Wonderful character development!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Blistering performances.

This movie is awful. It has an awful story line. It also has awful ending. It is very very very mush a pile pooh. 3.8 is not a good ratting but this is such a bad movie. That 3.8 is overrating it. This a 1. This got to be one of the worst horror movies of all time. It so stink. Do not wast your time. Do not wast your money. Do not see this awful movie. This is a big pile of pooh pooh with pee pee on top. This not scary. It is just strange and stupid. It a very pooh pooh horror movie. Not like Friday the 13th (1980) which is a good horror movie and very scary. This is just pooh pooh. I think because people do not like horror movie that means it good. But some times people are write not like a horror movie because it is pooh pooh.

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.

"Sideshow" is a cliché but interesting story.**SPOILERS** As the carnival comes to town, five people, Bobby, (Jamie Martz) Tommy, (Michael Amos) Grant, (Scott Clark) Melanie, (Jessica Keenan) and Jeannie (Jeana Blackman) wander around playing the games, eating the food and having a fun time. When Abbot Graves (Phil Fondacaro) announces the opening show for a spookshow, they all line up to see the sights. Grant tries to explain how they did the make-up effects but after a while, Jeannie becomes jealous of some of the performers. Because of their individual reactions to the performances, they all become separated. They find evidence of foul play and go to the police, but Abbot Graves is able to convince them that nothing is going on. After they can't find her, they begin to wonder what to do. Grant feels like something is wrong, and convinces Tommy and Melanie to go look for her back in the sideshow. They get captured and transformed into what they supposedly deserve. Only Bobby remains normal person. Learning from Madame Volosca (Brinke Stevens) about his and his friend's fate, he finally leaves the carnival.The Good News: I have never liked Carnival Sideshows for this reason: they are creepy and make me uncomfortable to be around. This film perfectly captures this spirit and does it well. This is a carnival that actually seems creepy because the freaks in it are not the usual freaks in a sideshow. All of them are also pretty unexpected as well. They were pretty scary realized and manipulated, yet shared the inhumanity that makes them look like sideshow freaks. All of them were also designed to creep people out, and they did creep me out. What was also new was that there was one person left alive at the end. Normally, these movies kill off all of the characters and left town. This was a very nice and new touch that not many films would try to get. It has that "Wishmaster" vibe to it, that those who get wishes will get their just rewards. I really like this theme for films and it should become a more regular fixture in friends.The Bad News: Unless watching the freaks in the sideshow is not upsetting for you, then this may be a less enjoyable film. I really can't see why, but it can seem that way. Like all Full Moon films, this contains no jumps or shocks to make it a more interesting experience. This has to become a very noticeable change in their films, as I've only found one film, "Shrunken Heads," that contains a jump. With all the films in their catalog, they do have a niche, but it isn't among those that like to be scared with their horror films.The Final Verdict: Unless you like Full Moon films or hate carnivals, this would should be approached with caution. It does star two cult stars, Brinke Stevens and Phil Fondacaro, but the fact is that it does need something else. Take a chance, which is all I can say.Rated R: Violence, Graphic Language, and Nudity

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!!!