As someone who enjoyed the Fred Olen Ray/Charles Band production of Piranha Women, I thought I would check out their first collaboration, Sideshow. It’s closer to Band’s sensibilities than Ray’s, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. While it’s not quite up to the level of Piranha Women, it’s a decent way to spend seventy-five minutes.
Five friends go to the carnival. Most of them are there to gawk at the sideshow freaks. Naturally, they overstay their welcome and eventually become part of the show.
Sideshow has kind of a Funhouse Meets Ghoulies 2 vibe about it. The opening scene in which Ray virtually remakes the finale of Tod Browning’s Freaks is a lot of fun, and the first act or so holds promise. Things start to slide downhill once the characters are turned into freaks though. The idea that they are transformed into sideshow attractions because they make wishes that backfire on them is kind of lame and feels like something out of a Wishmaster movie. (One girl wants a perfect body and winds up having no face, another girl never wants to be touched and is transformed into a living doll under glass, etc.) The complete non-ending doesn’t help matters either.
The special effects for the freaks were designed by Gabe (Leprechaun) Bartalos. They are rather inventive and certainly help keep you watching once the movie begins spinning its wheels. A face-ripping freak, a conjoined twin, and a “Bug Boy” are among the highlights.
Although the freak gimmicks make it feel more like a Full Moon movie than a Ray picture, Fred still manages to inject some of his touches in there. That’s really just a fancy way of saying there’s some gratuitous T & A. His usual cast of characters, such as Brinke Stevens (who plays a sexy fortune teller), Peter Spellos, Richard Gabai, and Ross Hagen make welcome appearances too. It’s Full Moon mainstay Phil Fondacaro who steals the (side)show as the ringmaster of the freaks.
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