Freaks

(Tod Browning, US 1932, 64 min., 35mm)

Browning's classic, which shocked the world and was partly responsible for the establishment of Hollywood's production code, is still as creepy as it was 90 years ago, if not more. Using genuine sideshow acts like the conjoined Hilton sisters and Johnny Eck the Legless Boy, Freaks tells the story of a corrupt trapeze artist and her seduction of an unfortunate midget. Real-life sideshow freaks band together to effect a most disturbing triumph of good over evil. Director Browning drew upon his own boyhood circus experiences and came up with a film so uniformly shocking that it was severely censored in the US and banned in the UK for over 30 years.