Le Cirque des horreurs

A potent, well-paced and oddly memorable horror film with an outstanding leading performance from Anton Diffring, who could play cold and crude characters for fun.

The circus background (a venue synonymous with enjoyment and family entertainment) effectively enhances the nastiness in this film. The illicit reasons behind the use of plastic surgery also add to the general aura of horror.

A nastily effective British horror film - easily Diffring's best performance - and still watchable today.....

Trying to emulate the success of Hammer Films, Anglo-Amalgamated made a series of gruesome contemporary horror shockers around 1959/60 (others included "Peeping Tom" & "Horrors of the Black Museum").

This cheerfully lurid shocker exploits the mixed emotions we feel when watching circus performers - the idea of something going terribly wrong is horrible, yet exciting. But crude as the concept is, cast and crew play it for all it's got : Anton Diffring is excellent in the lead role and Sidney Hayers' direction is slick and effective.

The all-stops-out climax is great stuff and there's an effective final scene. The frequently-heard background song, "Reach For A Star", is corny but you won't be able to shake it out of your head!

This is a strange little horror gem from the early sixties about a mad plastic surgeon who must flee England because of some not very sound surgery practices. Once out of England, he(played by Anton Diffring with aplomb) and his two cohorts murder their way into owning a run-down circus whilst in France. From there on ten years pass as the doctor fixes the disfigured faces of thieves and prostitutes in return for their services in the circus. Well...I am not making this up but the doctor and his renegade circus performers then travel all over Europe and become a huge success. Problems start to happen though as the beautiful female star attractions want out of the circus...and the bed of Diffring...only to find their solace in bizarre deaths...circus-related of course. One female is killed in a knife-throwing accident while another falls while trapezing. This is a credulous scenario to be sure, but the film is quite fun. The acting is good: Diffring is marvelous as the mad physician plagued with his obsession for perfection in beauty, Donald Pleasance is quite good in a small role, and the female leads are quite stunning...visually of course. The music is rather hokey...very sixties, but atmosphere is otherwise rather well-staged. All in all I think I would prefer this over spending my time in a real circus...what a "real" horror. Enjoy.

I recall seeing this film as a child in 1960. My mother was quite angry at dad for taking us to a movie that was "definitely not for children". This is a grim story of a doctor fleeing some botched plastic surgeries. He takes over a backwoods circus and populates it with beautiful, yet disfigured female performers whom he restores to beauty and rescues from lives of prostitution and rejection. Of course, once the circus becomes successful, the ladies no longer feel like putting up with, or putting out for him, so he devises elaborate circus "accidents" to deal with their ingratitude.

The song "Look For A Star" permeates the movie at various times. At first, it's almost unnoticeable, a seemingly lame early sixties pop tune. However, as the movie progresses it takes on a sinister, disturbing aspect and circulates the brain long after it is over.

The film is well acted and truly suspenseful. A must for those who like their sex and violence done in a literate, intelligent manner.

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 fine work by Anton Diffring as the outlaw plastic surgeon. Diffring is 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 gives the film its pulse as the resourceful and controlling renegade who keeps his flawed females on a very short leash. The film moves along at a good pace with no filler or wasted scenes. Donald Pleasance, erstwhile owner of the circus, is among the good supporting cast that includes the buxom ladies who are at great risk under Diffring's watchful, evil eye.