Step right up. We’ve got killer clowns, pissed-off lions, questionable fortune tellers, and a prom night that really could’ve used a fire marshal.
Every year, Monster Mash gives us an excuse to get together with our friends in the grooming industry and make some weird shit. This year’s Carnival of Curiosities brought nine brands under one big top, each with their own performer and their own take on what that character should become.
Naturally, that got me thinking about movies. So here are ten films to watch alongside this year’s collection, with one for each attraction and a final pick for the whole damn carnival. Turn the lights down, get the snacks ready, and try to avoid audience participation.
1. The Funhouse (1981)
Four teenagers visit a traveling carnival and decide it would be fun to spend the night inside the funhouse after closing. That’s already a questionable idea, but things get considerably worse when they witness a murder and realize they’re locked in with somebody who has no intention of letting them leave. Suddenly, getting caught by their parents is pretty far down the list of things to worry about.
Tobe Hooper makes the whole carnival feel filthy, creepy, and just believable enough that you’d probably still buy a ticket. There are flickering lights, strange attractions, and people you really shouldn’t follow behind a curtain. It’s a great October watch if you like the feeling that the fun stops the second the crowd goes home. The barker got you through the door. Finding your way back out is your problem.
Fun fact: Kevin Conway plays three different carnival barkers: the freak-show barker, the strip-show barker, and the funhouse barker. Apparently, this carnival’s staffing budget was going toward something else.
Bring the show home: Lockhart’s Carnival Barker Dry Shampoo Styling Clay
Our own silver-tongued showman brings texture, volume, oil absorption, and conditioning to the act. A fitting pick for a movie where the guy inviting you inside probably knows more than he’s telling you.
2. Carrie (1976)
Carrie White is a shy teenager dealing with relentless bullying at school and an intensely religious mother at home. She’s also discovering that she can move things with her mind, which becomes a fairly serious development when her classmates decide to turn prom night into one more opportunity to humiliate her. Some people really need to learn when to leave somebody the hell alone.
Brian De Palma spends enough time making you care about Carrie that the eventual chaos hits harder than a simple revenge scene. Sissy Spacek is fantastic, Piper Laurie is terrifying, and the whole movie builds toward an evening nobody is walking away from unchanged. It’s uncomfortable, tragic, and full of fire. Throw it on when you want a horror classic that still makes you wish somebody would stop the prank before it happens.
Fun fact: Both Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie received Oscar nominations for Carrie. Getting two acting nominations out of a horror movie about a disastrous prom is a pretty solid night’s work.
Bring the show home: Dauntless Fire Breather Pre-Styling Cream
The Fire Breather takes this spot for obvious, highly flammable reasons. Dauntless’s pre-styling cream helps build volume, texture, and control before your final styling product goes in. Keep the dramatic height. Skip the burning gymnasium.
3. Santa Sangre (1989)
Fénix grew up in a circus with a knife-throwing father and a mother whose religious devotion comes with some deeply disturbing baggage. A horrific childhood event follows him into adulthood, where his relationship with his mother becomes the center of a nightmare involving performance, obsession, and murder. If you came here expecting a pleasant evening under the big top, you took a very wrong turn.
Alejandro Jodorowsky fills this movie with images that feel like they crawled straight out of somebody’s worst dream. The circus setting is beautiful and unsettling, and the violence has a way of making every performance feel dangerous. This is the strangest, heaviest stop on the list. Give it your attention and let it get under your skin. The knife-throwing acts make it a fitting companion for our Sword Swallower, another performer whose entire job depends on blades going exactly where they’re supposed to.
Fun fact: Jodorowsky’s sons Adán and Axel play Fénix as a child and an adult. That’s one hell of a family filmmaking project.
Bring the show home: Shear Revival Sword Swallower Strong Hold Clay
Shear Revival’s contribution delivers strong hold, defined texture, and a dry matte finish. Precise control feels appropriate for this particular attraction. Some performances leave very little room for mistakes.
4. Anaconda (1997)
A documentary crew heads into the Amazon and picks up a stranded snake hunter who claims he can help them. Unfortunately, Jon Voight’s character has his own plans, and they involve a snake large enough to make everybody on the boat reconsider their career choices. Being trapped in the jungle is bad. Being trapped in the jungle with this guy and an enormous hungry reptile is considerably worse.
Anaconda is a great excuse to get some friends together and yell at the screen. Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube try to keep the expedition alive while Voight looks like he’s enjoying every second of being an absolute lunatic. The snake is huge, the decisions are terrible, and the movie understands the appeal of watching something slither out of the water that nobody should be trying to wrestle. Venomous Maximus would probably call that a normal workday.
Fun fact: The giant snake was created using both animatronics and computer animation. Some of that oversized nightmare was physically on set, which seems like a good way to keep the cast awake.
Bring the show home: Pomp’s Not Dead Venomous Maximus Firm Hold Pomade
Our serpent-pit performer comes with firm oil-based hold, low shine, and the ability to restyle throughout the day. Get your hair under control before attempting anything else. Especially anything with fangs.
5. Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Loan officer Christine Brown refuses an elderly woman’s request for another mortgage extension, hoping the decision will help her get ahead at work. Instead, she ends up cursed and facing a supernatural deadline with a pretty unpleasant destination. She turns to a psychic for help, but knowing what’s coming doesn’t exactly make the situation easier. Suddenly, a bad performance review sounds like a lovely problem to have.
Sam Raimi takes this setup and puts Christine through an increasingly disgusting series of supernatural attacks. There’s nasty physical comedy, relentless bad luck, and a willingness to make you laugh right before something awful happens. It has that familiar Raimi energy where the camera, the sound, and the effects all seem determined to torment the main character. Perfect Halloween viewing if you like your curses messy and your predictions extremely difficult to hear.
Fun fact: Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan developed the story years before the film reached theaters. Raimi said they wrote the original short story in 1989. That curse took its time getting here.
Bring the show home: The Classics Pomade Company Palm Reader Heavy Wax Pomade
The Palm Reader belongs with a movie about finding out your future and immediately wishing you hadn’t. Classics brings heavyweight hold and medium shine for classic styles. At least your hair’s fate is a little easier to manage.
6. The Dead Zone (1983)
Johnny Smith wakes from a five-year coma to find that his old life has moved on without him. He also discovers that touching people can trigger visions of their past or future. That might sound useful until you start seeing things nobody should have to see, including a politician whose ambitions could have catastrophic consequences. Johnny has to figure out what responsibility comes with knowing something terrible before it happens.
This is a quieter, colder entry in the lineup, and Christopher Walken gives it a sadness that sticks with you. David Cronenberg lets the dread build around Johnny’s isolation and the horrible choices his visions force him to consider. Put it on when you want something that makes you think between the scares. Our Fortune Teller could probably appreciate his problem: everybody wants to know what’s coming until you actually tell them.
Fun fact: Martin Sheen plays the dangerous politician Greg Stillson, years before playing President Jed Bartlet on The West Wing. Very different reasons to be nervous about the guy getting into office.
Bring the show home: Lodestar Grooming Fortune Teller Matte Styling Cream
Lodestar’s Fortune Teller brings firm, workable hold, natural texture, and a matte finish, with a scent built around incense, clove, amber, and cedarwood. A good companion for a cold night and an unsettling glimpse of tomorrow.
7. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
A young couple finds what looks like a circus tent outside town and decides to investigate. Inside are alien creatures dressed like grotesque clowns, and their plans for the local population have very little to do with birthday parties. Cotton candy starts looking suspicious. So does the popcorn. Honestly, just stop touching things.
This movie commits to its idea so completely that every familiar circus gag becomes another opportunity for something horrible and ridiculous. The creature designs are fantastic, the colors are loud, and the whole thing has the energy of an effects crew being told to go absolutely nuts. It’s an easy pick for a Halloween movie night with friends. You know exactly what the title promises, and the movie spends its runtime happily delivering it.
Fun fact: The punk band The Dickies performed the movie’s theme song. If you’ve seen the film, there’s a decent chance it started playing in your head before you finished reading that sentence.
Bring the show home: Ace High Killer Clown Oil-Based Hair Clay
Ace High’s Killer Clown brings firm, pliable hold, texture, and volume with a low-shine finish. This pairing pretty much picked itself. Keep the clown on the label and your distance from any mysterious circus tents.
8. The Toxic Avenger (1984)
Melvin is a scrawny janitor at a Tromaville health club, where the regulars seem committed to being the worst people imaginable. A cruel prank sends him into toxic waste, transforming him into a hideously mutated creature with superhuman strength. He puts that strength to work cleaning up the town, although his methods involve considerably more broken bodies than your average neighborhood improvement project.
This is the original Troma mess in all its filthy glory. The violence is outrageous, the humor is questionable, and Toxie somehow becomes a guy you want to root for while doing things you probably shouldn’t describe over dinner. It’s a great pick when you want a monster movie with absolutely no interest in behaving itself. For our Mighty Samson, the connection is simple: sometimes the strongest guy in the room is also the strangest.
Fun fact: This wildly inappropriate cult movie eventually inspired Toxic Crusaders, a children’s cartoon that debuted in 1991. Somebody watched Toxie and thought, “We can sell this to kids.” Apparently, they were right.
Bring the show home: Samson’s Haircare Mighty Samson Strong Hold Pomade
Mighty Samson supplies heavyweight styling control for hair that needs some serious structure. The carnival’s strongman is a fitting match for Tromaville’s strongest mutant. No toxic-waste bath required.
9. Beast (2022)
Dr. Nate Samuels takes his two daughters to South Africa hoping the trip will help them reconnect after the death of their mother. Things go very wrong when they encounter a rogue lion that starts hunting them. What was supposed to be a family trip turns into a fight to survive, with a vehicle offering considerably less protection than anybody would like.
Sometimes a creature thriller works because the setup is simple and the danger is immediate. Beast gives Idris Elba a very large problem with teeth and keeps the pressure on. It’s tense, physical, and full of moments where you’ll be telling people to get back in the damn car. Our Lion Tamer gets the pairing here, although this particular lion doesn’t seem interested in taking direction.
Fun fact: Director Baltasar Kormákur also made Everest (2015). Apparently, he’s very comfortable sending movie characters somewhere beautiful and making the experience absolutely miserable.
Bring the show home: The Holy Black Lion Tamer Beard Oil
The Holy Black’s Lion Tamer helps soften unruly facial hair and condition the skin underneath, making your beard easier to manage. A considerably more reasonable way to tame a wild mane.
10. Freaks (1932)
A trapeze artist learns that a fellow circus performer has inherited money and decides to marry him for it, while secretly plotting with the circus strongman. She badly underestimates the community she’s trying to exploit. The performers look after their own, and somebody taking advantage of one of them is going to have a very unpleasant time.
Freaks is the right film to close out this collection because the entire sideshow matters. Tod Browning gives its performers personalities, relationships, and loyalties before showing what happens when outsiders treat them with cruelty. It’s unsettling, sad, and still capable of getting under your skin nearly a century later. Watch it for the carnival atmosphere, but pay attention to who actually deserves your sympathy. It gives our Carnival of Curiosities a fitting final act.
Fun fact: Browning cast real sideshow performers, including conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton and performer Johnny Eck. The people at the center of the film brought their own stage experience into its circus world.
Bring the show home: Monster Mash 2026: Carnival of Curiosities Box Set
Bring home the entire show with all nine Monster Mash products in one collector’s box. Carnival Barker, Fire Breather, Sword Swallower, Venomous Maximus, Palm Reader, Fortune Teller, Killer Clown, Mighty Samson, and Lion Tamer. After ten movies, you’ve earned the full damn carnival.
Pick Your Attraction
Ten films. Nine attractions. One very questionable night at the carnival.
Pick something you haven’t seen, invite somebody over, and see which act sticks with you after the credits roll. If your movie night leaves you wanting to bring part of the show home, explore the Monster Mash Carnival of Curiosities collection.
Happy Halloween, you weirdos.
