Tod Browning's Sideshow Shockers will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 17 via The Criterion Collection. The set collects three films directed by Tod Browning: Freaks, The Unknown, and The Mystic.
Freaks (also known as The Monster Story, Forbidden Love, and Nature's Mistake) is a 1932 horror film written by Willis Goldbeck and Leon Gordon. Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, and Roscoe Ates star.
The Unknown is a 1927 silent horror film written by Waldemar Young. Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, Joan Crawford, and Nick De Ruiz star.
The Mystic is a 1925 silent drama film written by Browning and Young. Aileen Pringle, Conway Tearle, and Mitchell Lewis star.
Freaks has been digitally restored in 2K with uncompressed monaural sound. The Unknown has been digitally reconstructed and restored in 2K with a new score by composer Philip Carli. The Mystic has been digitally restored in 2K with a new score by composer Dean Hurley.
Raphael Geroni designed the cover art. Special features are detailed below.
Special features:
Freaks audio commentary by film scholar David J. Skal
The Unknown audio commentary by film scholar David J. Skal
The Mystic introduction by film scholar David J. Skal
Interview with author Megan Abbott about director Tod Browning and pre-Code horror (new)
Freaks archival documentary
"Spurs" - Reading of Tod Robbins' short story on which Freaks is based
Freaks prolgue, added to the film in 1947
Freaks alternate endings featurette
Freaks portrait video glalery
Essay by film critic Farran Smith Nehme
The most transgressive film produced by a major American studio in the 1930s, Tod Browning’s crowning achievement has haunted the margins of cinema for nearly one hundred years. An unforgettable cast of real-life sideshow performers portray the entertainers in a traveling circus who, shunned by mainstream society, live according to their own code—one of radical acceptance for the fellow oppressed and, as the show’s beautiful but cruel trapeze artist learns, of terrifying retribution for those who cross them. Received with revulsion by viewers upon its initial release, Freaks effectively ended Browning’s career but can now be seen for what it is: an audacious cry for understanding and a singular experience of nightmarish, almost avant-garde power.
The most celebrated and exquisitely perverse of the many collaborations between Tod Browning and his legendary leading man Lon Chaney, The Unknown features a wrenchingly physical performance from “the Man of a Thousand Faces” as the armless Spanish knife thrower Alonzo (he flings daggers with his feet) whose dastardly infatuation with his beautiful assistant (Joan Crawford)—a woman, it just so happens, who cannot bear to be touched by the hands of any man—drives him to unspeakable extremes. Sadomasochistic obsession, deception, murder, disfigurement, and a spectacular Grand Guignol climax—Browning wrings every last frisson from the lurid premise.
A fantastically atmospheric but rarely seen missing link in the development of Tod Browning’s artistry, set amid his favored milieu of shadowy sideshows and clever criminals, The Mystic provides a striking showcase for silent-era diva Aileen Pringle, who sports a series of memorably outré looks (courtesy of art-deco designer Erté) as Zara, a phony psychic in a Hungarian carnival who, under the guidance of a Svengali-like con man (Conway Tearle), crashes—and proceeds to swindle—American high society. Browning’s fascination with the weird is on full display in the eerie séance sequences, while his subversive moral ambiguity extends surprising sympathy to even the most seemingly irredeemable of antiheroes.
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i watched 120 new-to-me films this year; here are the posters from a few of my favorites in no particular order!!
faults (riley stearns, 2014)
out of the blue (dennis hopper, 1980)
wake in fright (ted kotcheff, 1971)
entergalactic (fletcher moules, 2022)
histoires d'amérique: food, family and philosophy (chantal akerman, 1989)
the woman king (gina prince-bythewood, 2022)
waking life (richard linklater, 2001)
on the count of three (jerrod carmichael, 2021)
thank you and good night (jan oxenberg, 1991)
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entire watchlist from 2022 is below the cut:
the world to come (mona fastvold, 2020)
nancy (christina choe, 2018)
la bouche de jean-pierre (lucile hadžihalilović, 1996)
run (aneesh chaganty, 2020)
the mosquito coast (peter weir, 1986)
mass (fran kanz, 2021)
a field in england (ben wheatley, 2014)
angels wear white (vivian qu, 2017)
a cape cod christmas (john stimpson, 2021)
shook (jennifer harrington, 2021)
outing riley (pete jones, 2004)
love & mercy (bill pohlad, 2014)
small engine repair (john pollono, 2021)
the fallout (megan park, 2021)
clemency (chinonye chukwu, 2019)
red elvis (thomas latter, 2022)
calendar girls (nigel cole, 2003)
the little hours (jeff baena, 2017)
out of the blue (dennis hopper, 1980)
aya of yop city (marguerite abouet and clement oubrerie, 2013)
fresh (mimi cave, 2022)
jesus camp (rachel grady, 2006)
bamboozled (spike lee, 2000)
master (mariama diallo, 2022)
the world of us (yoon ga-eun, 2016)
jezebel (numa perrier, 2019)
the cat, the reverend and the slave (alain della negra and kaori kinoshita, 2009)
cohabitation (lauren barker, 2022)
the queen of versailles (lauren greenfield, 2012)
secret ceremony (joseph losey, 1968)
the northman (robert eggers, 2022)
the silent partner (daryl duke, 1978)
in secret (charlie stratton, 2013)
the ground beneath my feet (marie kreutzer, 2019)
the man who haunted himself (basil dearden, 1970)
woodlands dark and days bewitched: a history of folk horror (kier-la janisse, 2021)
the miseducation of cameron post (desiree akhavan, 2018)
roadrunner: a film about anthony bourdain (morgan neville, 2021)
karen dalton: in my own time (richard peete and robert yapkowitz, 2020)
fire music (tom surgal, 2018)
histoires d'amérique: food, family and philosophy (chantal akerman, 1989)
fruit of paradise (věra chytilová, 1969)
a different image (alile sharon larkin, 1982)
preparations to be together for an unknown period of time (lili horvát, 2020)
candyman (nia dacosta, 2021)
fan girl (antoinette jadaone, 2020)
chicago 10 (brett morgen, 2007)
pray away (kristine stolakis, 2021)
mavis! (jessica edwards, 2015)
M (yolande zauberman, 2018)
wake in fright (ted kotcheff, 1971)
thomasine & bushrod (gordon parks, 1974)
desire me (released uncredited; jack conway, george cukor, mervyn le roy, and victor saville, 1947)
faults (riley stearns, 2014)
premature (rashaad ernesto green, 2019)
mother joan of the angels (jerzy kawalerowicz, 1961)
the loft (erik van looy, 2014)
the black phone (scott derrickson, 2022)
no exit (damien power, 2022)
nope (jordan peele, 2022)
paprika (satoshi kon, 2006)
our eternal summer (émilie aussel, 2021)
playground (laura wandel, 2021)
not okay (quinn shephard, 2022)
everything everywhere all at once (daniel kwan and daniel scheinert, 2022)
pressure point (hubert cornfield, 1962)
sharp stick (lena dunham, 2022)
on the count of three (jerrod carmichael, 2021)
martha marcy may marlene (sean durkin, 2011)
waking life (richard linklater, 2001)
sicaro (denis villeneuve, 2015)
arrival (denis villeneuve, 2016)
this magnificent cake! (emma de swaef and marc james roels, 2018)
chevalier (athina rachel tsangari, 2015)
young and wild (marialy rivas, 2012)
alice (krystin ver linden, 2022)
shame (steve mcqueen, 2011)
good madam (jenna cato bass, 2022)
black bear (lawrence michael levine, 2020)
speak no evil (christian tafdrup, 2022)
wet sand (elene naveriani, 2021)
the catholic school (stefano mordini, 2021)
poly styrene: i am a cliché (celeste bell and paul sng, 2021)
the violators (helen walsh, 2015)
the woman king (gina prince-bythewood, 2022)
the killing kind (curtis harrington, 1973)
oleanna (david mamet, 1994)
entergalactic (fletcher moules, 2022)
the more the merrier (george stevens, 1943)
primrose path (gregory la cava, 1940)
watcher (chloe okuno, 2022)
enemy (dennis villenueve, 2013)
darlin' (pollyanna mcintosh, 2019)
sissy (kane senes and hannah barlow, 2022)
till (chinonye chukwu, 2022)
black panther: wakanda forever (ryan coogler, 2022)
the hunt (thomas vinterberg, 2012)
the other side of the underneath (jane arden, 1972)
barbarian (zach cregger, 2022)
the intervention (clea duvall, 2016)
sorry to bother you (boots riley, 2018)
the silent twins (agnieszka smoczyńska, 2022)
tahara (olivia peace, 2020)
arranged (diane crespo and stefan schaefer, 2007)
swimming (luzie loose, 2018)
#like (sarah pirozek, 2019)
babysitter (monia chokri, 2022)
chico and rita (tono errando, fernando trueba, and javier mariscal, 2010)
pleasure (ninja thyberg, 2021)
john the violent (tonia marketaki, 1967)
fat girl (catherine breillat, 2001)
lemon (janicza bravo, 2017)
thank you and good night (jan oxenberg, 1991)
what about me (rachel amodeo, 1993)
the KKK boutique ain’t just rednecks (camille billops and james hatch, 1994)
sun don’t shine (amy seimetz, 2012)
zero fucks given (emmanuel marre and julie lecoustre, 2021)
piggy (carlota pereda, 2022)
ladyworld (amanda kramer, 2018)
wolf's hole (věra chytilová, 1987)
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