Magic (1978)

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Magic (1978)

7/10

Starring

Anthony Hopkins

Ann-Margret

Burgess Meredith

Directed by Richard Attenborough

Now the movie is not scary that I can assure you, but will it freak you out?

That is a definite yes.

Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs (1991)) was a genius in this movie, his portrayal was masterful and all through while watching the movie I found myself praying that I never run into a guy like him all my life, and if I ever do I know too well from here not to piss him off.

Magic is a 1978 film about a man who had a psychological problem, he had double personality disorder, and he lived out his second persona through a ventriloquist's dummy named Fats.

The whole movie boils down to one character and that is Corky (Anthony Hopkins), it was important that he made his portrayal strong, because the whole movie is about him and him alone and how he was finding it hard to live his life without his Dummy Fats.

Corky was a magician who is struggling to make it big, until he introduced Fats into his act which then made his show more admirable and popular. But when he was needed to go for a psych evaluation before a big show in Vegas he panicked and decided to go back to his childhood neighborhood and see his childhood crush.

It was there that things turned dark.

The part in the movie that was really stood out for me was the scene where Corky and Ben sat face to face, and Ben asked Corky to sit 5 minutes and not let Fats speak a word at all, the whole 2 minutes it lasted was just intense, with you thinking,

“Is he going to break?”

“When is he going to break?”

Magic is a clever movie, and the screenplay was done by William Goldman who also wrote the novel on which it was based. The movie runs well going steady till one of the personality start to take over and then we see the battle raging between Corky and Fats, and the movie takes a turn that will make it (the movie) always remain in my mind as one classic freaky movie.

The movie doesn’t really use all the special effects that we have come to see plaguing our screens nor does it make use of so much cast like some of the other horror flicks that we have to see many of them die before we get the idea that this movie is meant to be scary, all they did was make sure that Anthony Hopkins, Corky was a well-rounded actor who could go off at the time required on the TV screen and freak the living day lights out of you.

Magic is a nice classic horror flick that horror watchers should get to see and enjoy, from the wonderful work of Hopkins to the masterful way Burgess Meredith (Grumpy Old Men (1993) and Grumpier Old Men (1995)) made his presence felt.