Sideshow

While marginally better than most of director Fred Olen Ray's and executive producer Charles Band's most recent output, SIDESHOW still emerges as only a mediocre rendering of a decent concept.

Five teens (two guys and two girls on blind dates and the wheelchair-bound kid brother of one of the boys) spend the evening at a traveling carnival and end up p1ssing off dwarf Abbot Graves (Phil Fondacaro, the contemporary answer to Angelo Rossitto), who runs the "Doctor Graves Horrors of Nature" sideshow exhibit--an attraction which features such freaks as Conjoin-O (a guy with a monster in his belly), Aelita the inside-out girl, Hans the bug boy and Digestina (a woman who lives in a pool of digestive fluid) (?!) Abbot doesn't take too kindly to being pushed around by one of the kids and decides to get even with them all by turning their worst fears or insecurities into reality.

The characters aren't fully developed enough to get elicit much sympathy or interest and their eventual transformations are unfortunately rather predictable (a girl who hates being touched is turned into a doll in a glass cage, another who is insecure about her body is turned into a faceless woman with a nice body, etc.), but the film is reasonably well-made given the budget, the acting is acceptable and the make-up FX by Gabe Bartalos are pretty good. Also bit parts are played by Ray regulars Ross Hagen (as the sheriff), Brinke Stevens (fortune teller), Pete Spellos (freak with a monster in his belly) and Richard Gabai (game huckster).

What appears to be an average B-Movie style develops into an enjoyable delve into Twilight Zone-esque Sci-Fi.

Well crafted ideas, apart from the 'human budgie'(!?), keeps it interesting although the camera action leaves you feeling your watching a TV movie rather than a cinema flick.

Slows down near the end but rejects a cliched finale.

Not bad.

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!!!!!

Sideshow was one of the later Full Moon outings so that means it had a lot of potential to suck. It did, but it's better than most of the drivel they were putting out around this time (Ragdoll, I'm talking about you). We've got the usual 30-somethings masquerading as high school students who visit a traveling carnival and become permanent members of the freak show. The make-up isn't that bad, but some of the freaks don't make sense. I mean, Digestina? She lives in a vat of stomach acid and excretes toasters. What the hell? About the acting, let's just say it was bad and leave it at that. Phil Fondacaro is my favorite minuscule actor and he's the only one coming off as a professional. The movie ended very abruptly and just left me feeling stupid for watching it. But what else did I expect from a Fred Olen Ray movie? Oh, and I almost forgot Brinke Stevens is wasted in a bit cameo. The Videozone after the feature was very informative, however. It revealed that Fred Olen Ray was at one time a carnie. I knew it all along!!!

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.