A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
In a small American town, a diabolical circus arrives, granting wishes for the townsfolk, but twisted as only the esteemed Mr. Dark can make them. Can two young boys overcome the worst the devil himself can deal out?
Five people visit a fairground sideshow run by the sinister Dr. Diabolo. Having shown them a handful of haunted-house-style attractions, he promises them a genuinely scary experience if they will pay extra.
Three sideshow performers form a conspiracy known as "The Unholy Three" - a ventriloquist, midget, and strongman working together to commit a series of robberies.
After her father’s death, Catherine returns to her family’s gothic castle in Italy and gets caught in the web of a mysterious love triangle.
Wilbur works in an old carnival and shows some gruesome things to the public. He covers his face because he had a sadistic father who burned his face as a child. Everybody makes jokes about his scars and when the new boss fires him, he goes to an old swamp-witch who gives him a peace of wood from a hanging tree. Wilbur makes a mask from this piece of wood and puts all his anger in this mask. When he puts the mask on, everybody who looks at him commits suicide.
Fields plays "Larsen E. Whipsnade", the owner of a shady carnival that is constantly on the run from the law. Whipsnade is struggling to keep a step ahead of foreclosure, and clearly not paying his performers, including Bergen and McCarthy, who try to coax money out of him, or in McCarthy's case, steal some outright.
Cock Robin is the swaggering ballyhoo man of a Hungarian sideshow known as the Palace of Illusions. The highlight of the show is a reenactment of Salome's dance of the seven veils, replete with the beheading of Jokanaan. The performer portraying Salome is in love with Cock Robin. Jealous, sinister The Greek is determined to eliminate that competition.
Conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton were once the cream of the sideshow crop. Taught to sing and dance at an early age, the winsome duo ascended through the early 20th-century vaudeville circuit as a side attraction (working alongside Bob Hope and Charlie Chaplin as well as a memorable turn in the Tod Browning classic "Freaks") before a cascade of unscrupulous management and harsh mistreatment brought their careers (and lives) tumbling down. This engrossing glimpse into a bygone era is filled with fascinating interviews and rare archival footage.
A circus barker stages a sensational new act, the world's longest fast undertaken by “Sapolio”, on view in a glass cage. But this act also results in several murders, a kidnapping, and a poisoning!
Three episodes. Faith: a woman is attacked. Hope: a fakir is crucified. Charity: a woman faces bureaucracy.
Drawing upon a vast and richly visual archive and featuring a host of performers, historians and aficionados, this four-hour mini-series follows the rise and fall of the gigantic, traveling tented railroad circus and brings to life an era when Circus Day would shut down a town and its stars were among the most famous people in the country.
Five disparate youths, lost on a road trip to the location of the infamous 'mangrove slasher,' end up being pursued by a cadre of cannibal clowns.
A Treasury Department agent on the trail of an international jewel smuggling ring joins a carnival that he thinks the gang is using as a front. He finally locates the jewels hidden as the eyes of wax figures.
Melbhattan. Melbhattan is part homage, part pastiche of the opening sequence of Woody Allen's seminal 1979 film Manhattan. Melbhattan features more than sixty black and white tableaux of Melbourne each composed to mimic images in Allen's film.
When a young boy disappears, a man desperate for the offered reward money turns up with an identical child.
A carnival barker convinces a rube to take part in the baseball pitching game.
After receiving a series of anonymous love notes, Spidora, a performer in a carnival Side Show, is finally encouraged to meet her secret admirer. But is he real or just an illusion?
This film tells you about a group of indigent disabled Americans travelling in a self styled freak show. Its shot in a rough and ready manner by an English disabled filmmaker who travels along with them across the western states of the USA.
