A bunch of circus clowns kidnap a guy, kill his wife, and hold his children hostage to ensure his compliance as they bring him along on a killing spree.

First, the good stuff. Technical work is proficient. No notable problems with editing or sound. Lighting is dark, but most likely was intentional. It was nice to learn about the existence of the strange arcade game, Gals Panic.

Second, the bad stuff. The movie doesn't have that much in way of plot or development of anything. It's one violent encounter into the next. It's mostly an exercise in testing the viewer limits. I don't have resistance to that in particular - after all, I was able to watch this without issue.

But there seems to be a breakdown in understanding what makes thing scary. We should care about the captive, and his children. Without time spent developing him and giving him character, the movie amounts to a big shrug.

The budget limitations are mostly apparent with the lack of any other acts at the "circus". There are extras for an audience, but there only seems to be a ringmaster.

There are a handful of movies that seem to be influences. In particular, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Devil's Rejects. And for some reason, I'm reminded of Bloodsucking Freaks.

By the end of this, the viewer is left wondering where the story was. For a movie that runs over an hour and a half, with the lack of development, the whole thing could have been trimmed down to about 30-40 minutes without much loss to how effective it is.

Why am I bothering to write this review? Because the 5.9 on iMDB right now is seriously misleading. Even for fans of pushing horror to extremes would be disappointed.

WE WANT CLOWNS! Said no audience in the history of entertainment. If you dig sadism, this is for you. And you like extremely stupid cops and main characters. Someone is a huge fan of Rob Zombie here and thought "Captain Spaulding + 4 other clowns." And apparently the clown posse murders and rapes in every town they stop on, yet NO one thought of any connection? Surveillance cameras EVERYWHERE? The writers know that we have telephones and computers, right?

I will say most of these other user reviews must be people working on the production or hired bots.

This is one of those movies that impresses a certain kind of horror fan because it's so "hardcore," meaning it's brutal and everybody dies and there's lots of gore and sadism. It's better made than most low-budget movies that get such high marks simply for being brutal and "dark." But it still has the same problems most of them do: There's no plot per se, just a premise; nothing really "happens" apart from one murder after another; the film takes itself seriously, yet the plausibility of the action falls apart if you give it more than a passing thought; the acting is variable; even the best-played figures are two-dimensional at best, and most of the characters are just one-scene cannon fodder.

So, the effect is a bit monotonous, especially because the film is longer than it should be given the lack of any real story arc. The cinematography is above-average, the direction pretty skilled, but it's a testament to how little thought went into the writing that most of the sequences just end in blackouts. The filmmakers don't even bother coming up with enough connective thread to create a continuous suspense narrative from, so they just jump from one setpiece to another, with literally blank audiovisual space in between.

I can see why some people think this is great. I've certainly seen worse "torture-porn"-type horror films where there's absolutely nothing going on (particularly in the realm of talent) beyond lots of screaming and red-dyed corn syrup. But it's not enough for me--there has to be SOME kind of substance, some imagination at work beyond just "We are so badass! Fanboys are gonna think this is so wicked!!" Basically, "Circus" is nothing more than "OK, these scary clowns are really, really bad. They just kidnap, torture and kill strangers for fun!! Why? Oh...uh...er...well, like we said, cuz they're BAD! They're scary clowns. man, what more do you want?!"

Well, I actually do want something, practically anything more. This was an OK watch, despite its content ultimately being more vapid than disturbing due to lack of any sense of real-world credibility or (alternatively) nightmarish dislocation. (The movie kinda sits in the middle of those two things, not so much mixing them up as simply choosing neither.) But I sure won't be watching again, let alone pining for the sequel promised at the end.