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[[caption-width-right:350:'''''WE ACCEPT HER! ONE OF US! GOOBLE-GOBBLE!''''']]
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For the most part, ''Film/{{Freaks}}'' actually isn't that scary and is mostly just funny and heartwarming, but its [[NightmareFuel terrifying third act]] is enough to cement the film as a horror classic.

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* The ending, though the [[AssholeVictim victims]] had it coming. Cleopatra becomes a human duck (which consists of having her legs amputated and her voicebox mutilated so the only noises she can make are demented "quacks", and then stuffing her into a humiliatingly silly duck costume that’s a far cry from the beautiful trapeze costumes she once wore). And as for Hercules? He ends up as a [[GroinAttack castrato]]- though sadly, this scene was cut.
** And if that's scary on its own, then the DarkerAndEdgier 1993 comic adaptation is absolutely ''harrowing''. Instead of being castrated, Hercules instead has his [[EyeScream eyes slashed open]] with a shaving razor by one of the dwarves and blindly stumbles into the path of one of the freakshow wagons (all of which is [[SarcasmMode lovingly illustrated]], by the way), while Cleo is slowly tortured and hunted down until she's turned into a far more...''graphic'' version of the already-infamous "duck lady". BodyHorror doesn't even begin to describe it: her skin is burnt and melted and drool is constantly dripping out of her mouth because her lower jawbone has been removed and the remaining flesh left to dangle uselessly. Her nose and upper lip have been cut, her feet have been mutilated, her hands have been slashed between the palm bones to resemble bird talons, her right eye is half closed and a majority of the hair has been plucked from her head. And in a nasty irony, the bustline she was so proud of has been left perfectly intact. When she's revealed in this state, she lives alone and naked on the floor of a trailer. Her new caretaker (who [[VomitIndiscretionShot vomits]] at the sight of her) has been instructed to feed her baby food and merely give her straw to sleep, defecate and urinate in, implying she's considered and maybe also been reduced to the mental level of an animal. But if her wide-open left eye (which feels almost like it's staring at the reader) is anything to go by, ''[[AndIMustScream she's still conscious and aware]].'' Even for what they were planning, that's pretty nasty.
** The lead-up to TheReveal in the comic adaptation; after Hercules is killed in the wagon crash, the wagon holding Cleo overturns as well, allowing her to escape into the rain, and showing the reader that her hair has been chopped off, and her hands and feet have been mutilated already, looking more like featherless bird limbs than human ones. She flees blindly through the storm, mindlessly begging for help even though they're in the middle of nowhere, and finally manages to reach a road, where she tries to get the attention of a passing car, only to vanish between one lightning bolt and the next.
--> '''Driver''': Huh. Thought I saw someone...
** The cover of issue 4 is pretty scary as well as the covers of the previous issues are just the Freaks doing their performances. The cover of this issue shows three of them cornering an already mutilated and frightened Cleopatra...
* ''We accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of us, gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble...''
* Cleopatra's face as it changes from anger to hatred during the loving cup scene is chilling.

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