Tim Burton’s Nightmare Alley: Vision in Darkness and Light (2011)

In 1939, Stanton Carlisle burns down his house after putting a dead body inside and takes a job as a carny. When the carnival's geek becomes ill, owner Clem enlists Stan to help him dispose of the man, and explains that he seeks out alcoholics, who are often men with troubled pasts, and lures them in with promises of a temporary job and gives them opium-laced alcohol. He uses their dependence to create a geek for his carnival.