April 3: American Circus Day — Write about a big top movie.

As the Encyclopedia Britannica notes, the term “geek” didn’t always imply a tech-savvy enthusiast. In the early 20th century, it was a title of derision for the lowest rung of the carnival hierarchy. These performers, often struggling with severe alcoholism or mental illness, were paid in liquor or room and board to perform “he bite, a gruesome act involving the decapitation of live chickens or rats.

Director Carlton J. Albright turns this historical footnote into a psychological trauma trigger for his protagonist, Luther Watts. The film establishes Luther’s trajectory not through a complex descent into madness, but through a singular, scarring childhood moment: witnessing a caged, desperate carnival geek bite the head off a chicken.

This trauma doesn’t just break Luther; it resets him. He becomes a literal geek in the most archaic sense. By the time we meet him as an adult (played with unsettling commitment by Edward Terry), Luther has shed his humanity, speaking in clucks and replacing his teeth with metal dentures.

Director Carlton J. Albright also wrote The Children, so he has no problem going for, well, the throat here. He has no qualms about putting innocents, including children and the elderly (or a young girl dressed like an old woman), directly in the path of Luther’s metal teeth. He also loves his villain. Luther isn’t a misunderstood monster or a villain with a complex moral code. He is a biological machine driven by a singular, primal urge to feed and destroy.

Extras include the original Lloyd Kaufman DVD intro, Carlton J. Albright’s Blu-ray intro; a director’s commentary with Carlton J. Albright; interviews with Carlton J. Albright, William Albright and Jerry Clarke; bloopers, Troma’s Freak Show and music videos. You can get this from MVD.