For a horror-thriller, there aren't many thrills or much horror to be had. Too much of the plot progresses with a breezy nonchalance, not least in those scenes centering the stuffy inspector or his colleagues. Almost two-thirds of the runtime have elapsed and I'm still waiting for something meaningfully grabbing to manifest, but it's clear it's just not going to happen. The plot from the opening scene mostly seems to vanish; dialogue is as bland in its delivery as in its writing; characters are written with glimmers of personality, history, and background, threads of plot, that seem to go nowhere; scene writing generally hovers somewhere between the mystifying ease of the plot development and the flavorless tenor of the dialogue. Moments of violence and heightened emotions vary wildly in their storytelling judiciousness and overall value; some are baseline interesting, some are just annoying. Most noteworthy of all about 'Circus of fear' may be poor treatment by other characters of women, and the horribly antiquated practice of using live animals in such performances in the first place.
There IS a story here, but it's assembled piecemeal, loosely, and deeply unconvincingly. Not only is the narrative advancement casual and indifferent, it's also unfocused and scattered. Under these circumstances, how can I care about the cast, or their performances? How can I care about the filming locations, production design, or art direction? The best value and most excitement that the movie can claim at any point is wrapped up in such blithe, insouciant, and fuzzy storytelling that it struggles to ever achieve the desired effect. The result, at length, is dull, bland, and never usefully engaging; the climax and reveal of the killer feels like a total non sequitur in light of how ruefully the tale was approached at any given time. When all is said and done it's hard to care about this in any way. I guess you could do worse than 'Circus of fear,' and I hope other folks get more out of it than I did, but I found it to be all but completely boring.
There IS a story here, but it's assembled piecemeal, loosely, and deeply unconvincingly. Not only is the narrative advancement casual and indifferent, it's also unfocused and scattered. Under these circumstances, how can I care about the cast, or their performances? How can I care about the filming locations, production design, or art direction? The best value and most excitement that the movie can claim at any point is wrapped up in such blithe, insouciant, and fuzzy storytelling that it struggles to ever achieve the desired effect. The result, at length, is dull, bland, and never usefully engaging; the climax and reveal of the killer feels like a total non sequitur in light of how ruefully the tale was approached at any given time. When all is said and done it's hard to care about this in any way. I guess you could do worse than 'Circus of fear,' and I hope other folks get more out of it than I did, but I found it to be all but completely boring.