The three films included on the Criterion Collection’s Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers collectively suggest a miniature narrative of Browning’s evolution as a filmmaker. Though this two-disc set offers but a dip of the toe into Browning’s work, it’s governed by a persuasive through line. Here we get a film, 1925’s The Mystic, that’s rich in promise and less personal than the other two, one a perverse masterwork, 1927’s The Unknown, that’s criminally underseen by contemporary audiences, and the other a cult classic, 1932’s Freaks, that’s too often discussed in terms of its notoriety. Watching these films together offers a sketch of an artist’s sensibility reaching fruition, as a fine-grained empathy rises to the fore.
Browning’s affinity for outcasts has been well-documented and is discussed at length in the supplements included with this set, particularly in a new interview with author...
Browning’s affinity for outcasts has been well-documented and is discussed at length in the supplements included with this set, particularly in a new interview with author...
- 10/18/2023
- by Chuck Bowen
- Slant Magazine
This January, NBCUniversal is offering fans the chance to dive into some of Universal Pictures’ most gruesome classic films ever made on one of the world’s biggest horror YouTube channels, ‘Fear: The Home of Horror.’
Starting January 15th 2021 horror fans will have the opportunity to scare away the January blues and take a step back in time to watch an incredible array of classic re-mastered cult films for Free including Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Wolf Man (1941), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
Each film will premiere individually and be available to watch for seven days on the Fear: The Home of Horror YouTube channel. Additionally, during each film’s premiere week, fans will have the opportunity to add these films to their digital collection at a discounted price, allowing them to watch whenever they want, for as many times as they want!
Starting January 15th 2021 horror fans will have the opportunity to scare away the January blues and take a step back in time to watch an incredible array of classic re-mastered cult films for Free including Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Wolf Man (1941), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
Each film will premiere individually and be available to watch for seven days on the Fear: The Home of Horror YouTube channel. Additionally, during each film’s premiere week, fans will have the opportunity to add these films to their digital collection at a discounted price, allowing them to watch whenever they want, for as many times as they want!
- 1/6/2021
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
Freaks
Written by Tod Robbins
Directed by Tod Browning
USA, 1932
“For the love of beauty is a deep-seated urge which dates back to the beginning of civilization. The revulsion with which we view the abnormal, the malformed, and the mutilated is the result of long conditioning by our forefathers.” – Introduction, Freaks
Tod Browning’s cult film depicting the terrors of sideshow performers, both how they are perceived by the public and the acts of violence they are driven to commit, sets an unusual and intriguing precedent for future horror cinema tropes.
Freaks initially portrays the titular troupe with unique deformities as unsuspecting prey to two of the carnival’s “normal” performers and lovers, Cleopatra the trapeze artist (Olga Baclanova) and Hercules the strong man (Henry Victor). Cleopatra’s plan to marry and murder Hans the dwarf man (Harry Earles) for his large inheritance victimizes the condition of the “freaks,” placing...
Written by Tod Robbins
Directed by Tod Browning
USA, 1932
“For the love of beauty is a deep-seated urge which dates back to the beginning of civilization. The revulsion with which we view the abnormal, the malformed, and the mutilated is the result of long conditioning by our forefathers.” – Introduction, Freaks
Tod Browning’s cult film depicting the terrors of sideshow performers, both how they are perceived by the public and the acts of violence they are driven to commit, sets an unusual and intriguing precedent for future horror cinema tropes.
Freaks initially portrays the titular troupe with unique deformities as unsuspecting prey to two of the carnival’s “normal” performers and lovers, Cleopatra the trapeze artist (Olga Baclanova) and Hercules the strong man (Henry Victor). Cleopatra’s plan to marry and murder Hans the dwarf man (Harry Earles) for his large inheritance victimizes the condition of the “freaks,” placing...
- 10/25/2013
- by Amanda Williams
- SoundOnSight
Netflix just doesn’t slow down its new streaming releases, with a huge crop recently being added on the first of the month and more noteworthy titles appearing on regularly. The great variety in titles can be easily seen by taking a look a rich, slow Western-horror, an absurd comedy, a dude punching wolves in the face, a prescient media classic and . The New and Noteworthy The Burrowers (2008) It’s 1879 in the Dakota territories and someone is attacking entire families in their homes. Some individuals are slaughtered and their bodies left behind while other family members are taken. Assuming the attacks to be the work of the Sioux, a group of settlers set off to find the missing members of the Stewart family. Along the way, they meet up with the vile, racist Captain Henry Victor (Doug Hutchison) and his troops. The settlers part ways with the Captain and his men and, as...
- 9/18/2012
- by Brian Kelley
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Freaks (1932)
Directed by Tod Browning
Written by Willis Goldbeck & Leon Gordon based on the story “Spurs” by Tod Robbins
Starring Wallace Ford (Phroso the Clown), Leila Hyams (Venus), Olga Baclanova (Cleopatra), Henry Victor (Hercules), Harry Earles (Hans)
Director Tod Browning grew up in the circus – under the big top – amidst manic clowns, hairy women and human deformity all lined up for our entertainment. These were his people. Roll up, roll up.
Roll up, roll!! Dare you see Freaks: the controversial classic, banned in the UK for 30 years!! Gather round and gasp at these misshapen misfits. Dance with the Pinheads; lust after sexy Siamese Sisters; be confused by Joseph/Josephine the half man, half woman; and cower at the murderous Code of the Freaks!!!!
“Gooble-gobble, Gooble-gobble,
One of us, one of us!”
It was made in 1932 and has gathered a reputation as a perverse masterpiece. People cower at its name,...
Directed by Tod Browning
Written by Willis Goldbeck & Leon Gordon based on the story “Spurs” by Tod Robbins
Starring Wallace Ford (Phroso the Clown), Leila Hyams (Venus), Olga Baclanova (Cleopatra), Henry Victor (Hercules), Harry Earles (Hans)
Director Tod Browning grew up in the circus – under the big top – amidst manic clowns, hairy women and human deformity all lined up for our entertainment. These were his people. Roll up, roll up.
Roll up, roll!! Dare you see Freaks: the controversial classic, banned in the UK for 30 years!! Gather round and gasp at these misshapen misfits. Dance with the Pinheads; lust after sexy Siamese Sisters; be confused by Joseph/Josephine the half man, half woman; and cower at the murderous Code of the Freaks!!!!
“Gooble-gobble, Gooble-gobble,
One of us, one of us!”
It was made in 1932 and has gathered a reputation as a perverse masterpiece. People cower at its name,...
- 10/3/2011
- by Tom Fallows
- Obsessed with Film
To mark the release of the Anna Wong double bill including Java Head and Tiger Bay on DVD now, Optimum Home Entertainment have been given three copies to give away!
Anna May Wong (1905 – 1961) was the first Asian American movie star to become an international star. Her career spanned over four decades. She started in Technicolor’s first two-strip color movie, The Toll of the Sea (1922) and was chosen by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. to be in The Thief of Bagdad (1924), and co-starred with Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (1932). Both Hollywood and Europe proclaimed her exoticism and she became known for her fluid grace and languid sexuality on screen.
Java Head (1934) – Directed by Thorold Dickinson & J. Walter Ruben and starring Anna May Wong, Elizabeth Allan and John Loder
A heavy-breathing melodrama of the White Cargo school, Java Head was adapted from the novel by Joseph Hergesheimer.
The port city of Bristol, England,...
Anna May Wong (1905 – 1961) was the first Asian American movie star to become an international star. Her career spanned over four decades. She started in Technicolor’s first two-strip color movie, The Toll of the Sea (1922) and was chosen by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. to be in The Thief of Bagdad (1924), and co-starred with Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (1932). Both Hollywood and Europe proclaimed her exoticism and she became known for her fluid grace and languid sexuality on screen.
Java Head (1934) – Directed by Thorold Dickinson & J. Walter Ruben and starring Anna May Wong, Elizabeth Allan and John Loder
A heavy-breathing melodrama of the White Cargo school, Java Head was adapted from the novel by Joseph Hergesheimer.
The port city of Bristol, England,...
- 6/24/2011
- by Competitons
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
To read “From the mind of Doug Hutchison”, for genre fans anyway, is an invitation to be freaked out. The actor, who has given horror fans such memorable characters as Eugene Victor Tooms in two episodes of “The X Files” – “Squeeze” and “Tooms” (both in Season One of the show), Percy Wetmore, one of Stephen King’s more horrific villains, in Frank Darabont’s The Green Mile and most recently, Henry Victor, the racist and borderline sociopathic Army officer in Jt Petty’s, The Burrowers, is also a writer And serious horror fan himself.
Beginning in October 2008, under the banner of his own production company, Dark Water, Hutchison launched a web series entitled, "Vampire Killers". Set in modern day Los Angeles, the premise is that in a city the size of La, with a vampire population of over 500,000, there are only 4 vampire killers to deal with the problem. And a problem this is indeed.
Beginning in October 2008, under the banner of his own production company, Dark Water, Hutchison launched a web series entitled, "Vampire Killers". Set in modern day Los Angeles, the premise is that in a city the size of La, with a vampire population of over 500,000, there are only 4 vampire killers to deal with the problem. And a problem this is indeed.
- 5/20/2009
- by thebellefromhell
- DreadCentral.com
Film Forum is freakin' out with a 10-film salute to Tod Browning (1880-1962), the carnival barker turned film maker with a taste for the macabre.
The flicks will unreel as Monday-night double features through June 8.
"Freaks" (1932), Browning's most notorious work, kicks off the series tomorrow.
Rarely shown and banned in Britain for 30 years, it is set in a circus sideshow featuring "nature's mistakes," played by real-life freaks: the co-joined Hilton sisters (no relation to you know who), Pinheads Pip and Zip, the Armless Wonder, Frances the Turtle Girl,...
The flicks will unreel as Monday-night double features through June 8.
"Freaks" (1932), Browning's most notorious work, kicks off the series tomorrow.
Rarely shown and banned in Britain for 30 years, it is set in a circus sideshow featuring "nature's mistakes," played by real-life freaks: the co-joined Hilton sisters (no relation to you know who), Pinheads Pip and Zip, the Armless Wonder, Frances the Turtle Girl,...
- 5/10/2009
- by By V.A. MUSETTO
- NYPost.com
In writer/director J.T. Petty’s The Burrowers, carnivorous creatures roam under the soil of the young American frontier, creeping up on unsuspecting settlers and burying them alive, left to rot in the dirt. Lionsgate appears to be taking a similar tactic with The Burrowers itself, as this cleverly plotted and delightfully sinister film has been dumped into the vast graveyard of the direct-to-dvd market (streeting April 21) with a middling package that can’t even be bothered to list the correct running time on the back cover (it’s a half-hour off the mark). It’s inexcusable treatment for any movie, but practically a crime when the victim is capable of holding its own next to the best of the genre.
Actually, make that “genres,” because The Burrowers isn’t just a great horror movie; it’s a great Western as well. There was always a powerful lurking fear in...
Actually, make that “genres,” because The Burrowers isn’t just a great horror movie; it’s a great Western as well. There was always a powerful lurking fear in...
- 4/6/2009
- Fangoria
It is 1879. Coffey (Karl Geary), a young Irishman settled on the plains of Dakota, is about to ask his sweetheart to marry him. His dream of wedded bliss is shattered, however, when something or someone attacks the young lady's family farm, kidnapping the women and children and slaughtering the men. Coffey joins a group of local ranchers and cavalrymen in search of the victims, who are assumed to be prisoners of a fierce band of natives.
Put off by the sadistic and single-minded tactics of self-appointed group leader Henry Victor (Doug Hutchison), Coffey sets out with a couple of ranchers (William Mapother and Highlander's Clancy Brown), as well as a teenaged boy and a freed slave (Sean Patrick Thomas). They soon discover mysterious holes in the ground and a catatonic girl buried in the dirt, suggesting that they may not be hunting an ordinary tribe. A sinister enemy seems to...
Put off by the sadistic and single-minded tactics of self-appointed group leader Henry Victor (Doug Hutchison), Coffey sets out with a couple of ranchers (William Mapother and Highlander's Clancy Brown), as well as a teenaged boy and a freed slave (Sean Patrick Thomas). They soon discover mysterious holes in the ground and a catatonic girl buried in the dirt, suggesting that they may not be hunting an ordinary tribe. A sinister enemy seems to...
- 9/2/2008
- by Leigh
- Latemag.com/film
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.