Step right up for five tales of trickery, karma, and carnival deceit.

From silent-era psychics to freak-show morality plays and a little Japanese horror for good measure, the Machine pulls five films that echo Nightmare Alley’s twisted sense of fate.

Why The Prestige feels like the supernatural version of Nightmare Alley

The morality play and shock of Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932)

How Browning’s earlier The Mystic (1925) pre-figures Stanton Carlisle’s rise and fall

The contrasts between Nightmare Alley (1947) and del Toro’s 2021 remake

A detour into Takashi Miike’s Audition and how manipulation, deception, and karma cross genres

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Tags: Nightmare Alley (2021), The Prestige, Freaks 1932, The Mystic 1925, Nightmare Alley 1947, Audition 1999, Guillermo del Toro, Carnival Films, Film Noir