''Vampire Circus'' is a 1972 British
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...
directed by
Robert Young and starring
Adrienne Corri,
Thorley Walters
Thorley Swinstead Walters (12 May 1913 – 6 July 1991) was an English actor. He played comedy roles in films including '' Carlton-Browne of the F.O.'' (1959) and ''Two-Way Stretch'' (1960).
Early life
Walters was born in Teigngrace, Devon, th ...
and
Anthony Higgins.
It was written by
Judson Kinberg, and produced by
Wilbur Stark and
Michael Carreras
Michael Henry Carreras (21 December 1927 – 19 April 1994) was a British film producer and director. He was known for his association with Hammer Films, being the son of founder James Carreras, and taking an executive role in the compan ...
(uncredited) for
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is a British film production company based in London. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic horror and fantasy films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Many of these involve classi ...
. The story concerns a travelling
circus
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...
, the vampiric artists of which prey on the children of a 19th century
Serbia
, image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg
, national_motto =
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg
, national_anthem = ()
, image_map =
, map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
n village.
Plot
One evening near the small Serbian village of Stetl early in the 19th century, schoolmaster Albert Müller witnesses his wife Anna taking a little girl, Jenny Schilt, into the castle of Count Mitterhaus, a reclusive nobleman rumoured to be a vampire responsible for the disappearances of other children. The rumours prove true, as Anna, who has become Mitterhaus' willing acolyte and mistress, gives Jenny to him to be drained of her blood. Men from the village, directed by Müller and including Jenny's father Mr. Schilt and the Bürgermeister, invade the castle and attack the Count. After the vampire kills several of them, Müller succeeds in driving a wooden stake through his heart. With his dying breath, Mitterhaus curses the villagers, vowing that their children will die to give him back his life. The angry villagers force Anna to
run a gauntlet, but when her husband intervenes, she runs back into the castle where the briefly revived Count tells her to find his cousin Emil at "the Circus of Night". After laying his body in the crypt, she escapes through a tunnel as the villagers blow up the castle with gunpowder and set fire to it.
Fifteen years later, Stetl is being ravaged by a
plague and blockaded by the authorities of neighbouring towns, with men ready to shoot any villager who tries to leave. The citizens fear that the pestilence may be due to the Count's curse, though the new physician Dr. Kersh dismisses vampires as just a myth. A travelling circus, calling itself the Circus of Night, then arrives at the village, directed by a dwarf and an alluring gypsy woman who are equivocal about how they got past the blockade; the villagers, appreciative of the distraction from their troubles, do not much question the matter. No-one in the village suspects that one of the circus artists, Emil, is Count Mitterhaus's cousin and a vampire, as are the twin acrobats Heinrich and Helga. Emil and the gypsy woman go to the ruins of the castle, where in the crypt they find the Count's staked body still preserved, and they restate his curse that all who killed him and all their children must die, although the Gypsy Woman asks "Must they all die?"
Whilst his son Anton distracts the armed men at the blockade, Dr. Kersh gets past them to appeal for help from the capital. At the Circus of Night, the villagers are amazed and delighted by the entertainment. Despite his wife's concerns over their wayward daughter, Rosa, and her attraction to the handsome Emil, the Bürgermeister takes her to the circus and, at the gypsy woman's invitation, visits its
hall of mirrors
The Hall of Mirrors () is a grand Baroque architecture, Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the hall and its adjoining salons was intended to ...
where he sees, in one called "The Mirror of Life", a vision of a revived Count Mitterhaus, which causes him to collapse. Frightened by this event, Schilt tries to flee with his family from the blockaded village with the circus dwarf Michael as their guide, only to be abandoned by him in the forest and mauled to death by Emil, whose shapeshifting form is a
black panther
A black panther is the Melanism, melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical Rosette (zoology), rosettes are al ...
.
Müller's daughter Dora, whom he sent away earlier for her protection, has slipped past the blockade and is returning to the village to reunite with her father and her beloved Anton when she discovers the Schilts' dismembered bodies, arousing suspicions about the animals of the circus. That evening, Jon and Gustav Hauser, two village boys whose father helped instigate the killing of Mitterhaus, are invited by the gypsy woman to enter the hall of mirrors and are magically drawn by Heinrich and Helga to the Count's crypt, where they are killed and drained. After the boys' bodies are found near the castle, their grieving father and the sick Bürgermeister begin to shoot the circus animals. After an encounter with Emil, the Bürgermeister dies of heart failure, and his daughter leaves with the vampire. Trying to stop the Bürgermeister and Hauser, Albert Müller suddenly sees the face of the Gypsy Woman dissolve into that of his wife, but is unsure if what he saw was real. Meanwhile, Emil leads a Rosa to the crypt, where he kills and drains her, telling his cousin, Mitterhaus, to drink her blood, and that now the only child of his killers still to die is Dora, and that his twins will kill her tonight. The Gypsy Woman looks up sharply and calls out Emil's name, but he only repeats "Tonight!"
Dora and Anton are lured by the twins into the hall of mirrors where they try to whisk Dora through the Mirror of Life, but the cross she is wearing saves her. Later, the vampires enter the school house where Dora and Anton have taken refuge. Emil, in panther form, kills the boarding students, diverting Anton, while the gypsy woman (who is revealed to be Anna Müller and also the twins' mother, their father being Mitterhaus) tears the cross from Dora's neck, enabling Heinrich and Helga to attack her. Dora, however, escapes into the school chapel, where the twins are overwhelmed by a giant crucifix which she topples on them, destroying them. Nevertheless, with the help of the circus strongman, Emil and Anna succeed in having Dora and her guardian, Hauser's wife Gerta, kidnapped and taken to the crypt at Castle Mitterhaus, where they intend to use their blood – just like the blood from their previous child victims - as part of a ritual to restore the Count back to life.
Meanwhile, Dr. Kersch returns from the capital with an imperial escort and medicines for the plague. He also brings news of vampire killings in other villages, all of them visited by the Circus of Night. The men attack the circus and set fire to it, killing the strongman when he tries to stop them. As Hauser starts to burn down the hall of mirrors, he sees in the Mirror of Life a vision of Emil and Anna bleeding Gerta over the Count's body. This horrifying sight distracts him long enough to be burned fatally by the fire, but he lives long enough to alert Anton and the other men to Dora's plight.
Back in the castle crypt, the suddenly remorseful Anna (who is willing to kill anyone to resurrect her lover, but struggles with the idea of destroying her daughter) is killed when she attempts to save Dora from Emil. Anton, finding his way through the tunnel into the crypt despite a deadly ambush by Michael the dwarf, attempts to rescue Dora but is halted by Emil. Just then Müller, Dr. Kersh, and a soldier break into the crypt and battle Emil who kills or disables all his attackers, but Müller pierces him with the stake from the Count's chest just as he is dying from Emil's bite. Revived by the stake's removal, the Count rises from his
sarcophagus
A sarcophagus (: sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek language, Greek wikt:σάρξ, σάρξ ...
and advances on Dora and Anton. Anton uses Müller's crossbow as a makeshift cross, repelling the Count long enough for him to jam the vampire's neck between the weapon's bow and stock and then pulling the trigger, decapitating him. As Dr. Kersh leads Dora and Anton from the tomb, he and the villagers set the ruins afire with torches, ending the curse, but Dora and Anton see a bat fly out of the tomb into the night and are left uncertain.
Cast

*
Adrienne Corri as Gypsy woman
*
Laurence Payne as Professor Albert Müller
*
Thorley Walters
Thorley Swinstead Walters (12 May 1913 – 6 July 1991) was an English actor. He played comedy roles in films including '' Carlton-Browne of the F.O.'' (1959) and ''Two-Way Stretch'' (1960).
Early life
Walters was born in Teigngrace, Devon, th ...
as Peter, the Mayor of Stetl
*
Lynne Frederick as Dora Müller
*
John Moulder-Brown as Anton Kersh
*
Elizabeth Seal
Elizabeth Anne Seal (born 28 August 1933) is a British actress. In 1961, she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance in the title role of '' Irma La Douce''.
Career
Elizabeth Seal made her professional de ...
as Gerta Hauser
*
Anthony Higgins as Emil (credited as Anthony Corlan)
* Richard Owens as Dr. Kersh
*
Domini Blythe
Domini Blythe (August 28, 1947 – December 15, 2010) was a British-born Canadian actress. Her numerous stage, film and television credits included ''Search for Tomorrow'', '' External Affairs'', ''The Wars'', '' Savage Messiah'', '' Montreal Sto ...
as Anna Müller
*
Robin Hunter
Robin Ian Hunter (4 September 1929 – 8 March 2004) was an English actor who was also a performer and writer in musicals, music halls, and comedy.Newley, Patrick (16 April 2004)Robin Hunter.''The Stage''
Life and career
The son of actor I ...
as Mr Hauser
* Robert Tayman as Count Mitterhaus
*
Robin Sachs as Heinrich (twin brother of Helga)
*
Lalla Ward as Helga (twin sister of Heinrich)
* Skip Martin as Michael the dwarf
*
David Prowse
David Charles Prowse (1 July 1935 – 28 November 2020) was an English actor, bodybuilder, strongman and weightlifter. He portrayed Darth Vader in the original ''Star Wars'' trilogy and a manservant in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film '' A Clockw ...
as the strongman
*
Mary Wimbush as Elvira
* Christina Paul as Rosa
* Roderick Shaw as Jon Hauser
* Barnaby Shaw as Gustav Hauser
*
John Bown
John Bown (1 July 1934 – 5 November 2017) was a British actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Commander Neil Stafford in the final season of the television series '' Doomwatch''.
Life and career
John Bown was ...
as Mr Schilt
* Sibylla Kay as Mrs. Schilt
* Jane Darby as Jenny Schilt
* Dorothy Frere as Granma Schilt
* Milovan Vesnitch as erotic male dancer
* Serena as erotic tiger-woman dancer
* Sean Hewitt as first soldier
* Giles Phibbs as sexton
* Jason James as foreman
* Arnold Locke as old villager
*
David de Keyser as the voice of Mitterhaus's curse (uncredited)
Production
George Baxt has said that Hammer paid him £1,000 just for the title and that was his only contribution.
Production began on 9 August 1971 at
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London.
The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to t ...
.
First-time director
Robert Young was unfamiliar with Hammer's tight production schedules,
and at one point used up some 500 feet of
film stock
Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed,
edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent pl ...
while trying to get a tiger to sink its teeth into a fake human arm stuffed with pork (it finally bit after beef was substituted). When filming stretched from the scheduled six weeks into seven, the production was shut down and the footage given to editor Peter Musgrave with instructions to make a finished film out of what he had.
Critical reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
the film holds an 80% approval rating based on reviews from 5 critics.
''
Monthly Film Bulletin
The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...
'' said "Robert Young – here making his first feature – manages to use the basic situation to establish a delicate fairy tale atmosphere, and he is greatly aided by some unusually restrained performances (from the women in particular). There is a sense of dreamy isolation as the "circus performers gradually take over the imaginative life of the community, isolated from the rest of the world by plague. And certain scenes early in the film (the aerialists changing back and forth into bats before the dumbly applauding villagers, the mirror maze in which victims catch a glimpse of their own deaths) achieve a genuine strangeness. The effect is, however, only fleetingly sustained; and as the plot finally succumbs to formula, the various cross-brandishing climaxes seem unfortunately limp in the context of the earlier part of the film. The struggle between John Moulder Brown and Robert Tayman has none of the elegant panache of the Cushing vs Lee confrontations, while the fashionably overt sexuality of the vampires (who tend to come out with hastily inserted explanations like "'one lust feeds another") proves a real encumbrance to the plot's more intriguing aspects."
AllMovie
AllMovie (previously All Movie Guide) is an online database with information about films, television programs, television series, and screen actors. , AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne.
History
AllMovie was ...
called the film "one of the studio's more stylish and intelligent projects".
PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...
also called it "one of the company's last great classics", writing, "erotic, grotesque, chilling, bloody, suspenseful and loaded with doom and gloom atmosphere, this is the kind of experiment in terror that reinvigorates your love of the scary movie artform".
''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' film reviewer Howard Thompson dismissed it outright without even the courtesy of a proper review, in favour of its
Hammer
A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nail (fastener), nails into wood, to sh ...
stablemate ''
Countess Dracula'' (1971) with which it shared a double bill. His curt review measured two sentences: "Wise horror fans will skip 'Vampire Circus' and settle for 'Countess Dracula' on the new double bill at the Forum. Both are Hammer Productions, England's scream factory, but the first was dealt a quick, careless anvil." before continuing with semi-praise for ''Countess Dracula''.
The ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' called the film "a true chiller" with "lots of real-looking teeth, believable gore, and – save for a very lurid ending (not for the kiddies) – a lot of pace, a certain sense of subtlety and a definite, consistent style."
Leslie Halliwell
Robert James Leslie Halliwell (23 February 1929 – 21 January 1989) was a British film critic, encyclopaedist and television rights buyer for ITV, the British commercial network, and Channel 4. He is best known for his reference guides, '' Fi ...
said: "Silly but quite inventive horror thriller."
''The
Radio Times
''Radio Times'' is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manage ...
Guide to Films'' gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "This isn't the freak show its title might suggest, but a fast-moving, imaginative Hammer vampire tale of punishment and revenge. ... Adrienne Corri's intense beauty shines like a beacon in the murky atmosphere, but the delicacy of mood collapses into blood-spurting horrifics towards the end."
Novelisation and other media
An 'updated'
novelisation
A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book, or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of ...
by
Mark Morris was published in 2012.
The film was adapted into a 15-page comic strip for ''
The House of Hammer'' (vol. 2) #17 (Feb. 1978), drawn by
Brian Bolland
Brian Bolland (; born 26 March 1951)Salisbury, Mark, ''Artists on Comic Art'' (Titan Books, 2000) , p. 11 is a British comics artist. Best known in the United Kingdom as one of the Judge Dredd artists for British comics anthology ''2000 AD (comi ...
from a script by
Steve Parkhouse
Steve Parkhouse is a comics creator, writer, artist and letterer who has worked for many British comics, especially ''2000 AD (comics), 2000 AD'' and ''Doctor Who Magazine''.
Biography
Parkhouse has worked in comics since 1967, when he drew the ...
.
Page at comics.org
/ref>
See also
* Vampire film
Vampire films have been a staple in world cinema since the era of silent films, so much so that the depiction of vampires in popular culture is strongly based upon their depiction in films throughout the years. The most popular cinematic adaptat ...
References
External links
*
*
{{Hammer Horror
1972 films
1972 horror films
1970s historical horror films
British historical horror films
Films directed by Robert Young
Hammer Film Productions horror films
Films shot at Pinewood Studios
Circus films
Films set in Austria
Films set in castles
Films set in the 19th century
British vampire films
Films set in Serbia
1970s English-language films
1970s British films
English-language historical horror films