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‘The movement image that pits metal weapons in opposition to metal nerves!!!’
Berserk is a 1967 British horror thriller movie a few scheming circus proprietor who finds her authority challenged when a thriller killer targets the present.
The film stars Joan Crawford (Trog; No matter Occurred to Child Jane?; Strait-Jacket) and Judy Geeson (Inseminoid; Goodbye Gemini) in a macabre mother-daughter story a few circus plagued with murders.
The screenplay was written by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel, and the movie directed by Jim O’Connolly (Tower of Evil; The Valley of Gwangi; The Night time Caller – script). It was Joan Crawford’s second-to-last big-screen look earlier than Trog (1970). Columbia Photos promoted the movie as Berserk! on a double-bill with Torture Backyard and it additionally later launched as Circus of Blood.
In North America, the movie grossed greater than $1,100,000 and ranked #85 on Selection’s checklist of prime moneymakers of 1968. Field workplace receipts abroad almost doubled that quantity, coming in at $2,095,000. This made Berserk essentially the most profitable movie Herman Cohen ever produced.
Plot [contains spoilers]:
Monica Rivers (Joan Crawford) and Dorando (Michael Gough) personal a travelling English circus. Monica acts because the ring mistress, and Dorando is the enterprise supervisor.
When tightrope walker Gaspar the Nice falls to his dying, it seems that his tightrope may need been purposely weakened. Monica’s unemotional response to the tragedy alarms Dorando. When she suggests it is going to be good for enterprise, he asks her to purchase him out, which she refuses to do.
Monica hires a brand new high-wire walker, Frank Hawkins (Ty Hardin). Not solely is he good-looking, he’s daring, doing his act over a carpet of sharp bayonets. Monica is impressed, particularly by his bodily look. Shortly after an argument, Dorando is discovered gruesomely murdered.
Suspicion of Monica’s guilt grows. Frank, specifically, suspects her, having seen her leaving Dorando’s trailer earlier than the physique was found. He confronts Monica, demanding a share within the circus for his silence.
Monica’s daughter, Angela (Judy Geeson), having been expelled from college, reveals up on the circus. Not realizing what to do along with her unruly daughter, Monica pairs her with Gustavo the knife thrower (Peter Burton). One other member of the circus firm, Matilda (Diana Dors), makes an attempt to seduce Frank, which Monica discovers.
Throughout Matilda’s act, a magician’s trick involving the phantasm of being sawn in half, there’s a malfunction within the tools and she or he is killed. And through his subsequent high-wire efficiency, Frank falls onto the bayonets and is killed.
It was not an accident. Angela was seen throwing a knife into him earlier than he fell. She confesses having hated her mom for years because of being ignored, now “eradicating” those that take up her mom’s time. She then unsuccessfully tries to kill her mom. As Angela makes an attempt to flee, she is electrocuted by an uncovered wire throughout a rainstorm. Monica sobs inconsolably over her daughter’s physique.
Critiques:
“Berserk! isn’t a ‘must-see’ basic from horror historical past, however there’s sufficient right here to please followers of Joan Crawford horror (Strait-Jacket, No matter Occurred To Child Jane?), Michael Gough (Konga, Batman Returns), and sixties Brit horror. It’s attention-grabbing to see a ‘inventive serial kill’ horror with so little blood in it, contemplating what would occur just a few years later…” Black Gap Critiques
“Berserk achieves its meager fame by being a brightly-colored Joan Crawford movie, a Hammer horror knockoff with too little substance to steadiness the moments of excessive camp. The camp, when it occurs, is effectively well worth the watch, and a fairly excessive physique rely make the movie worthwhile…” She Blogged By Night time
“O’Connolly pads the factor out interminably with limitless circus routines, performers and animals parading on and on previous the digicam. See: Milton Reid sing an enormous manufacturing quantity! See: Judy Geeson hit by lightning! See: Michael Gough with a tent spike hammered into his bonce! See: one thing else, for Christ’s sake.” SM Guariento
“The most important challenge with Berserk appears to be that it doesn’t know what sort of movie it’s. Sure, it’s definitely a thriller however the moodiness and grim deaths interspersed by dancing elephants, prancing poodles and a clumsy, weird music make it tonally inconsistent.” Andi B. Goode, The Couch Cinephile
“A lot of the movie in between is padded with real-life circus footage […] Definitely, the movie does get pleasure from its lurid enchantment – there’s Joan Crawford dominating the present, together with Fifties British sexpot Diana Dors doing her stuff and turning each line right into a bitchy taunt…” Moria
“The murders are, inevitably, essentially the most enjoyable facet of the movie, although Crawford’s fan base will get its cash’s price by means of a recreation efficiency confirming her late entry into style roles…” Steven West, The Shrieking Sixties: British Horror Movies 1960 – 1969
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” …regardless of its Grand Guignol trappings, it’s a glorified whodunnit, ably directed by Jim O’Connolly…” John Stanley, Creature Options
“However the succesful Mr. O’Connolly isn’t any Hitchcock. And what drains the image of advantage and actual persuasiveness is the round-up of cold characterizations, a petty and conniving gang of meanies. Even a last-minute, mother-love injection doesn’t thaw Miss Crawford’s portrayal of a ruthless iceberg who, one feels, will get what she deserves.” Howard Thompson, The New York Instances, January 11, 1968
Herman Cohen (centre) with stars of Berserk
Forged and characters:
Joan Crawford as Monica Rivers
Ty Hardin as Frank Hawkins
Diana Dors as Matilda (Craze; Theatre of Blood; Nothing However the Night time)
Michael Gough as Albert Dorando (Devil’s Slave; Horror Hospital; Konga)
Judy Geeson as Angela Rivers
Robert Hardy as Detective Supt. Brooks (Darkish Locations; Psychomania; Demons of the Thoughts)
Geoffrey Eager as Commissioner Dalby (Style the Blood of Dracula)
Sydney Tafler as Harrison Liston
George Claydon as Bruno Fontana
Philip Madoc as Lazlo (Backbone Chillers; Physician Jekyll and Sister Hyde; Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.)
Ambrosine Phillpotts as Miss Burrows
Thomas Cimarro as Gaspar
Peter Burton as Gustavo
Golda Casimir as Bearded Woman
Ted Lune as Skeleton Man
Milton Reid as Sturdy Man
Marianne Stone as Wanda
Miki Iveria as Gypsy Fortune-Teller
Howard Goorney as Emil
Reginald Marsh as Sergeant Hutchins
Bryan Pringle as Constable Bradford
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