
Monica Rivers is the owner and ringmaster of a traveling circus, and she'll stop at nothing to draw bigger audiences. When a series of mysterious murders begins to occur and some of her performers die gruesomely, her profits soar. She hires high-wire walker Frank Hawkins, impressed by the handsome and muscular young man. They begin an affair which arouses her previous lover Durando's jealousy. When Durando is found dead shortly afterward, the other performers begin to take al... (Full plot summary below)
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Monica Rivers is the owner and ringmaster of a traveling circus, and she'll stop at nothing to draw bigger audiences. When a series of mysterious murders begins to occur and some of her performers die gruesomely, her profits soar. She hires high-wire walker Frank Hawkins, impressed by the handsome and muscular young man. They begin an affair which arouses her previous lover Durando's jealousy. When Durando is found dead shortly afterward, the other performers begin to take alarm, as a mysterious killer is obviously loose in their midst. Many suspect Monica herself of the killings, especially Matilda, who has set her sights on Monica's new lover. At this point, Monica's unruly, sixteen-year-old daughter Angela is expelled from school for being incorrigible, and Monica is forced to take her into the circus, allowing her to become the partner of knife-thrower Gustavo. Meanwhile, the dead bodies continue to pile up...
Leave your thoughts about Berserk!.
| ESplatterLucius GoreThis role actually seems to strangely mirror aspects of her own life, as chronicled in that kiss-and-tell autobiography by her adopted daughter. |
| User ReviewGregory WSpectacular lighting...a shadow hits Joan just below the chin in every close up. Circus terror is always a good time! |
| User ReviewEric BRight for all the wrongs reasons: the sewn-on hair! the "illusion" that Joan Crawford is in her 30s! the tragic circus deaths! the classic lines! Run, don't walk, to see BERSERK! |
| User ReviewEmmie HBeing an actress I have always been interested in a film for its actors and not the visual effect or plot as much. I can see why people don't like it because most people are not into the idea of circus flicks However the whole time I saw it I thought the young lover who walked the tight rope was the killer . The conversations between the circus performers could of been cut down a little bit, and I think they should of shown Matilda getting sawed in half. I don't understand why they had to add in the song with the four performers. Other than that the circus acts were a nice touch, Joan as a ringmaster [what could be better], and the suspense was a classic touch. |
| User ReviewEric JJoan Crawford, older here but sure of herself as ever, did quite well in what otherwise might have been forgotten as a rather trite production. Look for both Geoffrey Keen and Michael Gough in this thoroughly British picture that was well-made a la Hammer Films |
| User ReviewSarah MThe ending was pretty predictable, but all in all this isn't a bad movie. I always like Joan Crawford in all her over-acting glory, and the murders were satisfyingly gory. |
| User ReviewPrivate UDon't look at Joan Crawford below the waste when she has her ringleader outfit on, scary looking crotch.I really enjoy the circus performances. |
| User ReviewCletus LCheesy and silly, with some nice death scenes (including a remarkably bloodless woman-sawed-in-half), a great dog performance, and a pointless musical number. |
| User ReviewMike HClassic camp although not intended to be !! Joan Crawford at her "BEST" TONS for GREAT lines and Featuring Diana Dors ! She is the Marylin Monroe look~A~Like on the cover of Sgt. peppers. (lower right) |
| User ReviewChristopher Smatricide was a highly popularized cinematic trend since hitchcock's psycho in 1960s, which surely has been ensued with a series of campy parodies, such as william castle's "homicide" and his collaboration with joan crawford in "straight-jacket"..crawford in her older days was ripe for such matricide-related exploitation, don't audience just have the impulsion to slog her for being so un-apologetically complacent and egoistic while acting like a mean, rich and powerful bitch with a desperate grasp of youth? don't you just love to hate her or hate to love her? naturally all those attributes make her the ideal prospect in such material like "berserk." it's story about a businesswoman who owns a circus, and all of a sudden, the members of her crew are murdered drastically one by one during the public exhibitions. she dates a man who seems young enough to be her son while her daughter returns for being dispelled by the boarding school. (crawford's movies in this period tend to have a certain parallel to her real-life relationship with her daughter)..at last, the truth is revelt and not hard to guess at all: it is her daughter who murders those people due to her grudges against mom and she has to destroy the circus to ease off the envious hatred. sorta like "straight-jacker," which has a slightly better sense of suspense despite its blatant cheesiness, but the scriptor of "straight-jacket" is the same one from "psycho." recently i'm reading a cultural-study book about the symbolic matricide within the temperament of american ethnology as well as american pop culture, the idea of personal property and the highly emphasized individuality (clint eastwood says in the amc channel commercial "i have a reverence for individuality") so each person has to leave his/her parents, particularly mother, as long as the puberty passes. "seperation and individuation" are the key terms for such symptom, and mother figure's inclined to get portrayed in a negative light of effeminatibng or victimizing the offsprings, contrary to the oriental system of family adherence. i assume such dread for the overpower of phallic mothers has created a food line for aged hollywood icons as well as a misogynist mythology of all those joan-loathing craps within american subcultures. everything about berserk is predictably corny to invite sneering laughters, but it's exactly the charm of it, isn't it? if you expect to be shocked or get good-quality actings and decently stylish camera angle just by watching the trailer, then i must say: you were just hatched yesterday. come on, it's a camp, it's supposed to be terrificly and shamelessly BAD with a reckless smug. stop bitching about it and giving it a poor rating. (lol.) (ps) but i've got to pay compliment to miss joan's wardrobe, which is actually not awful (the green suit with layers of jade-color pearls is my fav, so outrageously flashy), it bares her still-quite-in-shape legs very well, and i bet that a 60-something joan still has much better legs than lots of young girls in my age. hehe. don't you just love such killer queen? huh? |