"Freaks" is a movie I have avoided for a long time. Just the subject matter of it made me intensely uncomfortable, and I didn't want to have that feeling of being party to a crime by being a willing spectator to it, as a lot of horrible exploitation flicks have made me feel.
Well, I was wrong to avoid it, it turns out. The movie was disastrous for great director Tod Browning (of the most famous version of "Dracula" fame). It might be one of the most widely banned movies of all time, and is indeed still technically banned in some parts of America.
All the complainers missed the point. "Freaks", unfortunately named as it is, comes down heavily on the side of the side-show people it is believed to exploit. You never get the sense that we are supposed to gawk at them. I was not surprised to find that Browning himself was a circus performer, a contortionist who some might just as well have labelled a "freak". The movie puts us in their world. In fact, it feels as though we are invited to marvel at how well those differently abled are allowed to live; observe the scene where the man who is a quadruple amputee lights a cigarette, and the ease with which the "half boy" gets around. The "normal" people are the outsiders, and the bad guys, whose exploitation of the little people turns psychopathic when they realise how much money might be involved.
The final, amazing end sequence, with the performers gathering in a rain storm for revenge, was unfortunately cut in the version I saw, but the final shot of what happens to the villainess is still shocking, as is much of the material, all the more so because you know what you're seeing is real. This is no CGI or animatronic fest, it's a movie from 1932.
I say take the risk and check it out. There's no other experience like it in the movies. It was, and continues to be, completely misunderstood.
Well, I was wrong to avoid it, it turns out. The movie was disastrous for great director Tod Browning (of the most famous version of "Dracula" fame). It might be one of the most widely banned movies of all time, and is indeed still technically banned in some parts of America.
All the complainers missed the point. "Freaks", unfortunately named as it is, comes down heavily on the side of the side-show people it is believed to exploit. You never get the sense that we are supposed to gawk at them. I was not surprised to find that Browning himself was a circus performer, a contortionist who some might just as well have labelled a "freak". The movie puts us in their world. In fact, it feels as though we are invited to marvel at how well those differently abled are allowed to live; observe the scene where the man who is a quadruple amputee lights a cigarette, and the ease with which the "half boy" gets around. The "normal" people are the outsiders, and the bad guys, whose exploitation of the little people turns psychopathic when they realise how much money might be involved.
The final, amazing end sequence, with the performers gathering in a rain storm for revenge, was unfortunately cut in the version I saw, but the final shot of what happens to the villainess is still shocking, as is much of the material, all the more so because you know what you're seeing is real. This is no CGI or animatronic fest, it's a movie from 1932.
I say take the risk and check it out. There's no other experience like it in the movies. It was, and continues to be, completely misunderstood.