(courtesy of MGM)
Spoiler alert: Warning this article may contain plot-spoiling information.
Director Tod Browning took a chance portraying genuine human oddities—despite fears of offending public taste—and opened the door to a whole new level of horror films.
“Freaks” is about a dwarf named Hans (played by Harry Earles) who falls in love with Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), the beautiful trapeze artist. The other “freaks” in the carnival discover that the only reason she wants to marry him is because of his inheritance.
The situation for Hans goes from bad to worse, when Hans falls sick from being poisoned. When the sideshow performers find out who is poisoning him, they deal out their own brand of justice.
Though directed by Browning, who also directed “Dracula,” the film is closer to a drama film with an eerie twist rather than horror. But the movie is very freaky to say the least. Most actors in the film could actually be in freak shows, like the conjoined twins, the half-man, half-woman and the man without limbs. The vintage black and white filming gives it an edge of darkness; while the acting and methodical direction brilliantly builds suspense through the climactic revenge of the freaks.
The film is fast-paced, short and to the point. It draws the audience in and keeps them enthralled until the end.
Though the movie is sympathetic to the sideshow performers, it is creepy in the truest sense of the word. During the infamous “One of us” scene the sideshow performers chant, “We accept you, one of us! Gooble gobble!” and the audience is on edge the whole time.
“Freaks” is the only Hollywood movie of the 1930s to graphically portray deformity, and it truly does so with the extremely deformed. It doesn’t demonize the so-called freaks and it doesn’t sanitize them. The film displays the people as they are.
“Freaks” is a window into its times and the world of these carnival performers. It’s the first of its kind, a movie that sympathizes with a tiny, despised minority and dares to allow them to play themselves.
It’s freaky to see how easy it is to fall in love with “Freaks.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Brigid Igoe at Brigid.igoe@colorado.edu.
