Tod Browning - Tumblr Posts
Freaks (also re-released as The Monster Story, Forbidden Love, and Nature's Mistakes) by Tod Browning.
Based on elements from the short story "Spurs" by Tod Robbins.
Step right up and be horrified! Or be sympathetic, that works too. This is a unique film. Believe me, there has never been and will never be a film like this again.
Get this: After the success of Universal's original "Dracula" in 1931, MGM approached its director Tod Browning to make "the scariest film ever made". So what did Browning do? He gathered real circus sideshow performers from all over the country and made the movie "Freaks". The movie's so shocking that MGM was sued by one audience member who claimed that seeing the movie gave her a miscarriage. This movie is so controversial that there are still cities in the United States where it's illegal to even show it!
Just a word of warning before you decide to go see this, some of the people in this movie do look very disturbing. If you'd rather not subject yourself to that kind of imagery, then it would probably be best to not see it. Regardless, this film is full of iconic moments of pure cinema, pulpy horror, carny noir, and perverse melodrama. Freaks is still unclassifiable after many decades. It's still sick, twisted, perverse and profoundly human. It contains Tod Browning's view of the world at its purest.
