Circus of the Scars

This is Seattle in the '90s! The city was affordable, bands were flocking to town to become the next Nirvana, grunge became a fashion style, and a scrappy street performer named Jim Rose started performing at small clubs with an act designed to shock and appall. He quickly attracted fellow freaks who developed skills that would inspire fainting and worse; people like the Amazing Mister Lifto, Matt "The Tube" Crowley, Zamora the Torture King, and Slug, who would swallow slugs and bugs and swords and later tattooed his entire body and became known as the Enigma. Jim Rose was both carnival barker and ringleader. Pretty soon, the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow is riding the grunge wave onto the 2nd Stage at Lollapalooza. This gritty documentary has footage that dates back to their early days, but also has present-day interviews that puts that footage in a new context. Along with being funny and gross and sometimes infuriating, it's a well-structured doc that follows the ups and downs of how everything developed, where it went, how it turned into world tours, and how it eventually fell apart. (Seattle International Film Festival)