Freaks vs The Reich

Four circus freaks in World War 2 find themselves being hunted by the Nazis, who want to use their strange gifts for world domination.

Freaks vs The Reich is an Italian film that was originally released in 2021 under the title Freaks Out by Director Gabriele Mainetti. I saw Mainetti’s debut feature, They Call Me Jeeg Robot at Fantastic Fest back in 2016, and really enjoyed it, so between that, and the fact that this is a circus freaks/superheroes versus Nazis in World War Two movie, I don’t know how this one slipped by me until now…

You’re losing your touch, old man.

In 1943, the tiny Circus Mezzapiotta, run by a jewish man named Israel, is touring war-torn Italy. His show is made up of four performers. There’s Matilde, a teenage girl who produces electricity, but who also electrocutes anyone who touches her. Cencio, an albino young man who can control insects. Fulvio, who suffers from hypertrichosis, and is covered in hair from head to toe, but who also has superhuman strength. And Mario, a little person with the ability of magnetism.

After some various war-related setbacks, the small found family find themselves separated. Israel is caught by the Nazis while trying to procure them all passage to America, and when the others come looking for them, they too run afoul with the jackbooted thugs, eventually leading to Matilde being separated from the boys. She winds up in the company of a group of war-maimed Nazi-hunting partisans in the hills above Rome, who call themselves the Crippled Devils. Meanwhile, the boys find their way to The Berlin Zircus. A gaudy and lavish production, catering to the Reich’s elite, it is the realm of Franz, a manic Nazi pianist with six fingers on each hand, and the ability to see the future when he huffs ether. He uses this gift to steal future songs, like Sweet Child of Mine and Creep, and then plays them for his enrapt audience. But Franz is dissatisfied as a Nazi pop star. More than anything, he desperately wants to be a Nazi hero of legend. While on an ether-binge, Franz sees Hitler's suicide, as well as the fall of the Reich, but most importantly, he sees the arrival of four beings with superhuman powers, beings that he believes could be used to save the future of Nazi Germany. To this end, he uses the Zircus to attract freaks to him, so that he can find the prophesied ones and forge them into a superhero team, his own “Fantastic Four” as it were, and use them to secure victory for Germany, all with him at the lead.

Guess who the four beings are?

It all comes to a head as the four heroes use their abilities to reunite, escape the Zircus, and find and free Israel before he can be shipped off to a concentration camp, leading to a pitched battle of superheroes and partisans against evil Nazi scum. In the end, Franz learns that he is not the savior of the Third Reich after all, but only the Cassandra.

A kind of Jeunet-filtered WW2 era X-men, reminiscent of the kind-of-interesting book by Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, but not the terrible movie version by Tim Burton, Freaks vs the Reich uses the familiar route of grounding superpowers in more conventionally mundane origins, turning them into oddities rather than wonders, especially in harsh light of the reality of war.

Big-hearted, with a very typically European approach to broad comedy, the tonal dichotomy of the frivolities of the circus and the idea of superpowers set against the bloody horrors of war, the realities of fascism, and real life events like the Holocaust, pretty much works here. For the most part. It’s very light in tone in general, it would mostly be right at home with films like The Rocketeer, which makes the sudden shock and horror of an aerial bombardment all the worse, but at the same time, the gore isn’t ever all that graphic. It’s basically light subject matters happening amongst heavy subject matters, and like I said, it mostly works.

Mostly.

The film is a little long though… BUT… it does feature two naked people, who are completly covered in hair, having sex.

So there’s that at least.

I also liked how, despite the fact the four heroes are “freaks” in the somewhat out-dated and offensive old circus-centric meaning, they’re meant to be representative of the idea that fascism uses its core tenet of “purity” as a justification for the genocide of anyone different. Racial. Religion. Sexual orientation. Gender and Gender Identity. Mental Health issues. Physical and mental diabilities. All are equally targeted for extermination by the fascists.

This is, of course, the same agenda that the overwhelming majority of White America, across all demographics, are curently turning out in eager support of, and consistently voting for, all while the rest of White Americans sadly seems to prefer not to mention it at all, in favor of their having a nice “no politics” family holiday instead.

Priorities, don’t ya know…

So, as America careens toward its imminent and apocalyptic future, and you’re enjoying some of the good Nazi killing that is contained here as self-care, you might want to take a moment to consider which side you’re on when it comes to Freaks vs The Reich, or more appropriately, which side will the fascists assume you’re on?

“È questo il fiore del partigiano, O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao! È questo il fiore del partigiano, Morto per la libertà”