[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Vampire Circus (1972)

In 1825, the mysterious Circus of Night enters a sleepy Romanian village cut off from the rest of the world by the plague. The villagers are immediately wowed by the performances which include acts where people transform into wild animals. Suspicions arise when bodies start turning up drained of blood.

For me this is the best film in a small genre of movies which mix the circus with horror. The film has quite a bit of grisly gore and nudity for a Hammer production and was pretty strong stuff for its time.

The circus performances are effectively filmed with very good animal transformations during the acts as well as an extremely memorable display by actual performers Milo and Serena. The film has enjoyable turns from the lovely Adrienne Corri, Lawrence Payne and Thorley Walters, but John Moulder-Brown seems like he needs to go back to stage school.

On the whole Vampire Circus is a successful attempt by Hammer to do something different with the vampire formula in what is a racy, gritty affair with an unwavering atmosphere of doom and gloom.