A telekinetic and mind-reading magician, along with his talking chimp sidekick, become the main-attraction in the carnival. The animal trainer who is no longer the star plans to kidnap the chimp and send him off to an animal-experimenting lab.

For the longest time, Carnival Magic remained but a legend within underground film circles. That is, until a near-perfect 35mm print was discovered in the late-00s, buried in a warehouse piled high with old film canisters.

See for yourself one of the most bizarre “childrens” movies ever made—the tale of a fading carny and the talking chimpanzee that comes to its rescue. Markov the Magnificent (Don Stewart) is a magician who carries on regular conversations with his pet chimp, Alexander the Great. When some unsavory types appear on the scene taking an interest in the exceptional pet, a drunken tiger-tamer (one-time star of the traveling circus whose top-billing has been snatched away), is more than willing to help conspire in the chimp’s abduction.

Meanwhile, the parade of in appropriate behavior and “colorful” carny folk that peppers the rest of the film is far beyond anything you’d ever witness in a Disney movie, that’s for sure!

Most of the credit, of course, goes to the film’s director, Al Adamson. During the course of his career, Adamson put together a B-movie resume to rival that of Roger Corman or Ed Wood—a list of grindcore, blaxploitation and drive-in gems that include titles such as Satan’s Sadists, Black Samurai, and Naughty Stewardesses. Carnival Magic would be one of the last films he made before retiring from the movie business altogether. Years later he was, somewhat bizarrely, murdered by a contractor remodeling the master bathroom in his home (his body later discovered encased in cement beneath the recently-installed hot tub). Not coincidentally, the film’s female star, Regina Carrol, was also Adamson’s wife and a regular feature in his films.