In circus nomenclature, a “geek” is the most run-down of men, almost always an alcoholic or junkie, who performs grotesqueries, like biting the heads off live animals, in front of jeering – but well-paying – audiences. The geek puts the “carnal” in carnival; reliably dirty of soul and desperate for work. He is the lowest in the act’s hierarchy because his role is easily replaceable, for it requires no skill other than a willingness to debase oneself publicly. The geek is to be gawked at, pitied, and feared, for he has fallen as low as any man can.

In Guillermo del Toro’s remake of Edmund Goulding’s 1947 film noir Nightmare Alley, a traveling circus boasts a caged geek. For a quarter a piece, horrified onlookers watch as the hunched and filthy man scrambles to tear the head off a squawking chicken, though they fail to notice the tears streaming down his face as he does so. It is at this very show that the lowly Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) first brushes with the circus life.

What little we know of Stan is that he carries a darkness with him. We’re left to puzzle out our earliest glimpses of this man, who we previously watched drag a body into a hole in a farmhouse before burning it to the ground. At first, Stan barely speaks. We wonder if he’s perhaps mute. A slice of irony, in light of where his path takes him. After some badgering by head carny Clem Hoately (a perfectly cast Willem Dafoe), Stan enlists as a free hand in Hoatley’s roaming carnival, before taking on increasingly responsibility and building an act of his own.

His circus compatriots include alchy mentalist Pete Krumbein (David Strathairn); his “psychic” wife and stage partner Zeena (Toni Collette); Bruno (Ron Perlman), the alleged “strongest man in the world”; and the alluring electric woman Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara), for whom Stan develops a crush and dreams of someday whisking away from this ragged life of hardship. But the circus performer who weighs most on Stan’s mind is the caged geek, and Stan proves time and again that he’s the only one amongst them to treat the lowly performer with any shred of humanity.

Nightmare Alley is a story decidedly carved down the center, and makes a major pivot in terms of both structure and mood when Stan exits the circus to build a more high-brow mentalism show all his own. We know Stan to be a charlatan and his audience suspects as much also. But they want to believe and through the power of suggestion and people reading, he can make them do just that. When Stan encounters the icy, vampiric psychologist Dr. Lilith Reader (Cate Blanchett), he may have finally met his match. The pair join forces to grift from the most powerful and wealthy men in the city. One such mark is Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins), a savagely wealthy banker not to be bamboozled with a snake oil “spook show”. They bamboozle him anyways.

At a comfortable 140 minutes, Del Toro takes his time, crafting a smoky modern noir that calls back to the Golden Age of Hollywood pictures. His eye for production value sparkles most in the dark circus segments of the film, the attention to craft and detail in each and every set piece leaving this viewer longing for the days when traveling carnivals roved this country. Rampant exploitation aside. Del Toro has an obvious love from the supernatural and the macabre but his filmography and his latest film reveals that he remains deeply a romantic at heart.

Like Crimson Peak before it, Nightmare Alley has no qualms leaning into the mawkishness and melodrama, pining this gloomy story of carny ambition atop stalled romances and family misgivings. As Stan’s star as a mentalist rises, his leans more and more on assumptions of familial breakdown. Every man in his audience has a disappointing, disapproving father. Every woman, a cross to bear. We are all broken, in our own special way. We just mistake our brokenness as something unique. Stan uses this to his advantage.

Deep down, every man, woman, and child in the crowd fears the geek because they see a glimpse of themselves in the geek. Stripped of dignity, autonomy, and decency. Stan knows his audiences’ fears, their nightmares, their last flickering hope, and reflects that back at them for cold hard cash. As his ambition grows so too does his greed and those around him warn of an impending fall. The hubris of man looms palpably within. Early on, his mentalist mentor Pete warns Stan about the dangers of believing his own bullshit. Of getting high on his own supply. For once a man thinks he can control the hearts and minds of others, he becomes a danger to himself. With cinema, we come to watch magic but we’re equally prepared for heartbreak. Nightmare Alley gives us both.

CONCLUSION: A B-movie carny noir shot with the handsome care of a prestige picture, ‘Nightmare Alley’ is a gloomy product firmly in Del Toro’s wheelhouse, and the Oscar-winning director knows just how to handle such illicit, gloomy drama. Winding and palpably chilly, the film leads to an undeniable knock-out ending that’s sure to leave one shaken.