FREAKS

The most beautiful woman in a circus, the acrobat and star of the entire show, strangely decides to marry one of the dwarfs from the traveling troupe. However, the true reason driving the woman to marry this unfortunate man is not love but greed: she is after the dwarf's substantial inheritance and, just a few days after the wedding, attempts to poison him. The other dwarfs and the other 'freaks' of the circus notice this and devise a terrible plan for revenge against her. Directed by Tod Browning, one of the pioneers of the horror genre, “Freaks” stands as one of the most remarkable and unsettling films of all time. Distributed by MGM, it was pulled from theaters almost immediately after its initial screenings due to strong protests from audiences who, after watching the film, felt 'scandalized' and 'disturbed.' Browning, in fact, used real 'freaks of nature' to shoot the film; the actors portraying the 'circus freaks' were genuinely so! Among them, one can see: a skeleton man, conjoined twins, dwarfs, a hermaphrodite, the bearded woman, the bird man, and, most unsettling of all, the human torso, a man without arms or legs. Beyond the morbid and, in part, justified curiosity one might have to see these unfortunate individuals, the film deserves recognition for other, more significant reasons. Despite being made in 1932, neither the direction nor the actors' performances suffer from the theatricality and slowness typical of the era. Additionally, the director's work includes some excellent touches, such as the idea of the opening prologue and the fantastic yet horrifying final scene where we witness the fate of the acrobat's lover, attacked by a mob of freaks armed to the teeth (when you watch the film, you'll understand that no expression is more fitting to describe this scene...). Lastly, it should be noted that there are two versions of the film, one of which, likely an attempt to 'soften' the story, features a partially different ending (there's about an extra minute showing a 'happy ending' where the dwarfs are married and happily enjoying the inheritance). The film, long unavailable, has recently been re-released on video and is now relatively easy to find.