Freaks Review

Let me be perfectly clear before we dig into things: I WANTED to like Freaks.  The idea of a film that serves to remind the public that those with physical abnormalities are still people who just want to live their lives like the rest of us really seemed like a solid concept for a film, not to mention the fact that the film features real circus people.  And the fact that they were throwing in a plot about how true ugliness is on the inside only sweetened the deal.  But time and heightened standards have not been kind to Tod Browning’s cult classic.  Just about everything imaginable in this film is done poorly, from the sub-par acting to the stilted, awkward writing to the lackluster characters and padded-out story.  While it is a delight to see Freaks portray these people in a positive light (mostly), that alone does not make for a compelling or enjoyable experience.

The story is about as bare bones as you can get.  It all centers around Cleopatra, a glamorous acrobat and one of the stars of the sideshow, and Hans, a rich dwarf who has fallen madly in love with her because of her looks alone.  However, not only does Hans already have Frieda, a fellow dwarf, fawning over him, but Cleopatra soon finds out about his large inheritance and after starting a relationship with Hercules, the sideshow’s strongman, Cleopatra plots to marry Hans, poison him, gain his inheritance and run away with it and Hercules.  While that sounds like a premise for a decent story, very little is done with it.  With the hour runtime, only about half of it is devoted to Hans and Cleopatra, meaning not much time is given to properly develop these characters.  The other half, as we’ll soon see, is focused on the other circus freaks, seeing them converse with one another over either Hans and Cleopatra or their own daily lives.  With only half an hour to work with in an hour long film, the main story is simply played far too straight to leave any sort of lasting impact. 

And that’s before we get into the characters themselves, who all feel incredibly 2-dimensional.  Very little effort is made to flesh out these characters beyond their tropes.  Cleopatra is simply a vain narcissist who hates the circus freaks and uses Hans for his money.  Hercules is just the stereotypical macho man who uses his strength to get what he wants.  Venus, who apparently works for the sideshow, even though her role is left unexplained, tries to appeal to us as the wise woman who can’t seem to catch a break, but falls flat due to a lack of screen time.  Furthermore, this lack of development causes the film to absolutely drag, at least until the last 10 minutes, because I can’t bring myself to care for any of these characters if they feel so flat. The one “exception” to this rule would be Hans, as he gradually begins to realize that Cleopatra is simply using him to get to his fortune and sees him as just another oddity to laugh at, causing him to enter a depression over how dim he was to be bedazzled by Cleopatra’s looks and ignore the connection that he has with Frieda.  Unfortunately, this only serves to reveal just how flawed his character is.  On top of being gullible as all hell to think that Cleopatra truly loves him, despites have zero chemistry, he also ogles her right in front of Frieda, completely ambivalent to her feelings.  I just fail to see why we should sympathize with his plight if he goes ahead and displays such unsympathetic behavior. 

Now, to be fair, many of the freaks seem to have potential for expansion, such as the Siamese twins Daisy and Violet trying to balance two different marriages, but are never given enough screen time to develop beyond bit characters.  And the same can really be said for just about every character in Freaks.  They all have a good level of flair and personality and seem more than capable of delivering a solid performance.  But, just like the plot, they never seem to get enough screen time and are simply rushed along through their scenes, as if the director just wanted to jump to the grand finale.

And if you thought the plot and characters being flat was the worst of it, buckle the hell up because things only get worse from here.  When it comes to the script, neither the writing, nor the acting did Freaks any favors.  The writing is beyond stilted.   Perhaps it was simply a product of its time and people simply worked with a different vernacular than ours, but I seriously lost track of the number of awkward, unintelligible lines that were uttered.  Perhaps the bit characters didn’t suffer from this problem, but, once again, our main characters serve to rain all over the parade, as every line they utter comes off as far too theatrical for its own good.  Just listening to one of Hans and Frieda’s exchanges is more than enough to elicit a theater's worth of cringes.

Worse yet is the acting.  Again, the bit characters do a passable job most of the time, but holy mother of Moses are the main characters painful to listen to.  Hercules and Cleopatra are beyond cheesy, acting more like they’re in a drug-induced stupor than actually trying to sound convincing.  However, Hans and Frieda are the main culprits.  Not only are they essentially the polar opposites of Hercules and Cleopatra, in that they act about as stiff as a board, but you can’t even understand what they’re saying half the time.  I’m not joking.  They honestly just mumble half the time and I found myself having to rewind several times just to sort of pick up on what was being said.  It’s great that they went out of their way to use real circus people, but part of me is beginning to wish that they had stuck with actors in costumes if these are the performances they’re going to give us.

Hell, even the camera work could use some fine tuning.  The jump cuts are so sudden that it gives us absolutely no time to fully absorb a scene or set of dialogue, almost as if we were being bum rushed by the pacing.  To be fair, however, the cinematography is relatively effective.  Despite the editing blunders, the cameras spend just the right amount of time focused on each scenario or character’s reaction for us to understand the emotions being conveyed and there are even a couple of clever uses of lighting and camera angles late in the movie that really help to convey the drama of the whole dreary situation, in particular when Frieda confronts Hans in his trailer of sorts over how Cleopatra is obviously using him, causing Hans to move to a shadowy portion of the trailer, staring off into the darkness and dwelling on the predicament as Frieda tries to reach out to him from behind.  But, as effective as the cinematography is, it can only do so much to cover up such dismal performances.

Which brings us back to the eponymous stars of the film: the freaks.  As I brought up before, many of the circus folk are the genuine article. Browning went out of his way to fill the cast with as many legitimate oddities as he could, including Olga Roderick the Bearded Lady, Johnny Eck the Half Boy, Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton and The Living Torso Prince Randian.  This helps to give Freaks a solid feeling of authenticity and makes us feel as if we were actually at the sideshow ourselves.  But the use of the freaks extends beyond simply their presence, as several “slice of life” moments are scattered throughout the film, showing the freaks going about ordinary tasks in their own fashion to show the audience how they are quite similar to us, such as the Human Torso rolling and lighting a cigarette, a woman with no legs drinking out of a glass by using her feet and the Bearded Lady giving birth.  Now, while this does serve its purpose and proves that, despite their appearances, the freaks still have lives to live, that doesn’t mean that it does much, if anything, to benefit the narrative.  It honestly does nothing to add to the plot surrounding Cleopatra and Hans.  Really, the only connection between the main plot and the freaks is that Cleopatra gets drunk late into the film and insults all of them, which in itself was revealed in the main plot.  When you take into account just how shallow and simplistic the main plot is, these scenes with the freaks come off as nothing more than padding.

As for why Cleopatra got drunk, we have to take a look at the ending of the film.  After marrying Hans in order to get to his inheritance, Cleopatra poisons Hans’ drink at the wedding reception, but not without getting drunk and berating the freaks when they begin a small ceremony in order to initiate her as one of them.  After Hercules chases the others off and he and Cleopatra proceed to embarrass Hans, both Hans and the other freaks begin to grow very suspicious of Cleopatra’s true motives, deciding to spy on her while she tends to Hans, whom has been sickened, but not killed, by the poison.   The freaks and Hans soon realize what Cleopatra intends and, during a rather nasty storm, corner Hercules and Cleopatra and proceed to mutilate the two of them in order to make them into true freaks.  Hercules gets a rather light punishment by being castrated, but Cleopatra is truly made as ugly on the outside as she is on the inside.  Turned in the “Human Duck”, she has her legs removed, the skin on her hands melted to resemble to duck feet and most of her remaining body permanently tarred and feathered.

Here is where I really find myself split about this movie.  Obviously, a proper punishment was necessary for Cleopatra’s attempted murder, not to mention her mistreatment of the freaks.  Her “freakification” seems like a solid case of poetic justice and I also commend Browning for showcasing this rather gutsy display in the 1930’s of all times.  However, we have to remember that it was not some sort of accident that caused this, but the freaks themselves; the people who we’ve been told this whole time are gentle, peaceful people that are just like those who gawk at them.  What does this say about them as a whole, that instead of bounding the would-be-murderers and turning them over to the police or, at the very least, killing them quickly, they decided to butcher them to make an example?  For me, it just leaves a rather dark blemish on my overall view of the freaks and, frankly, the movie as a whole, although with the amount of blemishes that this movie already has, it would be like spilling tomato soup on red curtains.

And if you haven’t figured it out by now, I think this film has aged about as well as a gallon of milk left out in the yard for a week in the middle of August.  On top of the questionable use of the circus folk, Freaks simply doesn’t have that much to offer as a film.  The story is far too short and simple, the acting and writing is laughably bad and almost nothing, save the appearance of the freaks, leaves any sort of impact on me.  I’d recommend it if you’re curious to see how the freaks live their lives, but even then, you’d be better off seeing a documentary about circus people, which is basically what this should have been in the first place.