The defence The Cool Ironist
“Its refusal to behave is the point.”
The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.
Back to trending 
Circus of Horrors
Horror · Crime · 1960
A plastic surgeon and his nurse join a bizarre circus to escape from the police. Here he befriends deformed women and transforms them for his "Temple of Beauty". However, when they threaten to leave, they meet with mysterious accidents.
Movie details
Circus of Horrors
“Spectacular Towering Terror! One man's lust...made men into beasts, stripped women of their souls!”
1960 Horror · Crime 1h 28m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
5.8 / 10
Community rating
A plastic surgeon and his nurse join a bizarre circus to escape from the police. Here he befriends deformed women and transforms them for his "Temple of Beauty". However, when they threaten to leave, they meet with mysterious accidents.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Circus of Horrors?
For the defence
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Prestige Tourist
“You like your greatness pre-approved.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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A series of down-on-their-luck individuals enter the decrepit and spine-chilling Rialto theater, only to have their deepest and darkest fears brought to life on the silver screen by The Projectionist – a mysterious, ghostly figure who holds the nightmarish futures of all who attend his screenings.
Happy Birthday to Me
Horror · 1981
Virginia is proud that she belongs to a clique. The best students at a private school. But before her 18th birthday, a gruesome set of murders take place and her friends are the ones who are falling prey. Could it be her? She suffers from blackouts due to a freak accident one year earlier. We soon learn the truth behind her accident and what is going on.
The Accursed
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Hana spends twenty years suppressing a maleficent curse that was placed upon her bloodline, only to have a family member knowingly release it forcing her to kill or to be killed.
The Flesh and the Fiends
Horror · 1960
Edinburgh surgeon Dr. Robert Knox requires cadavers for his research into the functioning of the human body; local ne'er-do-wells Burke and Hare find ways to provide him with fresh specimens...
I, Madman
Horror · 1989
A bookshop clerk starts seeing the disfigured killer from her favorite 1950s pulp novels come to life and start killing people around her.
Clown
Horror · 2014
A loving father finds a clown suit for his son's birthday party, only to realize the suit is part of an evil curse that turns its wearer into a killer.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
Horror · 1988
Ten years after his original massacre, the invalid Michael Myers awakens on Halloween Eve and returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven-year-old niece.
American Mary
Horror · 2013
A young medical student struggling to pay tuition is drawn into the shady world of underground body-modification.
Saw III
Horror · 2006
Jigsaw has disappeared. Along with his new apprentice Amanda, the puppet-master behind the cruel, intricate games that have terrified a community and baffled police has once again eluded capture and vanished. While city detectives scramble to locate him, Doctor Lynn Denlon and Jeff Reinhart are unaware that they are about to become the latest pawns on his vicious chessboard.
Where it lives
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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Sidney Hayers
Written by
George Baxt
Anton Diffring
Dr. Schuler
Erika Remberg
Elissa Caro
Yvonne Monlaur
Nicole Vanet
Donald Pleasence
Vanet
Jane Hylton
Angela
Kenneth Griffith
Martin
Conrad Phillips
Inspector Arthur Ames
Court is in session
Put Circus of Horrors on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Prestige Tourist
“Oddness is not depth.”
A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.