323-366-9539 voicemail
Zamora is the first performer of his kind to have a show in
a Las Vegas casino. He moved to Vegas in 2003 when he was asked to star in the
show SHOCK at The Bourbon Street Casino (now a vacant lot). Since then he has
been featured in several shows in several hotels and Casinos including The
Aruba, The Greek Isles and The Palace Station. Zamora currently has no regular
show in Las Vegas however there is "something cooking" Join the
mailing list for updates on Vegas shows and touring shows.
Zamora was the featured Midnight Act at Jeff McBride's
Wonderground at The Palace Station Casino. This review was published in the Los
Angeles Times and reprinted on the Vegas.com website.
Wonderground Review: Nov. 2008
The night is still young when a slight man with silver
streaks in his hair quietly drags his personal bed of swords past the blackjack
tables and into the Sound Trax Showroom at Palace Station.
"That's our midnight show, Zamora the Torture
King," says magician Jeff McBride matter-of-factly, as he stands in front
of the showroom welcoming guests to his new nightclub, Wonderground. "He's
a faqir, a Middle Eastern holy man who can transcend the human realm. He was on
"Ripley's Believe it or Not."
Later in the evening Zamora removes his silk smoking jacket
and plunges a sharp skewer through his bicep to the horror and amazement of
those in attendance.
"Did you see that!?" asks an excited McBride
jumping up from his seat. "That's not an illusion. That's real. Not a drop
of blood! It's mind over matter."
As tempting as it may sound, please do not attempt this
stunt at home. This is the kind of thing that's best left to the professionals
at Wonderground.
Every Friday and Saturday night following McBride's show,
Magic at the Edge, the showroom is transformed into a mystical mecca for the
weird, wacky and wonderful. Those thirsty for a diversion from the drunken Las
Vegas club scene, gather for a magical evening, where velvet ropes and VIP
table service give way to sideshow acts, performance art and close-up magic.
Yes, there's cocktail service, a DJ spinning techno music,
scantily clad go-go girls and evanescent flashing lights. But there's also a
painter putting her brush to a blank easel to create live art, jugglers
skillfully traversing the room and balloon twisters blowing life into enormous
multicolored, potentially popping sculptures.
While most Las Vegas clubs are specifically designed to help
people forget their reality, McBride says Wonderground is built for those who
want to remember.
"Our club is an alternative to alternative
nightlife," says McBride, an acclaimed magician and director of McBride's
Magic and Mystery School in Las Vegas. "We offer enlightened
nightlife."
Zamora produced a limited run show to tie in with the publication of his book
Weird Las Vegas. The show,
Vegas After Midnight, was in the showroom at the
Aruba Hotel on The Las Vegas Strip and was "Pick of the Week" in Las Vegas City Life.
Las Vegas City Life
06/09/2007
CityLife doesn't make a habit of recommending variety shows, but this one sounds so cool we just couldn't resist. Running Sept. 9-20, Vegas After Midnight: A Late Night Variety Show stars Zamora the Torture King -- he of Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, and TV's Ripley's and Guinness World Records infamy. Zamora's real name is Tim Cridland, and when he's not walking barefoot on broken glass or having concrete blocks smashed against his chest with a sledgehammer, he pens articles for the world's top paranormal magazines. Cridland co-authored the just-published Weird Las Vegas and Nevada: Your Alternative Travel Guide to Sin City and the Silver State, which he'll be signing copies of at every nightly performance. If you're looking for uncanny kicks, Zamora's show should satisfy. Jarret Keene
Zamora was a performer, researcher and occasional tour guide
in The Haunted Vegas Tour and Show at The Greek Isles Casino. It was a Las Vegas
City Life Pick of The Week.
Las Vegas City Life Pick of the Week 03/09/2006
The horror-inspired Haunted Vegas sideshow starring
"Ripley's TV" fire-eating geek Zamora precedes the Haunted Vegas tour
in order to prime your senses for brain-stem level gooseflesh reactions while
on the bus. However, the creators insist this is no "ghosts and goblins'
amusement park ride" for the kiddies (16 and older please) but one meant
to educate the public about documented spectral activity in Sin City. Most of
the two-hour tour is spent safely on the bus with the exception of one
leg-stretching foray into a haunted park. The morbid ride will take you to the
alleged otherworld digs of unquiet celebrities. Many will be familiar to
longtime Las Vegans: from Bugsy Siegel's reputed attachment to the Flamingo to
the spot where Tupac Shakur was murdered. There is even a stop at an
unspecified "Motel of Death" where a number of celebrities are said
to have checked in, never to leave.
Check out the ghost tour website at Hauntedvegastours.com
for a series of skepticism-allaying blurry photographs taken by actual
passengers on Haunted Vegas tours such as the mysterious blur shot in front of
Carluccio's Tivoli Gardens captioned simply, "Liberace." B.B.
For more info about Haunted Vegas click HERE
Zamora was the featured performer in show SHOCK at The
Bourbon Street Casino. SHOCK was the first show of its kind in a Las Vegas
casino. Below are some reviews of the show.
Insider Veiwpoint of Las Vegas
Show Review -
by Insider Viewpoint of Las Vegas Staff
Ratings Range from 1-10, 10 is the Best, 1 is the Worst
"Shock!"
Overall Show Review: 7
Show Location: Bourbon Street
Show Type: Variety
Insider Viewpoint of Las Vegas staff delivers an in depth
show review that gives you the complete picture of what to expect when
attending this show. In determining the Overall Review Rating we research many
categories as well as evaluating the ticket price versus entertainment value.
Show Review
As the name implies, this show will shock you! You may be
shocked even before the show starts. We would like to state, that this show is
not for everybody. For those people who think they have seen it all, step up
and see this show.
The show opens to a punkish rendition of 'Strange' by The
Doors, song by a young lady in leather with a bad retro haircut. This 'opening
song' really set the mood for the show. The male host of the show had an
excellent script thanks to writer and co-producer Robert Allen. The small venue
makes the audience feel part of the show with the performers often coming off
the stage and into the audience.
They introduce us to Zamora, the torture king, the star of
the show. Zamora appears throughout the show performing classic sideshow stunts
and other acts of pain that will have the most macho man grimacing. You will
not see things like this in the popular TV show 'Fear Factor.'
Other acts appear throughout the show that may not shock the
audience, but are sure to make you laugh. The show fits nicely in the aging
Bourbon Street property. It would not surprise us to see this show take off and
be picked up by a more prestigious casino property.
Las Vegas Review-Journal 01/31/2003
SHOCK
Bourbon Street show better fit for Vegas than one might
imagine
By Mike Weatherford
"You gotta be kidding!"
"Don't do it!"
"Oh, that's sick."
You don't hear this at a Wayne Newton show. Well, you might,
but that's another review.
But if the show is called "Shock," such audience
response is high praise indeed. In fact, there was a suitably dark "Twilight
Zone"-worthy twist in store for the college-age guy providing the most
vocal feedback on this particular night.
The guy was quick to volunteer for the hypnotism segment by
Victoria the Enchantress (Victoria Wayne). She seemed nice enough, and in her sensible
pantsuit, appeared to offer a harmless diversion at best, and an annoying
detour at worst.
Instead, Victoria took only two minutes to hypnotize the
young man. She then peeled off the pantsuit to reveal boudoir lingerie, before
subjecting the poor guy to the gentle caress of a boa constrictor, a tarantula
and a cage full of rats, one of which nestled right into his spikey hair gel
and made itself at home.
The little show in the dinky Bourbon Street lounge lives up
to its title with several surprises, and it wouldn't be fair to spill them all
here.
The surprise I can talk about is that "Shock" is
not only well-staged in its Spartan venue, but lighter and funnier than its
obvious inspiration, the Jim Rose Circus.
Time will tell, in fact, if it's a good fit to have one
genuine "geek act" -- Zamora, the Torture King -- as the star of what
would otherwise pass for the type of late-night cabaret show the Strip has been
in need of for a long time.
There's a definite "Rocky Horror Show" vibe to
much of the revue, from the bad TV horror-host puns of emcee Malakai (Ron Keck)
to the singer (Kelly Carl) covering the Doors' "People Are Strange"
and Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party."
But that stuff easily could lapse into the realm of
community theater if it weren't backed up with something of genuine
skin-crawling gravity. Zamora (Tim Cridland) gets right down to the nitty
gritty early on, unwrapping long sterile needles and proceeding to thrust them
through his biceps.
Later he will smash and eat a light bulb. For a grand
finale, he piles up broken glass and walks on the pieces, then lies flat on the
rubble while an audience member hops on his chest.
But even Zamora lightens things up a bit. "People say,
`If you're gonna play Vegas, you've got to make your show a little more
classy,' " he notes, before hanging Christmas ornaments on a string that
he's purportedly swallowed, then extracted from his stomach.
Other acts, such as Aryha, "The High Voltage Girl"
(Deanna Hinshaw) offer what are more obviously illusions, striking a sometimes
uneasy balance with the real stunts. Producers Robert Allen and Scott Lewis
eventually may lean more in one direction than the other, particularly if the
show catches on and the budget provides for more genuine sideshow performers.
Hopefully, those won't come at the expense of the humor and
clever structure. The big irony here is that a show dreamed up for a niche
market might be more for today's Las Vegas mainstream than anyone realizes.
323-366-9539 voicemail
