When a string of vicious murders on former employees brings the attention of a traveling circus owner, he realizes they're being done in the style of a thought-deceased associate's suspected death and that he may be out for more than revenge with his rampage.
An overlong, needlessly epic retelling of the story that tends to meander on for a good twenty minutes more than necessary simply because there's far too much useless stuff at the very beginning with it's exaggerated pace that really keeps things from building up too quickly or really reveling in it's more grotesque moments. As it stands, though, there's still some good parts here as the masked phantom creates an imposing presence during his sequences, there's plenty of rather fun Grand Guiginol-style theater scenes of the troupe putting on violent, splatter-drenched performances that really gives the film a sense of fun and excitement early on, and several of the murders get particularly nasty, especially when they're combined with fantastic set-ups and execution to create a memorably nasty scene. Again, there's problems but it's not so bad.
Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence
An overlong, needlessly epic retelling of the story that tends to meander on for a good twenty minutes more than necessary simply because there's far too much useless stuff at the very beginning with it's exaggerated pace that really keeps things from building up too quickly or really reveling in it's more grotesque moments. As it stands, though, there's still some good parts here as the masked phantom creates an imposing presence during his sequences, there's plenty of rather fun Grand Guiginol-style theater scenes of the troupe putting on violent, splatter-drenched performances that really gives the film a sense of fun and excitement early on, and several of the murders get particularly nasty, especially when they're combined with fantastic set-ups and execution to create a memorably nasty scene. Again, there's problems but it's not so bad.
Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence