Freaks

Sometimes, even though a piece of media is ahead of its time, it also cannot be extricated from the time it was made without diminishing its importance, relevance, or impact. Citizen Kane is a landmark movie, for its unique approach to shot composition, narrative form, and much, much more that challenged cinematic conventions of the time. We take it for granted because so many of the things Orson Welles innovated are common today, so going back and seeing what he did is not even remotely revelatory now. It just feels quaint. Make that movie now and it doesn’t even register a blip at Sundance, let alone in theaters. Freaks is like that, except for one thing; Kane is still a good movie. Not mind-blowing anymore, but still watchable and well made. Freaks’ reputation largely existed on its use of genuine circus sideshow performers, and the parade of human oddities on the silver screen shocked and horrified movie watchers of the time. But once you’ve seen movies featuring the malformations of Jason Voorhees’ unmasked face, Hannibal Lecter feeding a man his own brain, and the realistic atrocities of Cannibal Holocaust, conjoined twins, a woman with no legs, and little people are not scary. They’re not even mildly alarming. They’re just human beings with birth defects and handicaps. That’s not horrific even by accident. So, that leaves modern audiences in the position of judging Freaks solely on its storytelling, and in that regard, it is a crushing bore. It is a boilerplate love triangle of Devoted Partner, Rich Sap With A Wandering Eye, and Gold Digger. For being only 60 minutes in length, the movie wastes a tremendous amount of time with lots of daily-life scenes, which I’m sure existed then to feature the sideshow people as part of the movie’s shock tactic. But now, it’s glacially paced and the narrative is fractured beyond repair thanks to heavy-handed editing by the studio. It’s impossible to get invested in any of these characters when the editing kills the pacing and narrative flow, and when the movie just spends far too long on stuff that doesn’t matter. It leads to a climax that feels rushed and unearned, and while I’m sure it blew people away in 1932, 91 years later it lands with a dull thud. I won’t deny the movie has historical importance. But it is a movie of its time. Its ability to entertain does not transcend the years in any way. It is a movie of its time, a quaint curiosity, but that’s it. Not all foundational building blocks need to be unearthed, and this is one of them.