Freaks: You’re One of Us | 2020 | TV-MA | – 5.5.6

Why is “Freaks: You’re One of Us” rated TV-MA? The TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board rating indicates that “this program is specifically designed to be viewed by adults and therefore may be unsuitable for children under 17.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes an implied sex scene, sex noises from another room, a brief masturbation scene under covers, a few kissing scenes, drawn partial nudity in a comic book, a couple of shooting scenes with one ending in a death, several scenes of people using superpowers (strength, electricity and invincibility) with some encounters causing injuries and death with some blood shown, and 13 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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A timid diner cook (Cornelia Gröschel), that’s been taking medication since childhood, ostensibly to control her anxiety, discovers that the pills are meant to suppress her superpowers. Once she stops taking them, she discovers she’s a member of a very special group and a government conspiracy is determined to institutionalize and control people like her. Also with Tim Oliver Schultz, Wotan Wilke Möhring, Nina Kunzendorf, Frederic Linkemann and Finnlay Berger. Directed by Felix Binder. In German with English subtitles. [Running Time: 1:32]

Freaks: You’re One of Us SEX/NUDITY 5

 – A young man reads a comic book and masturbates under covers while looking at a drawn woman (we see her bare buttocks and the side of her bare breast) until he is interrupted by another woman on a balcony outside his window. A husband and his wife kiss, she assertively pushes him onto a sofa, straddles him and continues to kiss him as she unfastens his shirt (sex is implied). We hear sexual sounds coming through a wall, of a man and a woman moaning rhythmically.
► A wife kisses her husband in bed and climbs on top of him until they are interrupted by their young son (they are both clothed). A young man moves toward a woman to kiss her and she turns away (she is married to another man). A husband and his wife hug while swimming in a pool. A man moves toward his wife to kiss her when he is upset and thinks that she is having an affair; she pulls away. A young man and a woman dance together in a crowded nightclub.
► A woman tells her husband that she had an affair with another man at work (we do not see anything and does not seem to be true).
► A woman wears a low-cut tank top that reveals cleavage in a couple of scenes.

Freaks: You’re One of Us VIOLENCE/GORE 5

 – When the power goes out in a psychiatric hospital we see armed guards searching the hallways as patients leave the building and run away; one man is stopped by a woman that shoots him in the chest and we see blood on the wound as he dies. A young man tells armed guards to beg for mercy as he zaps them with a blast of electricity, as they stand in puddles of water from rain (they collapse and we do not know if they die or just pass out). A man climbs over a bridge guardrail and falls onto a highway below where he lies on the road and is struck by a truck (we hear the collision and see the man unharmed later). Three men call after a woman as she walks alone at night and she turns around and tells them to show her what they say they have; the men are embarrassed and one chases the woman, tackles her and holds her on the ground before she pushes him away, kicks one of the other men slamming him into a light pole and she hits the third throwing him high into the air. A young girl becomes angry and lifts a desk up, throwing it and a man behind the desk through a wall. Armed guards approach three people in a psychiatric hospital and one man is shot in the chest (the bullet bounces off his chest).
► Armed men surround a man, hold a gas mask over his face and hold him on the ground until he falls unconscious. A woman lifts another woman off the floor and yells at her after the second woman refuses to give the first woman a promotion. A young man shorts out a traffic light causing two bikers to ride into oncoming traffic where they are struck by a bus (off-screen). A woman argues with her husband and throws him through a shelving unit and onto the floor (we see him with his arm bandaged later). A woman throws a young man through a window and into a swimming pool, where he is electrocuted (we see him with charred and reddened skin on his face later). A man and a young man hug and the man is shocked; he falls to the floor and we hear that he suffered cardiac arrest and is in a coma.
► A young girl hides crying while we see damage and blood in a school building; we hear sounds of panic and children crying and we see a hole blown in a wall from the inside and a smear of blood on a desk on the ground below the hole (we do not see what happened until later). A woman wakes up restrained and attached to an IV and she struggles to try to get free; she is told that she had a nervous breakdown. A woman is shown in a psychiatric hospital where she is given medication through a slot in a door.
► A woman sees five men enter a nightclub and approach women after embarrassing another man that was talking to them; the woman speaks to them and they follow her to a bathroom where we hear loud noises and we see the men immobilized and one has a bloody nose (one is dangling through a hole in a stall door, another is motionless slumped over a toilet and another is shown thrown); one man raises a bottle to hit the woman from behind and a young man zaps him with electricity. A woman finds her young son being bullied and she twists the bicycles of the bullies leaving them in a pile on the ground. A woman pushes a car out of a handicapped space when a woman parks there and goes into a store. A woman tries to jump through a second story window from the ground, she slams into the wall and then back to the ground the first time and crashes through the glass the second time (no injuries are seen). A young man lights a lightbulb by holding it in his hand. A woman drops a tray of food on the floor and slams the tray bending it out of shape. A woman kicks a soccer ball and it flies out of sight. A young man grabs an electric wire and lights a waterpark. A woman wears a disguise and convinces a security guard to let her in a building; she knocks the man out (off-screen) and tapes him up. A woman sits underwater in a swimming pool and a young boy walks on the deck above her, and she leaps out of the water and grabs the boy by the shirt scaring him. A young man grabs a woman by the arm and zaps her causing her to fall unconscious to the floor. A woman punches another woman in the face and we see her with a bloody nose later. A woman punches a young man in the face and he falls to the ground.
► Three men call after a woman as she walks along a road alone; one man walks toward her and she continues walking. Three boys bully another boy and steal his shoes in one scene; they talk back to the boy’s mother when she tells them to return the shoes and she walks away (without the shoes). A woman finds a young girl hiding in a school and the child is frightened. A woman walks through an abandoned waterpark in the dark. A man and a young man argue and shove each other until a woman separates them.
► A woman parks her car in a handicapped parking space and another woman tells her that she cannot park there; the driver rolls up her window and ignores the woman. A woman receives an eviction notice. A woman receives a piece of mail demanding payment. A young boy asks his mother if they are going to lose their house. A young boy asks his mother if she and his father are going to get divorced after they have been arguing. A young man reads a comic book with violent images in it in several scenes. A man talks about being afraid of being locked up forever in a psychiatric hospital. A man yells at his wife and they argue briefly. A woman boss yells at her in several scenes and demeans her. A young man yells at a boy when the boy questions his powers. A young man’s father is threatening about the young man’s aimlessness in a couple of scenes. A woman is nervous about asking her boss for a promotion; when she does ask a few times, the boss is dismissive and does not give her the promotion. A young man talks about his mother abandoning him.
► A woman pulls her car over, gets out and vomits on the ground (we see goo). A man approaches a woman at a dumpster and asks her for some food in a couple of scenes; another woman approaches in one scene and throws a can from the dumpster at the man as he runs away. A woman licks her finger and pokes it into her sleeping husband’s ear to wake him. A man is shown with bruises and bandaging n his face while at the police station, while filing a complaint about a woman beating him and his friends in a bar.

Freaks: You’re One of Us LANGUAGE 6

 – About 13 F-words, 26 scatological terms, 4 anatomical terms, 10 mild obscenities, name-calling (rat, idiot, bum, stupid, hot stuff, aimlessness, unbearable, psychos, different, sick, Nazi-ish, squatters, spoiled mama’s boy, poor guy, super villain, ridiculous, crazy, worn-down dominatrix, degenerates, jerk, freaks), exclamations (please, forget it, hey, heck, hey babe), 2 religious exclamations (e.g. Christ, Amen). | profanity glossary |

Freaks: You’re One of Us SUBSTANCE USE

 – A woman is shown taking two pills every morning and later she takes four of the same pills each day, and a young man takes two pills each day. A man and a woman have glasses of wine with a meal, a man holds an open bottle of champagne and appears inebriated, and a young man and woman drink beers together.

Freaks: You’re One of Us DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Superpowers, control, fear, sadness, anger, compliance, lying, divorce, infidelity, using power for good.

Freaks: You’re One of Us MESSAGE

 – Normal people are afraid of those with superior skills and consider them freaks, to be constrained by any means necessary. Power does corrupt some people.