I'd never join any club that would have me as a member: "Freaks"

If its only claim to fame was inspiring the "Zippy the Pinhead" cartoon strip, "Freaks" would have a special place in cinema history. But its impact goes beyond that, and folks ... this really is a movie you have to see to believe.

If I recall correctly, Netflix originally didn't offer Tod Browning's classic 1932 soap opera set in a circus. I think this because my pal Louie, whose tastes often run into bizarro world, kept telling me I should see this movie. But when I checked again recently, there was "Freaks," and to my house it came.

Of course, this shouldn't be confused with "Freaks and Geeks," the wholly different but still excellent series that enjoyed a too-short primetime run a few years back. It also can't be mistaken for "Pigs vs. Freaks," a less-than-excellent TV movie about hippies and cops facing off in a football game. Finally, it's definitely not "Eight Legged Freaks," whose crime is obvious: perpetuating the plague that is David Arquette. ("Dial down the center! 1-800-CALL-ATT ... 1-800-CALL-ATT ... " Ass.)

No, "Freaks" is most definitely its own movie, and you haven't lived until you've seen, crammed into a mere 62 minutes, the following:
1. A dwarf romance corrupted by a scheming regular-sized woman.
2. A family of "pinheads" -- people who simply have smaller-than-normal heads. (That's "microcephalic" to you and me, Russ.)
3. A half-man, half-woman named Josephine Joseph.
4. Finally, and most impressively, an armless, legless man who not only gets around on his own, but rolls and lights his own cigarette.

If all these folks were "normal" people, this story of a trapeze artist and strongman breaking up a relationship and stealing the other guy's money would be fantastically ordinary. But to see this play out with real circus freaks ... well, it's a trip, baby. After a while, it was nothing to see a legless guy hop across the scene or conjoined twins talk up a bearded lady. Eat your heart out, David Lynch.

Making this more unsettling is when the scheming couple are discovered, and all of the freaks decide to exact revenge for what they did to the hapless dwarf. I don't know about you, but being of the wrong side of "The Living Torso" conjures up all sorts of bad mojo. Wait a minute, fellas ... let's be friends. Doesn't anyone want to guess my age or weight?