FREAKS (1932) 1/2* Which offers definitive evidence of the inspiration for Zippy the Pinhead (one of my heroes). There's a whole family of them, and they reproduce. Now there's a contemplation for the genuinely demented. Hopelessly bleeding heart plot attempts to illuminate the humanity of circus freaks, but instead merely demonstrates their solidarity in the absence of acting skills and character development with the dregs of thespianism that otherwise inhabit this criminal waste of perfectly good film that might otherwise have better served humanity by being used for gun commercials or asbestos promotion. It would receive ø, except for a very funny scene where the fiancée of a siamese twin berates the sister for excessive drinking and counsels that he's tired of his wife missing half the day in bed because she (the other twin) has a hangover. Their wedding dinner is spiced with several comments that are better utilized forty-five years later in Ramones lyrics. Tom Browning, fresh from his triumph in Dracula, directs, which means that the only explanation is that he sat around shooting morphine with Bela Lugosi in between. Never has a film so cried out for the hand of Ed Wood....it's like one his films, but without the astonishing rays of genius. Revived the ultra-bored feeling I used to have in freshman biology when I would keep track of the minutes left in class on the top right-hand corner of the page.
back to Brilliant Observations on 1776 Films home
go back home, or send me email
no more reviews! I want to buy your novel!