Freaks is a film that arrived like a scream in the night and has lingered ever since—revered, reviled, rediscovered. Directed by Tod Browning, the same man who helmed Dracula (1931), it is a film that defied its era, terrified its studio, and continues to captivate generations with its mix of raw humanity, taboo-busting boldness, and Gothic poetry. It’s a film that doesn’t just ask questions—it dares you to ask your own: Who is monstrous? Who defines beauty? What if the grotesque is the mirror, and we are what stares back?
The Plot, in Brief (but Strange)
Set in a travelling circus, Freaks tells the story of a community of sideshow performers—many of them disabled or physically different—whose tightly knit world is invaded by two able-bodied outsiders: the beautiful trapeze artist Cleopatra and her strongman lover Hercules. Cleopatra seduces the little person Hans, planning to marry him for his inheritance and then poison him. But the community of “freaks” sees everything. They are not passive. They are not weak. They are watching. And they do not forgive.
What follows is a revenge sequence so eerie and unforgettable it feels stitched from nightmares. Rain lashes the earth. Mud clings. The freaks crawl and converge, not as villains, but as avengers of their own mistreatment. Justice, in this world, is muddy and strange.
Casting Real “Freaks” – A Cinematic Revolution or Exploitation?
Here’s where the film walks its tightrope—over a pit of ethical questions still relevant today. Browning, who had worked in circuses in his youth, cast real sideshow performers in many of the roles: Schlitzie, a man with microcephaly; Prince Randian, a man born without arms or legs who lights a cigarette using only his mouth; the conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton; and others.
In doing so, he upended Hollywood norms. No prosthetics, no pity, no overwrought strings in the background swelling with emotion. These were not metaphors. They were people. They spoke, fought, loved, and drank. They were allowed interiority, and that—especially in 1932—was radical.
Of course, the film has been accused of exploitation. Were the actors shown respect behind the scenes? Was their inclusion empowering or sensationalist? Browning insisted he was telling their story with dignity—but MGM panicked. After test screenings where audience members screamed, fainted, and allegedly ran for the exits, the studio hacked 30 minutes from the film (now lost) and eventually buried it. Browning’s career never recovered.
The Horror, the Humanity
Despite its lurid reputation, Freaks is not truly a horror film in the traditional sense. Yes, it contains one of the most haunting climaxes in pre-Code cinema—an image of transformation so cruel and theatrical it feels Shakespearean—but the horror doesn’t come from the “freaks.” It comes from what’s done to them. The real terror, the film insists, is cruelty. Exploitation. Arrogance.
Browning invites us to look—and then dares us not to look away. The camera lingers not on deformity, but on community: a marriage proposal, a shared bottle, a musical interlude. These are the textures of ordinary life, not voyeurism. The “freaks” are shown as more loyal, ethical, and emotionally complex than the so-called “beautiful” people who exploit them. The film’s moral centre is not in the trapeze tent, but in the sideshow.
The famous chant—“One of us! One of us!”—was meant as a welcome, a ritual of inclusion. But it has echoed through the decades as something darker, stranger: a cultural shibboleth, a threat, a meme. It’s become a symbol of groupthink, of tribalism, of solidarity. Or is it simply a warning: if you mock those who are different, they might just rise?
Legacy: From Ban to Canon
Upon release, Freaks was banned in the UK for over 30 years and derailed Browning’s career. It was too much, too raw, too close to the bone. But like all truly strange art, it would not die. Rediscovered in the 1960s by counterculture cinephiles, it gained new life as a cult classic. By the time David Lynch and John Waters cited it as an influence, Freaks was already a strange saint in the Church of the Outsider.
It now sits in the National Film Registry, taught in film classes, analysed in disability studies, and celebrated for its defiance. The very thing that made it dangerous—its choice to centre those whom society pushed to the margins—is now its triumph. It didn’t soften the blow. It made you feel it.
The Final Image
The original ending of Freaks (now lost) apparently showed Cleopatra transformed into a grotesque bird-woman, mutilated by the freaks as punishment for her betrayal. The version we have still shows her, but only in shadow and suggestion. It is not revenge that truly haunts—it is what we are willing to become when we reject empathy.
In a time when Hollywood was busy smoothing every wrinkle and hiding every scar, Freaks dared to show the human body in all its wild, disobedient shapes. It dared to show a community of people not as objects of pity or horror, but as people. It’s a strange, dark hymn to difference. And like all good hymns, it lingers in the soul, humming under the skin.
So here’s to Freaks: a film that was too much for its time, too weird for its studio, too true for polite society—and exactly what cinema needed. One of us, indeed.