In a strange twist of fate, one of the most subversive horror films owes its existence to one of the most mainstream. Director Tod Browning had just experienced major commercial success with 1931’s Dracula, the iconic Bela Lugosi version which continues to define popular conceptions of the vampire. His next film would be recut, censored and outright banned but still possesses a power to shock and disturb that supasses any traditional monster movie.

Freaks centres around a small group of sideshow performers whose physical deformities make them the object of lurid fascination for the braying crowds. When dwarf Hans inherits a large sum of money, he becomes the target of beautiful trapeze artist Cleopatra, who devises a plan to marry and then kill him. When Hans and the freaks find out the truth, they enact a brutal and horrific revenge.

By using real sideshow performers, Browning brought his audience face-to-face with bodies considered perverse, obscene, and unfilmable. They reacted violently — there were reports of movie-goers leaving the theatre screaming while one woman claimed to have suffered a miscarriage. Blinded by their primitive reaction to physical aberrance, they failed to comprehend the traditional moral lesson that lay beneath. The performers are depicted with the utmost sympathy, as a community that shelters those isolated by narrow conceptions of normality. The real monsters hide behind the facade of physical perfection, in the greed and heartlessness of the trapeze artist and her strongman lover.