One Paragraph Movie Review: Freaks

One hundred and sixty-second film: Freaks, an uncomfortable watch for three reasons. Firstly, the acting is terrible, but that’s primarily because most of the actors aren’t actors, but legitimate circus sideshow performers. Secondly, the film sits right on the spiky midpoint between humanisation and exploitation. On the one hand, we get to see how people with significant physical abnormalities handle everyday tasks like lighting a cigarette or drinking from a glass. On the other hand, these people are performing these tasks in a movie called ‘Freaks’ which is famous for just that. And finally, the film is about people with ‘normal’ bodies ridiculing and taking advantage of those they consider freaks, which you absolutely feel like you’re doing just by watching it, and you swing from empathy to fascination to guilt and back again in a melodramatic, bumpy caravan. It was made by horror director Tod Browning, who doesn’t treat it like a horror. We’re encouraged to regard difference as acceptable, but also to recoil when the female villain becomes a ‘freak’ herself. This isn’t a fun time, but it’s an utterly unique time. Two and a half awkward conjoined wedding nights out of five.