Opening with what reminded me of Marge appearing at the start of some Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons to warn the audience of the content that will appear in the following episode, The Ringmaster is another film that hones in on the success of the Saw films but leaves a lot to be desired in terms of emulating their success.

During the night of the biggest sports final of the year, two girls working in a gas station experience strange incidents. Is it just staged pranks or is it something of a more aggressive intent?

Horror is a genre where you can probably get away with a lot more in terms of extreme content and this is something The Ringmaster has the intention of doing however, it never manages to fulfil the promising potential it starts off with. There's an impressive sense of dread surrounding the two women on their shift at a gas station, particularly when two perculiar men arrive acting rather strangely, but that soon dissolves into nothing much, even as the women are forced to take part in an online entertainment event that isn't as insane as it thinks it is.

We know what's going to happen with the women as the film follows a non-linear narrative that jumps between their shift and then captivity. While not much of an issue for me, there's no surprise to any of it, knowing they will eventually be captured takes away much of the suspense created during the gas station scenes.

The performances, particularly from Anne Bergfield and Karin Michelsen, are decent enough but there isn't really much weight to any of it due to the fact there's no real substance to any of it. Damon Younger plays the Ringmaster and he does bring a sinister sense to proceedings but it does end up falling a bit flat, sitting in the middle rather than tipping over to either side of the psycho scale.

Imagine The Greatest Showman but P. T. Barnum rides out on a tricycle asking his "freaks" if they "wanna play a game". You could imagine it being carnage and that's what I'd want from a horror film called The Ringmaster but what we got instead ends up being rather tame, which is most definitely a shame.

Bought this a few months back but haven't got around to watching til now. I thought it would be good given the review states "Hostel Meets The Purge", how far from the truth that is.

The film sees 2 girls working late at a Petrol Station only to have strange goings on occur throughout the night. It's then that the events become clear to them once things start to increase in intensity leading to a deadly revelation.

I found the film to be mostly boring. The first hour sees the girls just serving weird customers, 1 of them is complaining about her domestic problems while the other is trying to get through her last shift. What makes it more annoying is that we see these scenes chopping & changing to the ones of the girl trying to finish her last shift being tortured with her boy friend & co-worker with the domestic issues. So any suspense or build up is spoiled.

The films pacing was off & the 1 hour & 30 minute cut was a little too long, especially given the first hour had no action in it at all & was boring as. The body count sucked & the gore was at best minimal & at worst too little, too late, just like the action which in itself was below medicore. The story itself was boring & nothing interesting.

Overall, once again, the comparisson to other horrors that are way better than this is misleading & insulting to those horrors which actually deliver & are far better. The title of this film is different to the UK one which is called "The Ring Master", typical straight-to-DVD unnecessary renaming. It's not a great film & is pretty dissappointing. Very little to nothing is salvagable with this one.

2/10.

FINALE (2019) ** Anne Bergfeld, Karin Michelsen, Damon Younger, Kristoffer Fabricus, Mads Koudal, Kim Donderholm, Gustav Scavenius. Danish horror film about a pair of young women working a lonely night shift at a gas station find themselves in a nightmare when they are abducted and tortured while being broadcast on a dark web live program. Filmmaker Soren Juul Petersen's big-screen debut leans more on torture porn than social commentary yet allows his young protagonists' a field day of emotions which sets the film apart from the usual slasher fare.