty and puts them to work as performers. If they try to leave, they meet with violent death in "accidents". The little girl is now grown into the gorgeous Yvonne Monlaur who is devoted to Lassiter and training to be in the show. She knows nothing of his grotesque business arrangements. The beautiful Erika Remberg is featured as a temperamental trapeze artist who resorts to blackmailing Lassiter for star status. Her theme song is a syrupy pop tune "Look to a Star" that is repeatedly used to creepy effect. This film is British/European horror at its' most luridly bizarre and is wonderful in color. The circus atmosphere is vividly captured and Remberg's routines are an eyeful. Yvonne Romain ("Devil Doll", "Curse of the Werewolf") is also featured as a disfigured (but what a figure!) doll restored to her stunning beauty and put to work as a lion tamer. Horror fans should treasure this glorious excercise in the macabre and it's a must have for collectors.

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Anton Diffring makes a good film even better
One of the best horror films of the 1960s is this entry with its interesting mix of suspense, sex and mysterious deaths that has the benefit of real circus settings and a great performance by Anton Diffring as the outlaw plastic surgeon. The steely, blue-eyed Diffring is perfect as the erudite but flawed medical genius whose past is littered with botched operations but continues his work behind the prop of a circus staffed with female performers whose faces he has restored in exchange for fealty and silence. Diffring's work gives the film its pulse and his Doctor Rossiter/Schueler is the resourceful and controlling renegade who deals ruthlessly with his flawed females who try to leave his circus. The film moves along at a good pace with no filler or wasted scenes. The supporting cast is very good, especially the buxom ladies who are unknowingly at great risk under Doctor Rossiter/Schueler's watchful, evil eye.