VAMPIRE CIRCUS, one of the kinky boobs & blood fests that Hammer ground out in the 70’s, this one written by Judson Kinberg. Though he had some A-list credits both as an Associate Producer (Executive Suite, Moonfleet, Lust For Life) and full-on Producer (The Collector, The Magus) his previous dabs at screenplays were the less-than-stellar Siege Of The Saxons and East Of Sudan, derivative retreads padded with stock footage from larger-budgeted movies. With someone else producing (Wilbur Stark, pinching pence), Kinberg packs enough people and plot into 84 minutes for three movies, the jumble of creepy and cheesy directed with pizzazz by first-timer Robert Young. The 1972 entry apparently did decently in Britain but got barely any play in the US, the year awash with dopier horror flicks. *

Serbia, the early 1800’s. The village of ‘Schtettel’ is swamped with problems (for starters being a Serbian village named Schtettel in the early 1800’s). A plague is raging and the hamlet is blockaded; those trying to get out risk being shot by patrols from other towns. When the traveling ‘Circus Of the Night’ trundles in, somehow having evaded the cordon, their tantalizingly weird acts briefly take Schtettelians minds off the disease issue but the bold exotic fun is accompanied by the sudden disappearances of local children, and some mangle-style killings. These summon memories of ‘Count Mittherhaus’, whose foul deeds years earlier had resulted in his being staked out (literally) in the local castle, now locked and avoided like, well, the plague. Some insist vampirism is work, based on a curse from the long undead Count. Others dismiss that as superstition. With all manner of evil afoot, could it be high time to tote torches and drive points home?

The sets are chintzy, the props off the rack, the editing choppy, dialogue on-the-nose exclamatory and some of the posing/acting either laughable (‘Look! I’m a crazed vampire!’) or plain clumsy (John Moulder-Brown’s young swain/hero is like a talking sculpture of Unconvincing) and the ‘drain & kill children’ theme is nothing if not queasy. **

BUT—hold your pitchforks, Hammer dwellers—there’s more than meets the sharpened eye teeth to this gaudy, bloody, randy fangcapade. If you can put aside the twisted idea of the Count’s curse—punish the village by decimating the kiddies—the triangular plotline of a haunted past, mysterious visitors, malevolent murders and an encircling pandemic makes for a good framework with which to hang on interesting suspicious characters and charged emotions. Though there may be too many folk, fiends and subplots to coherently juggle (editing and a truncated budget not helping), the sheer volume and speed of the moving parts and their bizarre representations hold attention, and most of the supporting performances are steady. The gore is blatant but outlandish enough to not be revolting, the sex teasing is plentiful and the whole whirlwind of weird is scored for flair by David Whitaker.

The movie’s die-hard (and expanding) fan base revels in the macabre from the following: Adrienne Corri, expertly expressing the Circus boss lady ‘Gypsy Woman’ as a lascivious wanton (of the We Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way variety); Anthony Corlan’s confident ‘Emil’, a plasma-thirsting, wide-eyed wacko; Skip Martin’s leering ‘Yes, I am depraved’ mien as ‘Michael’, the demonic dwarf; Lalla Ward’s come-hither ‘Helga’, innocent until proven lethal; Robert Tayman’s hilarious overbiting as ‘the Count’; David Prowse (the future embodyment of ‘Darth Vader’) as a surly, silent strongman; and Serena, a hot stuff exotic dancer who, made up suggest a turquoise tiger (if a 400-pound cat was a nude female exotic dancer), unleashes a wild watch-me-writhing number, punctuated with whip discipline from her partner/lover (one Milovan Vesnitch). Plus a real tiger, a black panther (always welcome), bats (real & fake), twins (real), muskets, 70’s hairdo’s and bouts of supranormal gymnastics. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad Schtettel.

Jostling for victim space in the milling cast are Laurence Payne, Thorley Walters, Lynne Frederick, Anthony Higgins, Richard Owens, Robin Hunter, Domini Blythe (great name!) and Elizabeth Seal.

* Hold the stake, pass the Limberger—contestants for Most Horrible in 1972—Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, Ben, Frogs, Blacula, The Last House On The Left, The Thing With Two Heads, Dracula A.D. 1972, Daughters Of Satan, Night Of The Lepus, The Dead Are Alive.

** We’re a wee harsh on John Moulder-Brown in this movie. Perhaps slack should be cut since much of the script, editing and direction would trip up James Mason, let alone a 18-year-old kid.  As a child performer he’d racked notable credits—Carve Her Name With Pride, A Night To Remember, Room At The Top, 55 Days At Peking, Becket—and as a young man figured in several that drew critical and cult attention—The House That Screamed, First Love, Deep End, Ludwig. At 44 he founded a drama school in Brighton, the Academy of Creative Training. His self-verdict vis-à-vis Vampire Circus: “But I think I was absolutely lousy in the film. I think I was terrible; I should never have worked again after it.”  Well, sometimes the learning curve involves learning the curves on a visiting exotic tiger dancer who thinks silly things like clothes get in the way of art.