Sideshow (2000)

Full Moon Studios is a film production company that mainly does horror films. In fact, that may be all they do. They had a few good films back in the day, their strongest period probably being in the 80's as in the 90's they made nearly everything a horror/comedy. They never were as bad as Troma though, as their films felt like they were almost big time, but not quite, while everything about Troma says cheap. That being said, for the most part, I really do not care for the movies this studio churned out during the 90's. A lot of them had potential, but just missed the mark and some of them were just horrid abominations that never even should have been conceived. This one I found to be kind of okay which is high praise indeed for one of their movies made after like 91 or so. It was not a great film by any means, but I was enjoying what they were presenting and even if I were hating it, one thing nearly every Full Moon Studio film does is end fairly quickly as they usually do not clock in over 1 hour 20 minutes. The film's main fault I found was that it did end too quickly as one minute it was on, the next it was over.The story has a group of sort of friends going to a carnival. The group consists of an obnoxious dude that wants to be the center of attention, his friend who seems to be the most sensible, a girl who wants to be worshiped, but has space issues, a girl who wants a hot body and the sensible boy's brother who is confined to a chair. The obnoxious guy has trouble with one of the games and the wheelchair bound boy figures the game is rigged and after this the proprietor of the freak show seems to take an interest which grows when the obnoxious person makes fun of the proprietor for being a little person. They go into a fortune telling hut where they are read their fortunes and they also get tickets to the freak show where they see some rather disturbing freaks and soon the girl who wants a perfect body goes missing. The friends with the exception of the sensible one just have to try and search for her which brings them all into danger! The freaks were pretty good as the strange bug man looked rather good as did inside out girl. The one guy whose brother lived in in his belly was right out of Total Recall and then they had one that I did not get at all in Digestina. They billed her as being able to eat anything, but all she did was sit in a vat of acid it seemed. She kind of made no sense; however, she was the hottest girl in the film. The teens are all idiots and probably deserved worse than they got. The sensible guy though ended up just in a field and then the movie ended. Not sure what that was all about as in this particular case I kind of wanted the film to go on a bit. Ross Hagen turns up in a bit part as the sheriff and Phil Fondacaro as the proprietor does a really good job in this one too.So perhaps had they worked on the ending I would have enjoyed it more. The film plays out as kind of a dirtier version of Something Wicked This Way Comes, but with less chills. You never get a real sense of danger in this one as you really do not care about the group of friends except maybe the guy who keeps telling everyone they should leave, but they want to stay to find their friend, but not really. They all have kind of selfish reasons for wanting to find the girl and they all get what they deserve. This one might have been even better had they done it earlier as back in the day Full Moon films did not have enormous budgets, but more than the 120,000 this one had. They generally had 1,000,000 which may not sound a lot by today's standards, but could have helped this film out a lot as there is a cheapness about it. Still, it was kind of okay, just wish they worked on that ending a bit more.

A group of teenagers visit a freakshow attraction at a traveling carnival. The kids are all taught nasty lessons about themselves from sinister ringleader Abbot Graves (marvelously played with tremendous theatrical flair by Phil Fondacaro). Director Fred Olen Ray relates the gnarly macabre premise at a quick pace, does a good job of capturing and conveying the creepy seediness of the carnival setting, and maintains both a pleasingly eerie mood and a grimly serious tone throughout. The acceptable acting by the competent no-name thespians who portray the kids keeps the picture humming: Jamie Martz as the meek Bobby, Michael Amos as mean jerk Tommy, Scott Clark as sympathetic wheelchair-bound cripple Grant, Jessica Keenan as the stuck-up Melanie, and Jeana Blackman as frumpy and insecure wallflower Jeanie. The make-up by Gabe Bartalos for the various freaks is strikingly grotesque and imaginative; my favorites are the luscious Curran Sympson as Aelita the inside-out girl -- she does a truly sick variation on your standard striptease! -- and Peter Spellos as Conjoin-O, who has a head living in his stomach. Benjamin Carr's twisted script has a dark fairytale-like quality with the kids all meeting appropriately nightmarish fates that reveal their true natures. Popping up in snazzy small parts are Brinke Stevens as fortune teller Madame Volosca and Ross Hagen as the crusty sheriff. Mac Ahlberg's sharp cinematography and the shivery score both further enhance the overall spooky ooga-booga atmosphere. An enjoyable horror outing.

A group of teenagers mess with the ringleader of a freak sideshow and of course the ringleader takes it upon himself to teach the teenagers a nasty lesson.Brinke Stevens is totally wasted in a cameo performance, the ending is terrible, and the special effects are pretty sorry, even by Fred Olen Ray's standards. Rent Jack-O or Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers instead.Rated R for Nudity, Language, Graphic Violence, and a Mild Sexual Situation.

Out of the three newest Fullmoon films Im aware of(Dead Hate the Living,Killjoy,and Sideshow) I'd say sideshow is the best out of them. If you like so bad so good horror movies,this one is ok....it doesnt suck,its not a Plan from Outerspace or Troll 2.The dwarf was awfully good and Digestina was HOTTTTTT!!!!!This movie is worthy of a bad movie night with your friends. If you want an actual good horror movie then what the HELL are you doing watching Fullmoon films for? Oh yeah for cheese fans....STAY AWAY FROM DEAD HATE THE LIVING!!!!!