Review: Vampire Circus

A vampire Count (Robert Tayman) is cornered and destroyed by the townsfolk after having bitten a local girl to feed on. However, in his final moments the Count curses the town. He also claims the blood of the townsfolk’s future generations will be the source of his eventual resurrection. Fifteen years later and the village of Schtetel is now ravaged by a plagued and shut off from any nearby towns. Somehow a travelling circus manages to get in to Schtetel. However, this is no ordinary circus. They are connected to the vanquished Count and have come to do their master’s bidding and resurrect him. Adrienne Corri plays the circus impresario of sorts, Thorley Walters is the town burgomaster, and David Prowse is the circus strongman.

 

Hammer always seemed to come up with fresh ideas for vampire movies, and this 1972 film from director Robert Young (“Fierce Creatures” of all films) and screenwriter Jud Kinberg (the underrated “Reach for Glory”, the solid miniseries “To Catch a Killer”) is one of the more interesting films from their later output. It’s certainly one of their boldest and darkest, announcing as such from the terrific, brutal opening set piece. When a film opens with a little girl getting bitten by a vampire, you can pretty much gather that all bets will be off. You can’t often say that about the rather repressed Hammer Studios, but it’s pretty true here in one of their grisliest films. The victimisation of children in this film is especially unsettling, and the film goes into some pretty dark territory even outside of that. So it’s quite a different Hammer film, but oddly enough the travelling circus idea is the least of the differences. It’s a genuinely creepy, sometimes genuinely scary, and overall very trippy and weird film. Otherworldly, even. The creepy circus is just an added bizarro bonus, especially the rather kinky ‘tiger-taming’ scene. These characters and the worldview – despite a fairly typical Hammer backdrop of Gothic horror – are a little ‘off’. It’s really interesting stuff, with terrific performances by Adrienne Corri, Thorley Walters, and Skip Martin (his best work). Good, bombastic score by David Whitaker (“Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde”, “The Sword and the Sorcerer”) is icing on the cake, and look out for a pretty hilarious but marvellous bit involving a giant cross.

 

Is the film flawless? Not at all. The projection work is shoddy, I’m not even sure in their heyday that Hammer would’ve been able to afford better FX work. Meanwhile, at one point I’m pretty sure Anthony Higgins’ fangs nearly fall out. Watch out for that. Another flaw – a pretty minor one though – is that lead actor John Moulder-Brown makes for a strangely unsympathetic and smug young protagonist.

 

Curses, plagues, vampires, and circuses. What more could you possibly want? An imperfect but very strong, unusual, and quite violent Hammer film with a particularly memorable opening set piece. Good, eerie fun.

 

Rating: B-

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