[3] Set in 1947, it follows a deranged plastic surgeon who changes his identity after botching an operation, and later comes to gain control of a circus that he uses as a front for his surgical exploits.

[citation needed] In 1947 England, plastic surgeon Dr. Rossiter is wanted by police after performing a botched operation on socialite Evelyn Morley.

Schüler sees a girl scarred in the recent war, Nicole, and befriends her father, a circus owner named Vanet.

Vanet realises that the doctor is on the run from something or someone, and wants a place to hide out in, but is glad to repay him in any way he can, and also hopes to save his circus.

Drunk from his celebration, Vanet tries to dance with the bear that is part of his act, but drops a bottle which injures the animal, who starts to maul him.

With the assistance of Martin and Angela, Schüler begins to recruit performers, seeking out lowly and disfigured criminals whom he offers to transform with surgery should they join him.

Nicole, still performing in the circus, is met by Inspector Arthur Ames, posing as a journalist investigating the deaths that have occurred within the troupe.

[1] In the United States, the film was distributed by American International Pictures as a double feature with A Bucket of Blood (1959), opening in Los Angeles in May 1960.

[2] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A plot that only a very simple-minded sadist would take seriously sustains an anthology of gory killings and maimings – by lion, bear and gorilla, careless surgery, bombing, stabbing, motor accident and falling from a height.

Bandages are torn from unhealed wounds, whips slashed at snarling beasts, the bare thighs of the mad doctor's lovely victims spreadeagled across the screen.

Occasional humour comes from Kenneth Griffiths' ultra-sinister manner, and there are a few genuine circus high-wire shots that seem considerably more thrilling than the monotonous massacre below, but the film's main concern is with satisfying those who find imaginary mutilation entertaining.

Anton Diffring is perfectly cast as an incompetent plastic surgeon who takes refuge under Donald Pleasence's big top after the knife slips once too often.

Director Sidney Hayers makes superb use of the circus locale, dreaming up wonderfully grotesque ways of bumping off the outcasts that Diffring has remodelled when they try to escape his barbarous regime.

"[11] Leslie Halliwell said: "Stark horror comic; quite professionally made, but content-wise a crude concoction of sex and sadism.