Circus

Early in his directing career, erstwhile cameraman B. Skow made this rather poorly done hark-back to those exploitation movies that predated theatrical porn -think "She Freak" and carny-themed junkers. The emphasis on XXX content misfires.

With cheap sets not convincingly establishing a circus stage and bleachers for seating (Skow takes art direction credit, too) the entire feature is a series of seven sexual circus acts, perhaps only one of which is interesting (the contortionist). Circus is named "Sexavalia" which is likely the original title of the movie, released instead with the generic moniker "Circus", matching its generic content.

With misspellings and grammatical errors, a lengthy pre-movie crawl on screen stipulates that this is the year 2050, at which time an extreme conservative movement has taken over the world and all forms of sexual content and innuendo are banned from entertainment. It's so bad that even cleavage in public is punishable by death. This ridiculous dystopian sci-fi premise was clearly added in post-production in a vain attempt to make Skow's footage seem more interesting.

Evidence of that is that the audience at this circus are dressed and styled like men of the street circa 2000, not 2050. The ringmaster (stupidly credited as "ringleader", another flub) is a badly-made up guy with fake-fake mustache and beard played, natch, by Skow's makeup man Lee Garland. He recites hyperbole introducing each mundane act and the hucksterism is neither funny nor interesting.

Vivid Entertainment produced this as a vehicle for contract girl Lanny Barby, so she is spotlighted on stage twice but has no act. She merely looks pretty in nondescript costumes and humps, while all the other performers are styled as specialty acts suitable not for the Big Top but for a carny. This circus on the outskirts of town is supposed to provide release for the populace by providing forbidden entertainment.

Best act was the contortionist, who does fine acrobatics and humps two guys at once in acrobatic sexual positions, but no d.p. Barby delivers a d.p to climax the film.

The silly acts include John E. Depth supposedly bringing 14.5 pounds of dick on him from the far reaches of the globe, serviced in an all-Black scene by pornspeaking Jada Fire (teeth braces and all) and cute Angel Eyes. Flower Tucci plays Flower Tucci (pronounced Tushy of course by the ring-whatever), whose brief act is dousing the first few rows with copious Golden Showers, powered by vibrator and dildo. At least Garland had the decency not to specify them as "squirting".

Monique Alexander is "10-Second Sabrina" supposedly so sexy no man can resist coming for as long as 10 seconds of humping her, as proved by audience shill Anthony Hardwood's immediate money shot, but the ringmeister has Tommy Gunn to hump her for the requisite 15 minutes or so. Trina Michaels is Hamita, a savage lady given a gang-bang along with her handler lady, 3 guys ganging up on them.

This gonzo crap is indicative of Skow at his worst, though in recent years he has delivered the occasional offbeat (and engrossing) narrative film to lesbo label Girlfriends Films, like "Homecoming" and "Daddy's Girls". While Vivid spent plenty of dough on the big cast, it scrimped disastrously on production values and the creative end. But Vivid is quiescent now, so I won't be doing some dancing on their grave, just pointing out shortcomings of their lesser projects back in their salad days when folks liked buying and watching DVDs.