everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Once again Code Red have done an exemplary job in releasing the best-quality version of an old B-movie horror flick and giving it a new lease of life for the 20th century. Having watched TERROR CIRCUS - perhaps best known under its exploitative title BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD - you wonder why they've bothered when the end result is so trashy. Long-running actor Andrew Prine plays the usual psycho guy living out in the desert with a mother fixation. He likes to kidnap young women, chain them up, keep them as slaves in his barn, and occasionally have them perform as part of his own private circus. The film is fairly well put together for what is obviously a movie made entirely on the cheap, but the end result is merely silly and mean-spirited. Nudity and some bloodshed are thrown in to keep the horror fans pleased, but the only time this entertains is at the very end with the zombie twist. In its focus on the humiliation of women it seems to be a precursor to BLOODSUCKING FREAKS.

aka. "The Barn of the Naked Dead". There were quite a few interesting ideas at play in "The Barn of the Naked Dead", only their execution seemed a bit too clumsy and misdirected to completely "grab" me. That said, considering it's mean, misogynistic and just plain weird content, I can't chalk it up to a total loss.Three young showgirls are on their way to Vegas. They make the mistake of turning off onto a dirt road "shortcut" where their car breaks down in the middle of the desert. The next morning, a seemingly helpful guy shows up to take them to his isolated place to use his phone. It doesn't take long before the gals notice that his barn is full of chained women that he ends up using as the "animals" in his deranged circus act, for which he plays the sadistic ringmaster. While this is going on, the girls' agent is trying his damnedest to track them down...There's some back story involving the guy's mommy issues and there's some kind of Anthropophagus-looking freak tucked away - a result of the military's H-bomb testing years ago. That part - while making for a reasonably gruesome ending - seemed kind of awkwardly wedged into the film, while I thought the whole circus angle was an amusing concept. Andrew Prine (from "The Town That Dreaded Sundown") pulls off his role very well and the movie doesn't shy away from astringent cruelty towards women. That f*cker LOVED his bull whip! It's an entertaining enough 'exploit'/B-horror flick, but, like I said, it could have used a little more direction and 'flow' with some of it's elements. Still giving it a rec.More of my horror/exploitation reviews @ http://swinesewage.blogspot.com/

Barn of the Nekkid Dead - or Nightmare Circus - is a film about a demented young man named Andre who captures women and keeps them chained in the barn. He believes that he is the ringleader of a circus and that they are the trained animals in his act. Andre is a psychopath, but it's not all his fault - his mother left him when he was very young and his father has turned into a murderous radioactive mutant. Andre crushes rebellion among his animals by feeding would-be rebels to his pet mountain lion or to his father.The obvious moral of the story would be that men treat women horribly, be it is more likely that the pretense of the moral is an excuse to show attractive young women chained and whipped. The best part of this movie is the ending. Help is on the way in the background from the beginning but by the time it arrives at the barn, Andre's father has killed almost everyone. It's refreshing to watch a film without a morally happy ending.

Played in Seattle as TERROR CIRCUS in 1980 (!) as a bottom half of a double billing with MOTEL HELL. This film is just sick and boring at the same time. A car full of girls takes a short cut to Vegas and get stranded in the desert, only to be prisoners to a madman (Andrew Prine, who is really good in this film). The film has a bad theme song, sloppy editing, a creature who lives in a shack, and whipping girls like animals. The film is made by Alan Rudolph, who now makes art house films. Many of you might see this film and say, it can't be the same guy who made this, but it is. He also made ROADIE with meatloaf! The video print NIGHTMARE CIRCUS is grainy, and the title is video tacked in. I hear it played in most cities in the early 70's as BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD.