Tod Browning's 'Freaks' Soon To Be On Blu-Ray from Criterion

[Shaka Zulu]

The world is a carnival of criminality, corruption, and psychosexual strangeness in the twisted pre-Code shockers of Tod Browning. Early Hollywood’s edgiest auteur, Browning drew on his experiences as a circus performer to create subversive pulp entertainments set amid the world of traveling sideshows, which, with their air of the exotic and the disreputable, provided a pungent backdrop for his sordid tales of outcasts, cons, villains, and vagabonds. Bringing together two of his defining works (The Unknown and Freaks) and a long-unavailable rarity (The Mystic), this cabinet of pre-Code curiosities reveals a master of the morbid whose ability to unsettle is matched only by his daring compassion for society’s most downtrodden.

TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New 2K digital restoration of Freaks, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
New 2K digital reconstruction and restoration of The Unknown by the George Eastman Museum, with a new score by composer Philip Carli
New 2K digital restoration of The Mystic, with a new score by composer Dean Hurley
Audio commentaries on Freaks and The Unknown and an introduction to The Mystic by film scholar David J. Skal
New interview with author Megan Abbott about director Tod Browning and pre-Code horror
Archival documentary on Freaks
Reading of “Spurs,” the short story by Tod Robbins on which Freaks is based
Prologue to Freaks, which was added to the film in 1947
Program on the alternate endings to Freaks
Video gallery of portraits from Freaks
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by film critic Farran Smith Nehme

The movie will come out on October 17, with pre-orders being offered through Amazon: Freaks / The Unknown / The Mystic: Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers (The Criterion Collection)

 

[DarrenTR1970]

If it were a stand alone release, it would be at the top of my purchase list.
As it is, I'm not spending $70 for it and not for two movies that I'll never watch or watch only once.

 

[scotpens]

If it were a stand alone release, it would be at the top of my purchase list.
As it is, I'm not spending $70 for it and not for two movies that I'll never watch or watch only once.

I highly recommend The Unknown with Lon Chaney Sr. if you haven't seen it. "Fascinatingly perverse" is the best way to describe it.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

I highly recommend The Unknown with Lon Chaney Sr. if you haven't seen it. "Fascinatingly perverse" is the best way to describe it.

So, will you be buying this Blu-Ray set, scotpens?

 

[scotpens]

So, will you be buying this Blu-Ray set, scotpens?

Probably not. I already have Freaks and The Unknown on my hard drive.

 

[the G-man]

Gabba gabba hey...

 

[scotpens]

Gabba gabba hey...

In the movie it sounds more like "gooble gobble." Actually I was completely unaware of the Ramones connection until I looked it up.