Vampire Circus [DVD] [1971]

I decided to give Vampire Circus a try based on the many reviews I've read on the Internet. I have to say, it was a good move on my part. I won't go into the plot as I'm sure you can find all about it on many sites. I will say that the acting is okay and effects are decent for its time.

Carlton Video did a fantastic transfer. The film looks pristine with no visible imperfections. The colors are solid and rich. Hats off to Carlton.

This little gem is worth the purchase if you're a Hammer fan or a lover of Vampire flicks.

Thumbs up!

I am a massive fan of Hammer Horror and all from, I think, that magical era from the late 50's to mid 70's. This film is no exception yet it tends to get overlooked when compared to the Dracula series and the Karnstein trilogy. I think this film is better than the latter and is one of the last great triumphs the studio produced. The plot is a real departure from most of its contemporaries and is stronger for it based on the dying curse of a vampire count. It's also very atmospheric. The other striking thing about this film is the score which is stunning, dripping with menace, mystery and solemnity throughout.

Anyway, enough of me rambling, buy it and see for yourself!!

Feels good to be right sometimes.
Only a few short months ago I appeared on these very pages with a stark warning about travelling folk and all they get up to in their mysterious twilight world.
I have been derided as bigot in some quarters, fool in others, but no longer must I rely on hearsay and jangle to support my rantings - here at last is the irrefutable proof.

The town of Schtettle was complacent too. Thinking a travelling circus would divert the long-suffering folk from maudling over the dreadful plague decimating the population seems like a top idea on paper, but as so often turns out in Hammer movies - especially ones with 'vampire' in the title - the reality is a BIG bad.
By wretched bad luck, the circus people are led by Emil, who turns out to be cousin to the desperately evil Count Mitterhaus, a nasty noble who seduced the nubiles and murdered the children of Schtettle, until being staked to oblivion years before.
Emil's not happy about this, so he sets about seducing and murdering the present-day youth of miserable Schtettle, to fulfil the hissing Mitterhaus' dying-breath curse and in so doing, bring him back to life.
The circus turns dazzle the unfortunate audience, who after witnessing trapeze artists turning into bats, an insane dance by a tiger-woman and Emil himself transforming into a scary panther among the attractions, begin to fall prey to the blood-sucking performers.
The children are tricked into a magic castle, breathlessly bonked in animal cages, led AWOL through a hall of mirrors only to find themselves on the receiving end of the gleaming teeth of Emil (NOT played by David Essex - too many stereotypes being enforced here for that languid hypocrite) and his beaming kin.
The adults fare no better. A family is slaughtered when they're tricked by the circus dwarf (a truly nightmarish figure - and there's something else I've warned you about !), who leads them to death in the sinister frondian forest that surrounds the village...

Sound good so far..? You bet it is. 'Vampire Circus' is crammed to the beams with sex, violence and caravans.
There's gory murders, a belt-buckle whipping, full-frontal nudity, a burning castle and a chunky staking in the pre-credits sequence alone! The film proper then takes a whopping great 4 minutes to set the scene 15 years later, then we're straight to the plague victims, the arrival of the circus ("We're here to steal the gold from dead mens eyes..") and the unhappy rumblings of the townsfolk, who, brilliantly, are being punished for doing the right thing!
Yay. Should've let old Mitterhaus be. Alone in his castle (except for hot visitors - the townsmens wives!), doing no harm to no-one. These 19th Century Serbian villages don't know when they're well off.
I won't spoil it, but 'Vampire Circus' ends with a massacre that puts 'Little Big Horn' to shame. Vampires, townsfolk, soldiers and dwarves - all involved in a huge blood-bath in a tiny crypt, plus a juicy decapitation by cross-bow that you really need to see.

I strongly believe all gypsy types behave like this (but then again, I believed there was an evil race living under the sea after I watched 'Stingray'), and we must be on constant guard at all times if we don't want our children to be eaten to death.
'Vampire Circus' is hard evidence of what happens when your apathetic town-councillors sit on their hands, and you don't barricade your municipal car-parks...