YMMV / Vampire Circus

• Complete Monster:
  • Count Mitterhaus, the vampire ruler of the village of Steitl , seduces the wife of a village leader so that she will bring him children he can feed on. Mitterhaus opens the film draining and murdering a little girl and slaughtering her rescue party when they come. After they manage to get lucky and stake him, Mitterhaus vows he will have the lives of their children to restore him to life. From beyond the grave, he instructs his mistress Anna to find his cousin Emil and carry out a plan 16 years in the making. Sixteen years later, Emil and Anna return with "the Circus of the Night", and under Mitterhaus's plan begin to murder the village children so their blood can revive the Count. Upon revival, Mitterhaus attempts kill every human at hand, not even caring about the fates of those who had served him so loyally—not even his own children.
  • Emil is the leader of the Circus of Night, which roams Eastern Europe, murdering those it encounters. Emil spreads a plague to the village of Steitl to provide cover for his circus and sets about murdering people to revive his cousin Mitterhaus. Slaughtering and tormenting numerous villagers, including children, Emil later murders his own human subordinates when they have fulfilled their purpose, even killing his partner Anna when she objects to Emil murdering her daughter.
• Narm: We love you for the ridiculous faces you make when trying to be frightening, Emil. Truly we do.
• Nightmare Retardant: It's really difficult to find those bats scary when they're obvious fruit bats and are more cute than anything.
• Retroactive Recognition: Helga is an early role for Lalla Ward, better known as Romana II on Doctor Who.
• Special Effects Failure: The film has everything from bad jump cuts and awful day-for-night footage to horrible composite footage of live bats bluescreened into the sky and a seemingly rocket-propelled cross that jams itself through a vampire horizontally when it's meant to just be falling straight down.

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