SPOILERS (including the identity of the killer) Obviously spun off of the success of Joan's earlier film "Strait-Jacket", "Berserk!" attempts to set up a similar situation where Joan is plagued by vicious murders going on around her. The similarities don't end there, either. Once again, we get the impression that Joan's character is supposed to be a few decades younger than Joan is, giving you an odd feeling when the men in the film are directed to treat her as a sex object.
Instead of a reformed murderess, Joan portrays the bun-wearing, leotard-clad owner of a traveling circus. Right away things start to go bad for the performers; one guy is doing a highwire routine when the wire snaps and, defying all laws of physics, coils around the guy's neck and hangs him. Does this qualify him as a "wire hanger"?
"Berserk!" piles on the gory deaths, the most outrageous of which is when a character gets a spike driven through the back of his head and it erupts from his forehead. A scene where a woman was sawed in half would have been the most grisly, were it not for the fact that there isn't a single drop of blood anywhere, not even on the saw blade. A close runner up for most terrifying moment is when Joan and her studmuffin boy toy share a candlelight dinner in her trailer and he tells her "I'm crazy about you." Oddly enough, the writers played up to the "Strait-Jacket" legacy by having Joan's daughter turn out to be the killer, even giving her a scene where she gets to really go berserk just like Diane Baker did.
The script is short and padded into a feature length by the constant insertion of seemingly unending footage of circus acts. There's no real point to showing the circus acts. They don't advance the plot, and who wants to watch a five minute elephant parade during a horror movie? There's also a meaningless musical number performed by the circus "freaks", with Tod Browning nowhere in sight. We want JOAN, dammit--Joan in a leotard, baring her legs to the crotch. Joan with her hair in a severe bun that takes on the shape of a flaxen balls of yarn on top of her head. Joan slapping a nosy photographer and Joan pushing people out of her way. Joan flirting like a schoolgirl with a guy who might actually be young enough to be her grandson. She's the real cougar in this zoo of a circus film.
Let's see, since I already told you who the killer is, I might as well go all the way and tell you that she doesn't get away with her crimes. Much like Rhoda Penmark, she runs out into the rain, and while she's running through a wet patch in the grass, a cartoon bolt of lightning splits a black screen and apparently zaps her to death. Poor her. And poor Joan.
Instead of a reformed murderess, Joan portrays the bun-wearing, leotard-clad owner of a traveling circus. Right away things start to go bad for the performers; one guy is doing a highwire routine when the wire snaps and, defying all laws of physics, coils around the guy's neck and hangs him. Does this qualify him as a "wire hanger"?
"Berserk!" piles on the gory deaths, the most outrageous of which is when a character gets a spike driven through the back of his head and it erupts from his forehead. A scene where a woman was sawed in half would have been the most grisly, were it not for the fact that there isn't a single drop of blood anywhere, not even on the saw blade. A close runner up for most terrifying moment is when Joan and her studmuffin boy toy share a candlelight dinner in her trailer and he tells her "I'm crazy about you." Oddly enough, the writers played up to the "Strait-Jacket" legacy by having Joan's daughter turn out to be the killer, even giving her a scene where she gets to really go berserk just like Diane Baker did.
The script is short and padded into a feature length by the constant insertion of seemingly unending footage of circus acts. There's no real point to showing the circus acts. They don't advance the plot, and who wants to watch a five minute elephant parade during a horror movie? There's also a meaningless musical number performed by the circus "freaks", with Tod Browning nowhere in sight. We want JOAN, dammit--Joan in a leotard, baring her legs to the crotch. Joan with her hair in a severe bun that takes on the shape of a flaxen balls of yarn on top of her head. Joan slapping a nosy photographer and Joan pushing people out of her way. Joan flirting like a schoolgirl with a guy who might actually be young enough to be her grandson. She's the real cougar in this zoo of a circus film.
Let's see, since I already told you who the killer is, I might as well go all the way and tell you that she doesn't get away with her crimes. Much like Rhoda Penmark, she runs out into the rain, and while she's running through a wet patch in the grass, a cartoon bolt of lightning splits a black screen and apparently zaps her to death. Poor her. And poor Joan.