The Last Circus (aka Balada triste de trompeta) viciously twists a laundry list of genres - black comedy, the circus film, the monster movie, the testimonial period piece and even superhero archetypes - to create a magnificent and tragic metaphor for the scars left on Spain by Franco's cruel regime. This is disturbingly audacious film-making that will shock your system in the same way that fucked up arthouse cinema like Fight Club did. Balada triste de trompeta is unafraid to punish it's audience, boldly declaring that slaughterhouse cinema must acknowledge it's fascist underpinnings before it dresses up in funny costumes and pretends to fight bad guys. The American pun-ster in me wants to call this The Dark Knight tied to Water for Elephants and dunked into strong acid by Pan's Labyrinth, but such a cynical comparison would do a disservice to Spanish genre director Álex de la Iglesia's and his singular vision of bloody brilliant dark satire.

A+

6/10 -> C

Crazy Spanish flick. There's a little bit of everything thrown in and you can barely believe it works. The main disadvantage is the rather bad(ly scripted) menage a trois which is the centerpiece of the movie. I liked every other aspect of the movie though.