A Disarmingly Charming Film (The Unknown by Tod Browning)

            The Unknown directed by Tod Browning is a film that utilizes a number of techniques to cause an uneasiness but not an outright fright within its viewers.  This film works to make the audience uncomfortable through visual oddities and other games.  The film centers around three main characters Alonso (the ‘no armed’ man), Nanon (the Beauty), and Malbar (the strongman).  The film sets the eerie stalker stage with Alonso’s quote, “No one will have her but me.”  This is a fairly classic tagline for any stalker since the dawn of time and continues to be an overused melodramatic starting point for the blood mayhem and murder.  In creating this fraught line of dialogue the film starts its momentum.

            A huge recurring theme in this film is the idea of blood and gore, but not the actual visual of these two ideas just simply the mention of or reference to them.  Malbar says to Alonso, “In my heart in my soul in my blood,” referring to Nanon, causing a crazy look in the eyes of Alonso creating a false foreshadowing that blood will perhaps be shed at some point.  This idea is continually referenced throughout the film in scenes such as the surgical scene and the horse trick scene.  Also the use of wine as a celebratory drink could be hinting at the religious iconography of wine as Christ’s blood.  Blood is almost always a factor in today’s films, but this film evokes images of blood without, forgive me, spilling a drop.

            The most unsettling aspect of this film is its consistent toying with the minds and desires of the audience.  It is comparable to that toying we saw in Burlesque Suicide, where the focal point plays out the scene as if he is going to kill himself and then points to the audience as if to say, “ha, you wanted me to sicko.”  Which indeed we as viewers want to see plots that have been set up to play them selves out.  This voyeuristic need as Berger puts it in his Ways of Seeing is palpable with any film.  We want to see everything that happens even the most private of moments without being seen ourselves.  And we want to see them to climax.  When this climax is consistently evaded it causes an uneasiness within the viewer, and uneasiness is the base of Freud’s description of the ‘uncanny,’ that which gives us fear.

            One moment where this type of toying can be seen is the moment when Alonso is killing Nanon’s father.  We do not get a full view of his death we only get glimpses as we mirror the sight of Nanon when she tries but can’t quite keep her gaze off of the horrific scene.  We aren’t allowed full visual privilege and so we are unsatisfied.

            Again when Alonso goes to the surgeon to literally disarm himself we are given all of the lead in that would suggest we will be seeing this gruesome operation take place.  But this allusion is shattered when we cut out and only see him once the surgery has already taken place.

            The last moment, the biggest tease so far, is when Malbar has his arms attached to the running horses and Alonso sabotages his trick by stopping the treadmills.  In this exceedingly drawn out moment, the audience is almost waiting for his arms to be torn off.  We can basically see the blood gushing already.  Even the audience in the film continues to enjoy the spectacle, even when Malbar’s expression turns clearly quite grim.  Then we are thwarted again in our attempt to see the plot through.  This constant tugging on the expectations of the viewer causes an uneasiness for the other aspects of the film to build off of so an overall sense of fear can be created.

            Another aspect to this film is the constant references to time without actually explicitly stating the amount of time passing between each scene.  This is one explanation for the continued reference to clocks through visuals and the constant ticking noise throughout various parts of the film.  This is yet another need the film is intentionally not fulfilling.  A need created by the film for the purpose of anticipation.  Most of horror is the anticipation.  The true thrill isn’t the blood axe murder or the saw trap killing various people, it’s the lead in, the tease.