Today's Horror Choices 02/26/17 - Freaky Tales

Each year on February 26th, fun enthusiasts everywhere stock up on Purell and run to the nearest semi-abandoned lot for Carnival Day. While I have never seen Tod Browning's 1932 film simply titled Freaks, I did once subject myself to the 2007 Asylum remake known as Freakshow. I picked it up at a going out of business sale at my then-local Hollywood Video, drawn in by the promise that it was "BANNED IN 43 COUNTRIES". I'll give it to ya straight: it's not a good film. None of the characters are the slightest bit enjoyable to think about, not because of their deformities but because of their shitty attitudes and the less than breathtaking performances of the actors portraying them. It's barely even a horror movie right up until the last, I don't know, maybe 10 minutes. But man, what a 10 minutes. The final scene delivers on the gore the DVD case so eagerly teases. I remember that 17-year-old me found it rather hard to watch. Granted, the gore probably isn't as intense or as well done as it seemed to me at the time, and the laws of physics and biology certainly hold no sway in the director's head, but if you enjoy a good torture scene, maybe give it a glance.

It's debatable if Killer Klowns qualifies here, given that the Klowns were aliens whose technology simply happened to resemble carnival equipment, and whose existence has been theorized to be the very inspiration for the carnival tradition in that universe.

More watermarks than Crasher Wake's fanbase.

February 26th is also the anniversary of the original German premier of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, another ancient masterpiece that I am ashamed to report I have never actually seen. Perhaps this will be the night that changes.

It's also Tell a Fairy Tale Day. I have always been a fan of the sleeper hit within the creepy doll subgenre, Pinocchio's Revenge.  Other horror adaptations of fairy tales include Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White: A Tale of Terror and even Jack Frost, which is appropriately framed as an old man telling a bedtime story to his granddaughter.