Cover Art

Credits

Vampire Circus Director: Robert Young Starring: Adrienne Corri, Anthony Corlan, John Moulder-Brown, Lynne Frederick, Robert Tayman, Lalla Ward, David Prowse Screenplay: Judson Kinberg, Music, David Whitaker Tagline: Hammer invite you to go through the mirror of life and death Country: UK Year: 1971 Hands of the Ripper Director: Peter Sasdy Starring: Eric Porter, Angharad Rees, Jane Merrow, Keith Bell, Derek Godfrey, Dora Bryan Screenplay: L.W.Davidson, from an original story by Edward Spencer Shew Music: Christopher Gunning Country: UK Year: 1971 Twins of Evil Director: John Hough Starring:Peter Cushing, Madelaine Collinson, Mary Collinson, Luan Peters, Damien Thomas, Dennis Price, Katya Wyeth Screenplay: Tudor Gates Music:Harry Robinson Country:UK Year: 1971

Despite some narrative hiccups principally caused by first-time director Robert Young falling behind schedule and becoming unable to shoot several scenes, Vampire Circus confidently rises from it's production mire to present a coherent and idiosyncratic step away from all previous Hammer vampire formulations. You still get a pre-20th century European setting with a castle next to a village and much fang flashing and body staking but you also get a cinematic attitude that verges on the sexually aberrant. In the lengthy opening sequence a man observes a young girl playing in a field. Suddenly the young girl is led away by a woman (who turns out to be the man's wife) and installed behind the locked doors of a nearby castle. The man freaks out for good reason. Inside the girl has her hair tussled by an elegant male stranger who just appears beneath a painting of himself. The girl seems to be enjoying the personal attention just as she has her neck penetrated by the fangs of her new companion. The first man runs off to raise a lynch mob while the woman and the owner of the castle get naked to celebrate the killing. A stabbing and a (cheesy) neck slitting later, and the Count from the castle finds himself on the wrong end of a skewer. He lives long enough though to put a curse on the little town of Schtettel. His former lover is then subject to what intially appears to be a potential gang rape but instead becomes an enforced running of the town's leather belt gauntlet. The castle is then destroyed as the Count has stop-animated blood dripped on him and a bat crawls out of a skull's eye socket. Roll the opening credits and reveal that it's fifteen years later. The tiny town has become quarantined due to plague. Bring on The Vampire Circus or rather, the Circus of Nights, which rolls into town past the cordon to carry out the threat issued by the long undead Count. It's here that the fun really begins as shapeshifting and nude dancing in smudge-free tiger make-up eventually gives way to dwarf bashing, another lynch mob, poor flame effects, blood vomiting, an extremely messy panther attack, flying acrobats, a vampire with fillings, in the field arrow removal, crucifix staking, and the inevitable return of the Count who swiftly finds himself down for the count by losing his head. Besides the aforementioned abnormal focus on child death (look out for the two boys and the mirror) what also adds to the impact of Vampire Circus is it's use of real European circus performers in the largely faceless cast. Former (and later) Frankenstein's monster David Prowse appears as the circus strongman but it's hardly preparation for his later role of Darth Vader. Another feature of Vampire Circus is its near apocalyptic approach to the cast that sees very few of them walk away in any form.

Hands of the Ripper can turn audience identification on it's head as it creates a sympathetic fiction based on the wild supposition that Jack the Ripper produced a child who inherited his murderous genes and then without consciously realising it carries on with her father's work. We first meet an almost grown Anna when a sceptical psychiatrist who favours the then radical work of a guy called Freud, steps on her foot after a seance to reveal the fakery of her guardian, a scam artist who pimps Anna when she's not ripping off suckers wanting to get in contact with the spirit world. Not long after, Anna flips out during the course of performing customer service duties and uses superhuman strength to literally pin her madam to a door. The Dr. sees a research possibility and takes Anna under his wing by moving her into his own home for some first hand study (including walking in on her as she takes a bath). The rest of the film follows the unravelling of the self-righteous psychiatrists theories at the hands of a psychotic Anna who's murderous rages are set off by lip contact and sparkles. While the frequency of the mayhem is not high it's pacing, sensational score, and excellent Victorian English settings do add to its impact. In fact, much of the violence seems to be cut to emphasise pain. This approach is brought to a climax when Anna sticks a sword through her mentor's side which he slowly removes from his body by hanging it off a door handle. Naturally, it all ends in tears and death inside a fantastic re-creation of a real-life location (St. Paul's cathedral).