Old Joan Crawford, dressed in tights and a ringmaster's coat throughout much of the film, plays Monica Rivers, circus owner and apparently heart-breaker to men decades younger than herself. Watch Joan cavort first with Michael Gough with lots of suggestions about their business and personal lives merging(fortunately for Gough this does not last too long as he soon finds himself nailed to another post). So with Gough gone, he-man Ty Hardin, a new high wire act who arrives after the old one hangs himself while performing, comes into the picture, no shirt half the time and all, and makes his moves for the less-than-sexy sixty plus year-old. Watching Crawford and her beaus work with heavily-laden dialog laced with absurd innuendo was the highlight of this film as it was just so preposterous. She looks ancient and yet acts like she is still 25! Anyway, the film itself is one of those films that is so very fun to watch just for those elements already mentioned, the then grisly murders as circus people start to die off, and the lush colour used in the film. The settings of the circus are believably done and Herman Cohen, the producer, always knew how to put on a good show. I even enjoyed some of the circus acts that were intermittently laced in the picture. The rest of the cast is very able with Gough, always good, and George Claydon playing Bruno excelling. Lovely Diana Dors and Judy Geeson also star. Hardin was really quite bad but I really enjoyed his trapeze act at the film's end. While the story can only be classified as silly and absurd, the ending seems way too abrupt even for this film. The film seems to be going along almost effortlessly - Joan prancing about working her guys over(Yuck!) and circus performers dying - then a quick ending that comes out of left field. Despite the many shortcomings, Berserk - why the heck is it named that? - is a whole lot of fun and is very similar, as some other reviewers have noted, to Straight-Jacket, Crawford's film for William Castle.

Although the story on paper sounded semi-intriguing, the great Joan Crawford was in the lead role and Diana Dors also featuring, expectations were not high for 'Berserk'. It didn't look good, it when properly reading the summary sounded like it would be ridiculous and unintentionally camp as a film, it was made during Crawford's twilight years which was not really a good thing and its critical reception here and elsewhere from respected critics were not kind.

Seeing 'Berserk' for myself, my opinion leans sadly towards the latter. Love mysteries and the circus is a very nostalgic setting, but they both go to waste here, it was as bad and even worse as it sounded for all the reasons cited and in her penultimate screen appearance Crawford gives one of her worst performances ever. One would not think that she was a good actress looking at this, but to be honest her material was completely beneath her and it was material that would be beneath even the worst actors/actresses.

'Berserk' has its moments. Some of the excitement, nostalgia and danger of the circus is captured reasonably well. The killings are quite fun, somewhat creative and don't look cheap (Frank's coming off most memorably),even if a bit on the safe side.

Dors, her catfight scene being one of the highlights of the film, and Judy Geeson (mostly) come off unscathed in the vast sea of terrible acting. Crawford looks great in those knockout costumes. Some of the photography is quite nice and for low-budget doesn't look amateurish.

Unfortunately, knockout is not the way to sum up her acting. She tries hard but badly overacts and it is quite painful seeing her do so with such bad material. Other cast members fare even worse, with the dreadful performances coming from George Clayden and especially from Ty Hardin (who has more screen, being basically smoldering eye candy but as stiff as a board). His chemistry with Crawford is not really there and comes over as unintentionally creepy. Michael Gough has nothing to work with, which is true with most of the cast. The direction throughout is sluggish, the killings aside, and that musical number is the most cringe-worthy and most pointless for any film seen in a long time.

The script is little more than overripe camp and over-frothy soap, while the story never comes to life and feels incredibly padded with too many scenes going on for far too long. The mystery has no real suspense and can be quite bizarrely ridiculous in parts. Especially the ending when all is revealed, just did not buy the revelation of the killer at all and really she couldn't really have done it considering the alibi. The motive is also laughable and so "they killed for that" and the whole scene is outageously over the top in all senses.

Has its moments but one odd film that is not very good at all. 4/10

Joan Crawford's next to last feature film Berserk finds her as boss lady of a circus where a string of murders is being committed. I will say the best thing about Berserk is the circus acts from the Billy Smart Circus where the film was shot in the United Kingdom.

As for the film it's your usual slasher flick that could have, but didn't come from Hammer Studios. The whole cast with the exception of Crawford and Ty Hardin playing the hunky high wire artist were from Great Britain and the continent.

Hardin's one daring dude, his high wire act not only consists of no net, but he walks underneath a row of very sharp spikes. There's no surviving if he falls.

And there's a rapid rate of homicide at Crawford's show unless Scotland Yard in the person of Inspector Robert Hardy can figure out who is killing off the circus, a bit at a time.

Maybe Berserk might have been better had Hammer Films actually had done this production. This was the kind of thing they were good at, even if the villain isn't a supernatural one. I will say that the death of Michael Gough is a shocking and original one. You might want to catch Berserk for that alone.

As it is there are more red herrings thrown up as potential suspects in Berserk than at feeding time at Marineland.

You'll go Berserk just trying to figure it all out.