Right from the get go, we are assailed with a moving wall of text setting up why this film will never be able to be made again (which is true, this had to be made at a certain time for any chance at authenticity) and some mentions of a “code” that exists among the carny folk, among other things.  THIS is where I find FREAKS has the absolute most to offer anyone who watches it in todays morally bankrupt and culturally suicidal society.  For those that don’t know, the main arc examined through FREAKS is that of a couple (A Strongman performer type and a Trapeze broad who happens to be French if the accent was deciphered correctly by yours truly) that is plotting to get the lady in the couple to marry the roaming carnival promoter and then kill him in order to inherit the fortunes he apparently has coming to him.  Of course, our savvy band of deformed oddities and lovable monsters is a step ahead of the nefarious duo and their shady plan and, by the end of the film, kill the man (or at least we are led to believe that they killed him since we never see him again after he is stuck in the ribs with a knife and descended upon by a dozen or so blade wielding freaks crawling underneath a carriage in the middle of a terribly stormy night) and disfigure the trapeze artiste almost beyond recognition making her “one of them.”

Proud to be part of the Carnival of Blood Blogathon!

This is where I usually get to fist pumping and celebrating the no nonsense attitude these people took when dealing with folks who would seek to take advantage of them and, in the end, murder one of their own.  Nowadays, if someone marries into money, people applaud the move, or they get a reality tv show, or they are thought of as clever and smart and the most resentment you will get from the general public is jealousy instead complete and utter disgust.  The forces that control our media and institutions have engineered a climate where everyone is a potential enemy to the millions that is so rightfully yours and if ONLY you could get those sandbagging motherfuckers out of the picture, you would have less competition in your way and could realize your dream of being better than everyone else, consequences be damned.  But the FREAKS survive by travelling and working together to entertain audiences and use the curses that have been so unfairly bestowed upon them as a tool for something not unlike success.  They may be laugh at, teased, and ridiculed, but they have your attention and some of your cash, and they have done it by embracing what they and piquing your curiosity and allowing you to explore those emotions for a nominal fee.  Everyone wins and in a symbiotic and subconscious way, everyone takes care of everyone else.  What the fuck is better than that?

FREAKS Full Movie

Tod Browning's Freaks

Freaks is an old black and white movie from 1932, but don’t let that fool you. There was no political correctness in those days, and it certainly shows in this movie, but not in a bad way.

A beautiful trapese artist in the travelling circus falls in love with Hans, a midget. Coincidence that he is to come in to a large inheritance? We think not. The other midget in the circus warns Hans that she’s after him for his money but he isn’t convinced. Later Hans falls ill and the rest of the travelling circus are suspicious of the trapese artist and her sneaky lover Hercules. They find out she’s been poisoning Hans and gang up on the money grabbing pair, turning the one lovely trapese artist into a freak like them. As the narrative in the movie says, if you insult one freak, you insult them all…

Special effects are zero, all the freaks in the movie are genuine human oddities. There’s everything from midgets, dwarves, people with odd shaped heads, human skeletons, and watch out for the ‘caterpillar dude’ (TM, Ronnie) who is just a torso with a head, no seriously… he has no limbs what-so-ever and just crawls about like a caterpillar, VERY spooky. As if that’s not bad enough there’s a guy with no hips/legs who runs using his arms and hands! It is easily the spookiest thing I have ever seen in a film. At one point in the film he’s ‘sitting’ on the ground, but it just looks like some dude thats been buried up to his waist.

Cleopatra (the trapese artist) and Hans (the perv)

It (unfortunately) wasn’t in the version I viewed, but apparently there is an alternative, now considered lost, ending where Hercules is castrated and ends up as a castrato. That ending would have been the icing on the cake for this film, I want it found and restored!

one of the ‘pinhead’ kids

Other than the freaks themselves, the ending (below) is extremely creepy, it’s like a miniature/deformed Dawn of the Dead with midgets walking, toward Hercules, through the rain with nothing but evil in their eyes.

Run away! It’s a ginormous wagon wheel!

I’m not quite sure how this managed to get a DVD release, as I’d have thought the PC freaks (pun intended) would have interjected and demanded a ban, but no, and thank God for sense and reason! Although apparently it was banned for thirty years in the UK, hardly a surprise for the UK.

Freaks is a good film, the ‘people with unusual physical characteristics’, while in a circus, are shown living (relatively) normal lives and seem to enjoy what they’re doing. Although one actor did denounce the movie as offensive. But I’m sure he/she still accepted their wage. Freaks is a classic movie, and deserves at least one watch for it’s curiosity factor.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022913/]