Freaks: Story of Norman Barley

Producer/ Director C. G. Hamil dives into the mysteries surrounding Norman Barley in the short film Freaks: Story of Norman Barley.

This film builds upon the Twisted Carnival Norman Barley’s Side Show novel.

In the late 1960s, Norman Barley, the elusive operator of an illegal carnival side show, became infamous across the South for his alleged involvement in a string of murders and thefts tied to his traveling attraction. Before his arrest, Barley distributed a set of audio and video tapes to several news outlets, claiming they contained proof of his innocence—and dark secrets about others involved. The authorities quickly seized the tapes as evidence, but before they could be used in court, they mysteriously vanished from the evidence room in a daring break-in. Norman Barley never faced trial; his story ended abruptly when he was murdered by a fellow inmate under suspicious circumstances, leaving the stolen tapes and the truth behind them lost to history, or so it seemed.

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