The Last Circus

In Brief: Calling this complex and disturbing work a horror film doesn’t do it justice — at the very least it’s art-house horror — but that’s as near as you’re likely to get to pinning it down. It is neither practical, nor particularly advisable, to try to offer a detailed plot synopsis of The Last Circus. It starts during the Spanish Civil War — in fact, like many Spanish films, the war and the Franco regime hangs over it heavily in both a literal and metaphorical manner. A circus troupe find themselves — well, once they dispense with the bearded lady—dragooned into fighting against Franco. This includes "happy" clown Andrés (Enrique Villen) — who at the time of his conscription is in drag to boot. He wants to change clothes, but is told, "A clown with a machete? You’ll scare the shit out of them." That proves more or less true, and Andrés manages to slash his way through a whole regiment before being caught and imprisoned. This, however, is merely the overture, since the bulk of the film concerns his son, Javier (Carlos Areces), who years later becomes a "sad" clown in a rundown circus where he draws laughs by being brutalized by "happy" clown Sergio (Antonio de la Torre). Sergio also brutalizes his wife, the aerialist Natalia (Carolina Bang, whose name appears to actually be just that), with whom, of course, Javier falls in love. As a setup, it’s as old as the hills — or, at the least, as old as a Tod Browning picture — but, oh my, the blood-drenched lengths to which it goes are hard to overstate.   The Thursday Horror Picture Show will screen The Last Circus Thursday, Nov. 12, at 8 p.m. in Theater Six  at The Carolina Asheville, hosted by Xpress movie critic Ken Hanke.