| Product: |
Freaks (DVD) |
| Date: |
23/10/05 (399 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: It's not quite like any other film I've seen
Disadvantages: The film is exploitative and quite badly made
Freaks, a horror film made in 1932, was hugely controversial when released. One of MGM’s few horror films, it flopped disastrously, and for years was only exhibited on the shadowy exploitation circuit alongside nonsense like Reefer Madness. Rediscovered in the 60s, it’s since gained quite a following among horror fans and cineastes, although it’s still capable of stirring up controversy. (Predictably enough, it was banned for decades in this country.)
Set in a circus somewhere in Europe, the film features a wealthy midget, Hans, part of the circus’s freak show. Although engaged to another midget, he falls in love with the beautiful (and normal-sized) trapeze artist, Cleopatra. She plays along with him, planning to marry him for his money and then bump him off, aided and abetted by her lover, Hercules, the circus strongman. The rest of the freaks are wise to their mischief, though.
The controversy stems from the fact that, rather than use ‘normal’ actors smothered in makeup like horror films usually did, Freaks cast real-life circus sideshow performers as the freaks. Instead of Boris Karloff painted green and with a gammy eye, the film has a parade of pinheads, midgets, Siamese twins, bearded ladies and people missing various limbs. Perhaps the most visually striking are Johnny Eck, who only has half a body (the top half), and Rardian, who has no limbs at all. The film originally flopped because audiences didn’t actually want to see people like that on screen (or didn’t want to admit to it – circus freak shows were very popular but were probably not something you’d boast about enjoying – a bit like porn today, I guess).
Advocates for the film maintain that the freaks are presented in a sympathetic and humane light, being shown as real people in a vibrant and supportive community. And there are elements of that, as they go about their daily business, interacting with the normal circus folk and so on. But I don’t really think that the film-makers’ intentions extended much beyond exploitation. The freaks are there to be ogled, just as they were in their real circuses. Even when they are doing relatively ordinary things, the audience is obviously supposed to find it riotously funny, because they aren’t ordinary people. Their otherness is stressed throughout, especially in a particularly crazy banquet scene (they’re described as ‘blunders of nature’ in the film’s introduction – hardly the most compassionate description). There are two romantic sub-plots in the film – one, involving a (normal) clown and a (normal) seal trainer, is played straight. The other, involving two female Siamese twins and their respective admirers is played for laughs (‘Haw haw, just imagine what *their* wedding night’s going to be like, eh fellas?’)
Eventually the freaks do turn nasty in impressive style (wouldn’t be much of a horror film if they didn’t). Having supposedly built up the idea that they’re just like everyone else, the film then turns them into typical horror movie monsters. During the banquet scene, the evil Cleopatra regards the freaks first with amusement, then with revulsion. We are presumably supposed to feel the same. This is a thoroughly exploitative film all the way.
I do kind of like it though. It’s completely different to anything else I’ve seen (except maybe the all-midget Western, The Terror of Tiny Town, although it’s a lot better than that). It’s not actually very well made – the director, Tod Browning, had just made Dracula for Universal, but he was never a great director after the silent era. (Browning had worked in circuses before he made it to Hollywood, and was probably working out some personal demons in Freaks – he made a few other circus films, and seems to have been a bit of a weird character.)
Only an hour long, the film is badly paced (although a lot of that is probably down to when it was made – the film-making style of the early 30s is incredibly dated now). It’s really only the last 20 minutes that make it worth watching, with the final shot being rewardingly ludicrous. The acting is pretty atrocious. The freaks themselves aren’t very good at doing much other than looking weird (although the Siamese twins, Johnny Eck and one of the dwarfs are actually pretty good). The two main midgets (Hans and his fiancée) have extremely thick Germanic accents, and their dialogue is frequently incomprehensible. Even worse are Cleopatra and Hercules, who don’t even have the excuse of not being professional actors. Olga Baclanova (Cleopatra) had been quite a big star before talkies, and her style is very much that of silent cinema, being very melodramatic and exaggerated. Hercules is much the same, and they’re both ludicrously unpleasant, almost like pantomime villains (he’s seen punching an hermaphrodite at one point – that’s pretty low). It really seems as if the film was almost an afterthought, a weak excuse for putting the freaks on screen for our amusement.
The DVD is released by Warners, so there are plenty of extras. There are alternate endings (sadly not some of the more legendary lurid stuff that was cut, just various edits of the existing footage, although there’s a rather dull epilogue, that I hadn’t seen before). There’s a good, hour-long documentary, introduced by film historian David Skal, who’s written one of the best books on horror films (The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror) and a biography of Tod Browning. The documentary is mainly notable because it goes through pretty much all the freaks who appear in the film and discusses their lives and careers, thereby giving them a measure of the dignity and humanity that the film refuses to. There are contributions from various other people, including the last surviving Munchkin and that pretentious bearded lady who always turns up in these kinds of things.
There’s also a commentary by David Skal. I don’t normally enjoy film-historian commentaries, but this one’s pretty informative and worth checking out. Skal knows his stuff, and is generally a pretty entertaining guy to listen to, even though he’s obviously reading his commentary from notes rather than reacting spontaneously to things he’s seeing.
The DVD has a 15 certificate. I don’t think I know of any other horror film from the era that’s higher than a PG. Although the film is rather more adult than a lot of 30s films (it was made just before censorship became compulsory), any of the vaguely suggestive moments are ridiculously tame by today’s standards. The only possible conclusion is that the BBFC thinks we have to be 15 or older in order to watch a film featuring people with physical disabilities. Meaning that it’s taking part in precisely the same process of marginalising such people as the freak shows themselves were. Which is interesting, to say the least. (This rating may hark back to the James Ferman era of the BBFC, when maddening and ludicrous decisions were the norm, but surely they could have put it right for the latest release?)
Freaks should be pretty cheap to buy – I got my copy from HMV for £6. It’s exploitation all the way, and some may find it offensive for that reason. Others will be put off by the rather archaic style of the film. Personally I rather like it, and it’s certainly something you should check out if you like old horror films. Not a film that could be made today, but at the very least it’s an interesting glimpse into old attitudes and hang-ups.
Summary: A nice DVD presentation of an exploitation classic
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