Circus of Horrors - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

France, 1947. WWII has been over for two years and in the shadow of that war, the countryside is populated with the scarred and maimed victims of it. Dr. Rossiter (Anton Diffring), believing himself to be a brilliant plastic surgeon, makes it his life’s mission to heal the faces of the wounded that he sees every day. When the story begins, however, he’s botched the facial reconstructive surgery of a rich, powerful woman, and now he’s on the run.

Along the way, he sees a young girl, whose father (played by a young Donald Pleasence) runs a failing circus. The young girl, like so many others, has a deep scar on her face from a bombing campaign during the war. Rossiter fixes it for her… nearly free of charge. All he asks, he says, is for a stake in the circus, that he can bring to a profitable status again. The young girl’s father agrees. That night, while drunk, he makes the mistake of getting absolutely plastered and dances with a bear who, perhaps not surprisingly, mauls the hell out of him. Dr. Rossiter allows him to die, through inaction and takes full control of the circus.

Ten years later, the circus is quite successful, but it has a nasty reputation for being accident-prone. “The jinx circus,” they all call it. Whenever someone’s had enough, a convenient accident occurs, with an impossible-to-identify source of its cause. To add even more suspicion, the folks winding up dead all have identical scars along their faces, indicating that they’ve had facial reconstruction surgery.

Dr. Rossiter’s plan is to fill the circus with the beautiful, the people he’s made beautiful in his creations and in his image. Through threats of violence and blackmail, he keeps them under his control. And if they decide enough is enough, he plans a little accident for them to occur—whether that’s falling from very high up after a rope snaps, or a meticulously planned stunt involving throwing knives skipping so the blade goes right through a performer’s throat.

Circus of Horrors has it all: Botched plastic surgery, women in scantily-clad outfits, stock footage circus acts that are actually quite thrilling, murder, spontaneously combustible cars, and glorious color cinematography from industry veteran Douglas Slocombe (Spielberg’s D.P. on the first three Indiana Jones movies). But even at a slight 92 minutes, it feels too long by about half. There’s about 46 minutes of good, solid material—like a good episode of an anthology show of the time. And there’s about 46 minutes of dreadfully dull filler material. Which is a shame, because when Circus of Horrors works, it works. There are a few moments of expertly built tension, where the payoff is genuinely shocking and surprising, building off of established film language and subverting the audience’s expectations.

That’s not to say Circus of Horrors is bad. It’s not. It’s actually quite good, but somewhere inside this decent/fine movie is a great one yearning to get out. While the movie believes it’s more akin to a circus of human horror like, say, Nightmare Alley, it’s at its best when it’s leaning into campier territory, like Joan Crawford’s own circus-themed thriller Berserk!

Vital Disc Stats: The Ultra HD Blu-ray
Kino Lorber’s release of Circus of Horrors is a two-disc issue, with both a 4K UHD Blu-ray and an HD 1080p Blu-ray, with all special features found on the Blu-ray disc. Both discs are housed in a standard case with a removable slipcover, featuring identical artwork.

Circus of Horrors is presented in 4K UHD from a scan of the original camera negative by StudioCanal. I wish there existed a short supplemental feature about the restoration process because I’m curious what kind of condition it was in. There are some technical flaws that seem like there was no way around—some deep scratches on the print, some fluctuating static noise in some shadows in one isolated shot, but really nothing to get in a twist over. Overall, the visuals, especially the color levels, look really nice and natural.  Early on in the film, I checked the back of the cover and my own TV’s settings just to confirm that there had been no HDR grading because it does look very nice in total color realization. This is about as nice as I’ve seen any 4K SDR video. The film benefits from a lively, vivid spectrum at the circus setting. Every color imaginable under the rainbow is present, in sparkling and vivacious life.

The single audio option available on Circus of Horrors is a 2.0 mono mix, encoded in DTS-HD MA. Largely, the mix is very good and a faithful recreation of its original theatrical sound design. I’m assuming that the film print the restoration team over at StudioCanal was working with was in rough shape, because like its visual counterpart, there are just some issues here and there. But, again, nothing tremendous—just showing marks of age. The dialogue is mixed a little low and can sometimes (but not always) sound a little muffled and muddy around the edges, with “s” sounds making a staticky hiss, or “p” sounds making a crackling pop sound. Overall, in a film with a lot of music and sound effects like roaring lions and all the hullabaloo of a circus, these elements are stacked very well. This being a mono mix, this will be a front-only presentation on the soundstage.

There are only a pair of features on KLSC’s release of Circus of Horrors: An informative audio commentary from film historian David Del Valle and classic trailers/TV spots. The audio commentary is found on both discs, while the trailers are only available on the Blu-ray disc.

• Audio Commentary – Film historian David Del Valle
• Trailers

Circus of Horrors is a fun flick that stretches a modest run time to its limits. It’s at its best when it embraces its ridiculous pulpiness and sometimes even crosses into early exploitation. Too often, it tries to make a movie about a deranged plastic surgeon running a murder circus into a classy affair to appeal to a broad audience. The video presentation looks very good and the work put into its restoration shows. The audio has some minor issues, but is good all around. And there is a shortage of features, sadly. Still, Circus of Horrors is a unique little oddity that looks incredible and is ultimately Worth a Look.