THE RINGMASTER (2020) FILM REVIEW

*

18, 100 Mins

Stupid, crass torture porn.

A strong contender for the worst film of the year arrived on streaming services last month. It’s a stupidly crass slice of torture porn from Denmark that makes the ‘Saw’ movies (2004-) look like ‘Citizen Kane’ (1940). This is a film so steeped in grotesque misogyny and pointlessly sexualised violence. It has no idea quite how obnoxious it is being. Worst of all, it’s boring…

‘The Ringmaster’ (2020) is a bilingual production between Danish and English. It’s set on the night Denmark won the European championship and everybody is at home glued to their screens. Only a small, little gas station is still running; operated by two attractive, blonde young women. Agnes (Anne Bergfield) is a passionate college student; sneaking into the backroom to finish her thesis. Belinda (Karin Michelsen), on the other hand, is more materialistic; texting her boyfriend constantly while she should be working.

Unfortunately this late night shift with very little customers turns out to be more eventful than they think and not in a good way. The two girls are kidnapped and subjected to a series of tortures by a clown-faced “ringmaster” (Damon Younger) who looks a lot like Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker…

First thing to say is that this movie is a nasty piece of work. Horrible even by the standards of Eli Roth, but not in a good way. The movie is misogynistic and disgusting in all the wrong ways. Just look at its crass voyeurization of very real sexual violence which both these women are subjected to.

In one scene, one of the girls has to staple the other’s skin with a staple gun. Next she is made to stick a pin into her friend’s boob. There’s no place for this kind of violence either in cinema or in society.

And yet the most criminal thing about ‘The Ringmaster’ is how boring it is. For all the things it is, you wouldn’t expect misogyny to be boring and yet this film makes it boring. There’s no tension, dread or suspense in the first half which is so bogged down in pointless storylines about Agnes’s thesis or Belinda’s boyfriend.

Crucially the titular Ringmaster isn’t scary - despite him having a villainous English accent as has become tradition in movies to have a Brit as the baddie. I just found this movie so tedious and infantile. Watch ‘Possessor’ (2020) if you want to see a good horror movie this Christmas…

‘The Ringmaster’ is on multiple platforms now.