Freaks (1932)
Year: 1932
Country: USA
Director: Tod Browning
Reviewed: April 2014
Country: USA
Director: Tod Browning
Reviewed: April 2014
For many years, Freaks was a censored movie, considered violent, exploitive and grotesque. Nowadays, it’s seen as a movie of incredible depth and humanity, a moving celebration of the outsiders of society, the ‘freaks’. This change is fascinating to me, especially given that it is still considered incredibly controversial. I would challenge this. Freaks is a movie I’d wanted to see for a while, but it wasn’t until I viewed American Horror Story: Asylum that I finally got around to it. I was expecting a mildly unnerving film filled with problematic stereotypes and exploitative behaviour. What I got instead was an incredibly heartfelt and beautifully made film. Using actual circus performers, you truly feel for them and come to see them as human, despite what they may look like. Their community is incredibly well-rendered and filled with memorable people. The Human Torso is a personal favourite, but Frieda and Hans, the central couple, are incredibly sweet and you feel deeply for Frieda as we watch Hans fall for the manipulative bitch, Cleopatra. She and her lover, Hercules, are two of the most hateful characters ever committed to screen, especially in the heartbreaking and degrading wedding banquet scene. Other ‘normals’ also make fun of them, which is hateful, but the clown and Venus are likable, as are all of the Sideshow performers before they turn nasty, in a genuinely frightening crawl through the mud. That’s one of the film’s masterstrokes. It shows them not as just gentle freaks, but as human beings who feel rage and get their revenge in the most twisted and fitting of ways (Cleo’s eventual fate, like much of the film, is unforgettable). It’s a film that comes across as strikingly mature, doesn’t make fun of its subjects and in fact shows that the people who do are the true monsters. It’s strange to think now that this was such a daring and challenging film which caused screams and fainting spells from its audience. Nowadays, it seems fairly tame, but still feels mature and fresh. It’s a film unlike any other, because it commands our empathy and love but also shows that if you make fun of someone they’ll get you back. It’s an incredibly empowering and challenging cult masterpiece, with one of the best film lines of all time in ‘Dirty, slimy freaks.’ Like the film, it was initially used as a weapon before being reclaimed and turned into a sense of power, rage and strength against a world that had rejected it.
Best Scene: The heartbreaking and unforgettable wedding banquet
Overall Verdict: 10
Overall Verdict: 10