Please note: This venue is on the 2nd Floor and is not wheelchair accessible.
Directed by Chicory Wees, USA, Documentary Feature, 01:35:06, NYC Premiere
A scrappy sensational sideshow revival act playing Seattle dive bars is suddenly propelled into the big time, riding the same wave that brought grunge rock crashing into mainstream culture. Circus of the Scars follows the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow on a relentless and controversial world tour as they rise from obscurity to international infamy. Sold out audiences gape in horror and howl with laughter, but behind-the-scenes, inner struggles and battles with their maniacal ring leader push the troupe ever closer to an early implosion.
"How many faints tonight? Did anybody get a faint count?" Matt 'the Tube' Crowley, the Amazing Mister Lifto, the Torture King, The Enigma and the maniacal hype master Jim Rose recount their early 1990s circus sideshow troupe.
Circus of the Scars introduces you to bizarre humans that caused a sideshow sensation in the early 1990s. You will enter their world where a faint was always better than a standing ovation.
ONE WORD OF WARNING: When you view the Circus of the Scars documentary you will be entering another world, another realm, another dimension -- the strange world of real sideshow performers. What you see here you will never forget.
Why did Slug the Sword Swallower choose to tattoo his entire body and become The Enigma? Why did the young Torture King stick pins into his arms in grade school? Why did the eccentric pharmacist from Montana leave his high-paying pharmacy job to have his stomach pumped nightly?
And what inspired the Amazing Mister Lifto to lift two steam irons from the part of him that's most a Mister?
The most imaginative casting agent couldn't have chosen the original 1991 troupe with more flair: The Amazing Mister Lifto; The Enigma; Matt the Tube Crowley with Dolly the Doll Lady and led by the maniacal hype-master himself: Jim Rose. Here they recount how they came together to revive the ancient art of Sideshow , , , which had been nearly lost . . . but not forgotten.
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