Defining Favourites: Freaks (1932)

Tod Browning's horror classic sheds light on those who are coldly looked down upon by the status quo.

Photo: Warner Bros.

Welcome to my Defining Favourites, a section dedicated to essays about films that I feel confident in calling favourites in some way or another - akin to Roger Ebert’s “Great Movies” reviews. These essays are for paid subscribers, so if you would like to read more beyond the free preview, please consider subscribing.

Directed by Tod Browning
Screenplay by Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon, from the short story Spurs by Tod Robbins
Produced by Tod Browning
Starring Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates, Harry Earles
Premiere Date: February 12, 1932
Running Time: 62 minutes

Tod Browning’s Freaks caused quite the stir upon its release in 1932, for audiences were often put off by the actors on screen portraying the “freaks” in question. Oddly enough, this just happened to be part of the point that Tod Browning was making with such a film: who are the real freaks in the world? Are they the people who appear abnormal to us, or are they the ones that are put on display and exploited for their own deformities? Perhaps it also begs us the question as to why should we be afraid to explore what we supposedly believe is unnatural. For the greatest freak show may not actually be at the circus.

It's not hard to see why Freaks would be so off-putting for audiences in 1932. The concept that such people also happen to be regular human beings might very well be offensive to them, especially if audiences would be used to seeing the deformities within the context of freak shows. The idea of revolting deformities is one that many circuses have turned into a spectacle, and perhaps that might be where the idea of Freaks being a horror movie can come forth. But that doesn’t even come close to being where the scariest moments of Freaks can spring forth. Instead, it’s the fact that we all refuse to see these people as anything more than “freaks.”