Vampire Circus

Infobox Film
name = Vampire Circus


caption =
director = Robert Young
producer = Wilbur Stark
writer = Judson Kinberg
narrator =
starring = Adrienne Corri
Anthony Higgins
John Moulder-Brown
Lalla Ward
Robin Sachs
Lynne Frederick
music = David Whitaker
cinematography = Moray Grant
editing = Peter Musgrave
distributor = flagicon|United Kingdom J. Arthur Rank

flagicon|United States 20th Century Fox
released = 30 April, 1972
runtime = 87 min.
country = United Kingdom
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:52167
imdb_id = 0067924

"Vampire Circus" is a 1972 British horror film directed by Robert Young for Hammer Film Productions. It stars Adrienne Corri, Thorley Walters and Anthony Higgins (billed as Anthony Corlan).

The story concerns a travelling carnival whose vampiric artistes prey on the children of a 19th-century Austrian village.

It was filmed at Pinewood Studios.

Plot summary

In the film's prologue, Anna Miller takes a little girl in her care into woods to a castle, leaving behind her husband, the schoolmaster. At the castle, Count Mitterhouse, who is a vampire, feeds upon the child while Anna watches. She is aroused by that sight and afterwards the count makes love to her.

The villagers, led by Miller and the mayor, attack the castle and break in. Müller drives a stake through the Count's heart, who with his dying breath curses the villagers, vowing that their children will die to give him back his life. The villagers punish Anna by having her run the gauntlet until Miller stops it. Anna runs back to the castle and drags the Count's staked body to a crypt. Blood dropping from her wounds revive the Count for a short while and he tells her to find his cousin Emile. Meanwhile the villagers set the castle on fire.

Fifteen years Later, the village is ravaged by the plague and the leading citizens are debating whether this is merely a disease, as Dr. Kersch and Prof. Miller suggest, or due to the Count's curse, as Schilt and Hauser believe. Dr. Kersch suggests breaking through the quarantine blockade to get help and medical supplies and with the help of his young son Anton, he succeeds.

Just before he left, a travelling circus, led by a dwarf and a gypsy woman, arrived in the village and the villagers appreciate the distraction from their troubles.

After the show, one of the artists, Emile, seduces the mayor's daughter Rosa and, revealing himself a vampire, barely restrains himself from biting her. Emile and the gypsy woman go to the castle, where they find the Count's staked body still lying in the crypt. The gypsy asks whether all must die and Emile replies that all who led the attack on his cousin and all their children must die.

During the next performance, the circus features a Hall of Mirrors. During his visit, the mayor has a vision of a revided Count Mitterhouse and collapses. Frightened by this event, Schilt and his family try to flee the blocked town but the dwarf, who promised to help them, leaves them in the woods to be devoured by the circus panther to deter the others from leaving the village.

Later that day, Miller's daughter Dora, who had been safely out of town, races through the woods and breaks the blockade to be with her father and her sweetheart Anton. In the woods, she comes across the dismembered bodies of the Schilt family. As she arrives at the village, her father, already suspicious of the circus, considers the circus animals the culprits, while Anton defends the circus, as he thinks it the only distraction from the plague, and takes Dora to the circus to show her that the circus animals are safe.

The same night, the two twin acrobats lure Hauser's two boys into the Hall of Mirrors, where they bite them. When his sons are found missing, Hauser attacks the dwarf and the villager find the boys' dead bodies, he and the mayor begin to shoot the circus animals. The mayor also shoots at Emile, who however remains unharmed. The mayor collapses, dead by heart failure, while his daughter runs off with Emile. At the Count's tomb he bites and kills her.

Dora and Anton also visit the Hall of Mirrors. The twin acrobats try to bite Dora as well, but the cross she is wearing saves her. Later, the vampires enter the school house; Emile kills the students, while the gypsy (now revealed as the twin's mother) tears off the cross from Dora's neck, enabling the twins to attack her. Dora, however, escapes into the school chapel. She tosses a wooden cross unto the female twin, piercing her heart, killing both twins simultaneoulsly through their sibling's link, while the gypsy and Emile flee.

Meanwhile, Dr. Kersh has returned from the capital with an imperial escort and medicines for the plague. He also brings news of vampire killings in various of the villages, all of them toured by the Circus of Night, and that Emile is Mitterhouse's kinsman. The men attack the circus and Hauser sets fire to the Hall of Mirrors but is himself caught between a vision and the fire, burning along with the tent.

Dora is kidnapped and taken to the crypt, where Emile wants to resurrect the Count. As Emile approaches Dora to drain her, the gypsy pushes the girl aside and is hit by Emile's fangs. As she falls down dead, her face is rejuvenated, revealing her to be Anna Miller. Anton, Miller and the soldiers enter the crypt and Miller pierces Emil with the stake taken from the Count's chest before he himself dies. But then the Count, freed from the stake and fed on enough blood, rises from the sarcophagus. Anton fends him off with his cross-shaped crossbow and decapitates the vampire with the drawstring. As Anton and Dora exit the tomb, the villagers set the ruins alight with torches.

Cast

*Laurence Payne as Professor Albert Miller
*Domini Blythe as Anna Miller, his wife
*Lynne Frederick as Dora Miller, their daughter
*Thorley Walters as mayor
*Mary Wimbush as Elvira, the mayor's wife
*Christina Paul as Rosa, the mayor's daughter
*Richard Owens as Dr. Kersh
*John Moulder-Brown as Anton Kersh, his son
*Robin Hunter as Mr Hauser
*Elizabeth Seal as Gerta Hauser, his wife
*Barnaby Shaw as Gustav Hauser, their son
*John Bown as Mr Schilt
*Jane Darby as Jenny Schilt, his daughter
*Robert Tayman as Count Mitterhouse
*Adrienne Corri as gypsy woman
*Skip Martin as Michael the dwarf
*Anthony Higgins as Emile
*David Prowse as the Strongman
*Robin Sachs & Lalla Ward as the twin acrobats Heinrich and Helga

External links

*imdb title|id=0067924|title=Vampire Circus
* [http://taliesinttlg.blogspot.com/2006/06/vampire-circus-review.html Online Review]