Freaks12

‘Gooble, gobble, one of us.’ A superb and unique film from that master of the morbid, masochistic and macabre, Tod Browning. The film is set in a travelling circus, where a trapeze artist and her strongman lover plot to kill a wealthy midget but underestimate the solidarity of his freakshow brethren. Browning shows obvious fondness for his cast of ‘freaks’, with vignettes about the love life of siamese twins, how the living torso gets about walking on his arms or the way an armless man lights a cigarette (a roll-up!). A strong black humour and real sense of terror pervade the film. Banned in Britain until the 1960s, it has now achieved deserved recognition as a masterpiece.