Terror Circus (1973) — Triskaidekafiles

TERROR CIRCUS

WRITERS: Story by Gerald Cormier

Screenplay by Roman Valenti

DIRECTOR: Alan Rudolph

STARRING: Andrew Prine as Andre

Manuella Thiess as Simone

Sherry Alberoni as Sheri

Gyl Roland as Corrine

Chuck Niles as Derek Moore

QUICK CUT: A trio of girls take a wrong turn on their way to Las Vegas, and end up on a wild adventure with the circus.

THE MORGUE

Andre - A man living in the middle of nowhere, with no one to talk to, who has been affected by the world around him, his circumstances, and has become very troubled. He spends his days trying to reform the family circus, but with women he believes are animals.

Simone - A performer that Andre takes a shine to and believes is his mother returned to him.

Derek - The ladies’ manager, determined to track them down.

There’s other characters in this movie, but the female characters are woefully underdeveloped.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Step right up to the Trisk Circus! You have never seen such wonders assembled in one place before! Where else will you see an alien invasion atop a postal vehicle? Nowhere in the world has such an assortment of demons! Not just one night of the demons, not two, not three, but FIVE! NIGHTS! OF! DEMONS!! All this and more lies behind these doors, for just a moment of your time! Surely you can spare that! So step right on through these doors as we delve deep into Terror Circus!

The movie opens up on a trio of young women on a road trip, stopping at a gas station for the usual stuff, before continuing to venture across the southwest desert.

Rather than stick around when the gas station attendant informs them of a minor issue with the car, they decide to try and continue onwards.

Needless to say, this turns out to be a bad decision, and the car breaks down in just about the most middle of nowhere it is possible.

They took a calculated risk, and man, were they bad at math.

Fortunately, they are woken up the next day by a man, Andre, staring in through the car window. He's a kind soul who stopped when he saw them broken down, and offers them a ride to a phone. I'm sure this won't end badly.

Unfortunately...well, unfortunately is the entire rest of the movie.

Andre runs inside to take care of a few things, and leaves the girls to explore around what appears to be his circus. They explore into the nearby barn and they find seven or eight other women, sitting in the dirt, chained to posts.

Somehow, Andre alone overpowers the three women and adds them to his collection, and it seems far fetched, but whatever.

The girls kinda settle in as best one can in this situation, ask the other captives what the dealio is, and we get some exposition that they all ended up here under similar circumstances, and no one is quite sure why.

Meanwhile, we're introduced to the b-plot; the girls are performers, and they were supposed to arrive in Vegas, but when they fail to do that, their agent Derek is on the case!

Gather around for storytime with Time Servo.

But back at the ranch, Andre is bringing the girls outside for walkies, and to do some training with them, which involves them walking in circles around his watch tower and being whipped when they don't follow his instructions.

Out in the desert, we keep things interesting with a pair of random hunters shooting wamp rats or something, when one of them goes, "Hey did you hear something?? after we see someone walk by. And uhhh, not like there's a lotta places to hide out here, guys!

I mean, sure, if it's a prairie dog crunching a stick, that's one thing. But we literally just saw a full grown people walk by. That's harder to hide!

Needless to say, both of the hunters become the hunted and are killed off very quickly. But hey, stuff happening, and cool blood!

Andre comes in to give his performers their supper, and he starts to connect to Simone. It turns out that he thinks she is his mother, returned home after mysteriously dying...er, disappearing.

Once he has left, she notices he dropped the keys. The girls scurry to try and get them, despite being out of most of their reaches.

Eventually, one of them does succeed, unlocks her chains, and proceeds to free the rest of the captive girls...Ahhh ha ha ha, no, she frees herself and makes a run for it all alone.

This is a move which she pays for when Andre is standing right there to stop her.

After Derek files a missing persons report with the local sheriff, it's back to the circus, where Andre decides that Miriam is a lost cause, and drags her off to...remove her from the circus.

He paints her clothes in blood, releases his cougar, and lets nature take its course to hopefully chase her down and eat her face. But before it can, she runs into the strong man and he takes care of her first.

There, now you can blend in with the walkers.

Oh, I might as well slip this in here, while the movie isn't doing much, to get into the why’s of what's going on. It's never outright stated as the cause, but one of the girls was a researcher working on radiation, and mentions how this area had high levels of it.

So, the presumption is the disfigured strong man, and Andre's mental health are both due to radiation poisoning. I don't think such an explanation is necessary, but it's there.

This is about when he 'figures out' that Simone is his Sim-mom, and hooboy does this guy have mommy issues.

Dude looks like he’s about to piss all over Jack Nicholson’s shoes.

He takes Simmom back to the main house, but Andre still has enough mental faculties to keep her chained up.

While Andre gives some exposition on what happened to his parents, Derek is still searching, and has met another sheriff, who is also looking for the dead hunters. So the pair team up to actually get some answers.

But before any of that, we have to deal with more weirdness, as Andre takes Corrine off for some personal training. He ties her hands behind her back, and forces her to act like a snake.

He pulls out a snake (even though he just said he doesn't have a reptile for his act), and drapes it over Corrine, saying she'll learn his ways, his movements, and there is nothing phallic about this whatsoever.

Following that, Andre ties Simmom up in his workshop off the barn, while he goes to his observation post, and Derek and the sheriff start exploring back roads.

Simone scavenges about for weapons, and finds another set of keys, and you would think the first lesson would have discouraged this, but she frees herself, and quickly tries to free the rest.

Oh, you should really stick that in a jar. It’ll keep better.

While most of the girls are unchained, Andre returns before they're all set free.

Derek and the sheriff find the girls' abandoned car, and can see the ranch from there. Derek wants to rush in, but the cop insists they get backup first.

Meanwhile, one of the freed girls, one who we have seen has been the most traumatised, and spent most of the movie very timid and almost in a state of shock, finds the shack where Radiation Daddy is kept. And she simply...unlocks the door. And walks away.

Andre prepares Simmom for the cat devouring ritual, but the girl cracks him over the head, chains him up, and pours blood all over him.

But once more, before the lion can have a snack, Radiation Daddy shows up and snaps his son's neck. Talk about tough love.

Following that, he kills Simon, and makes his way to the barn. And uh, huh. Yeah, this is not gonna be a happy ending, is it? Okay. Wow.

The cops and Derek finally show up as late as ever, shoot the cougar, and find the very few survivors, which are pretty much the catatonia lass, and one of the older women. Everyone else seems to have been killed, with Dad left free to roam the desert.

his new Where’s Waldo Desert Adventures sucks.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Pretty good for an early 70s movie. Looks good.

Audio: Same deal, with a solid mix.

Body Count: A pretty decent percentage, at least.

1 - 23 minutes in and a random hunter gets mauled

2 - And something happens to his friend off screen.

3 - One of the women gets her neck broken

4 - Andre gets his face crushed by daddy.

5 - And then dad gropes Simone

6 - ...And then it's just kind of a massacre

Best Corpse: I think the best one is the first hunter. It’s nice and bloody and sets the tone.

Blood Type - B: Grading this slightly on a curve. You could only do so much in the 70s, only had access to so much in the way of effects, and this movie makes best use of what it could, and when it does, there’s plenty of blood.

Sex Appeal: There is a scene of gratuitous sponge bathing amongst the women.

Drink Up! Every time Andre acts like the women are animals.

Movie Review: I quite liked this. The story is simple, with some shocking elements, and does what it does effectively. They get the most out of their actors, and Andrew Prine does a fine job between charming and threatening. My biggest problem is that so much of the cast feels woefully under developed. The women are just kinda there, with only a few lines, if any!, and they really should be the stars. They’re the ones we need to spend time with, get to know them, and not just be expected to care about them simply because they are “women in peril”. Which, is another problem. I wish the women were MORE in peril. And look, I know this makes me sound like a horrible person, but hey. This is a horror movie. Bad Things are going to happen to people. You’ve got a premise where a guy thinks people are animals, and we get one, singular, almost throwaway scene where he tries to retrain Corinne. I wanted MORE of that. Don’t just dip your tow in that water. We all know why we’re here. Don’t half ass it, and go all in. Or at least, more all in than they do here. And I’m not saying I want to see women be brutalised, I just want a movie to properly embrace the concepts it’s running with. It’s what we’re here for. Still, this is a very well made movie, with solid acting. Three out of five jars of deer blood.

Entertainment Value: Andre is clearly the starring character here. Watching him try and navigate his deteriorating mind, is a definite treat. Prine plays it perfectly, as the character almost shows flashes of clarity, but never enough. The kills, for what they are, are solid, and the side quest of Derek has a few good moments as he stumbles around flummoxed for half the movie. Three out of five issues of Sea Devils.