Magic (1978)

"Abracadabra, I sit on his knee. Presto, change-o, and now he's me! Hocus Pocus, we take her to bed. Magic is fun...when you're dead."

I remember repeatedly hearing this poem on television ads spoken by a terrifying ventriloquist dummy that looked and sounded an awful lot like Anthony Hopkins.  I was 15 years old at the time, a couple years shy of being able to attend an R-rated movie by myself, but luckily, my mother enjoyed taking me to see thrillers like this one, Magic.

Released nationwide on November 8, 1978, Magic received mostly positive reviews from critics.  In fact, Gene Siskel ranked it #9 on his list of the 10 best films of 1978.  The movie is "certified fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes at 83%.  As usual, however, a few dissented, claiming it was a bloated rehash of one of the segments from the 1954 British classic, Dead of Night, which also featured a ventriloquist dummy.

During its theatrical run, it earned $23.8 million at the box office.  To put that number in proportion, it was the 23^rd highest-grossing of the year.  (Adjusted for inflation, that is about $87.5 million in 2014.)  The box office champion for 1978 was Grease at nearly $160 million.  This was the year that Halloween set records for an independent film by earning $47 million.  Magic was the 4^th highest-grossing horror movie, following Damien: Omen II at $26.5 million and Invasion of the Body Snatchers at $25 million.

So how well does it hold up nearly 36 years later?  Very!  It is definitely dated by specific content, but not with the overall story, so Magic exists not only as an entertaining movie, but also as a nice time capsule of the mid-to-late 1970s.  When explaining the career plan he has hatched for his client, Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith) states that it's "the same low-key approach we gave Steve Martin last year.  Tom Snyder, Mike Douglas, all leading to Carson.  If he asks you back..."   That's a lot of fun for someone familiar with the personalities mentioned.

Otherwise, it's a timeless tale of split personality or, since it's never actually explained in the movie, possibly demonic possession of an inanimate object.  Magic was billed as "A Terrifying Love Story", apparently wanting to focus on the relationship between Corky Withers (Anthony Hopkins) and Peggy Ann Snow (Ann-Margret).  But for me it has always been about the relationship between Corky and Fats, his creepy doll.  Peggy Ann is just the catalyst for the really good stuff that happens.

Living under the threat of constant disappointment from his dying father, Corky is a sad sack of a magician, barely maintaining the attention of audiences at a seedy New York nightclub.  But a year later, he's a rising star due to the addition to his act of an X-rated ventriloquist named Fats.  When a required medical exam pushes him to his emotional limit, Corky and Fats head to the Catskills where he rekindles his feelings for Peggy Ann.  This unleashes jealously in Corky's alter ego, leading to bloodshed.

Magic was the 13^th theatrical motion picture in Anthony Hopkins's career and he's mostly terrific.  However, I don't think he's at his best yet.  Too often he makes the jump between calm and soft spoken to unhinged and ranting without any transition in between.  There's no doubt, though, that the role was good practice for his most chilling performance as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs 13 years later.  (In one eerily prescient scene, Corky offers Peggy Ann a glass of hearty burgundy.  "It's very medicinal," he says.  It reminded me of the famous line from Lambs, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.")

The performances of the co-stars are more perfect, particularly that of Burgess Meredith.  Wearing sunglasses indoors and chomping cigars, he's still in Rocky mode.  "That's why they call me the postman - I deliver."  But at times he's quieter than Mickey was in Rocky.  He's part of one of my favorite scenes ever in a horror movie.  Realizing that Corky has some serious psychological problems, he challenges him to go 5 minutes without making Fats talk.  It's a brilliantly staged and acted sequence with nearly unbearable suspense and fatal consequence.

From there it's downhill for the characters and a downhill ride on the rollercoaster of a movie that is Magic.  It's dark and it's scary and you're not sure what exactly is going to happen in the end.  Supposedly directing it as a way to earn cash to make his pet project, Gandhi, Richard Attenborough works outside his usual genre, but with terrific results.  Written by Hollywood legend William Goldman, based on his novel, I don't particularly like the way it ends.  It's a little bit of a twist, but I'd rather have been left wondering about Peggy Ann's fate.  At the very least, the final freeze-frame shot is unnecessary.

Regardless of my nitpicking, I love Magic.  I could watch it over and over again and continue to enjoy it every time.  I wouldn't recommend every movie from this era, but this is a must-see from any era.  It was one of my favorites from my teenage years and remains one of my favorites today.

The Decade in Horror: The 1990s

"We have a lot of reason to be fearful in the world," Frank Farley, Temple University

One of the common theories used to explain the horror paradox is that people watch horror movies as a way of coping with actual fears or violence. Since one source of our fears in undoubtedly the world in which we live, I thought it would be interesting to look at the popular horror movies of different decades to see how they reflect the general fears and uncertainties of the times.

The 1990s

As a result of 1980s excess, horror was in a dreadful state at the begining of the 1990s.  With one exception, there was not a really good horror movie the entire first half of the decade.  Instead, it was filled with remakes and Stephen King adaptations.  Audiences had grown accustomed to gore; it lost its power to do anything other than shock or amuse.

But we still had plenty to fear in the real world in the 90s.  At the begining of the decade, the 24-hour news cycle became popular with non-stop coverage of the Gulf War.  During the middle of the decade, the O.J. Simpson murder trial was a media sensation and the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people.  And at the end of the decade,  Gianni Versace was shot dead on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion, Matthew Shepherd was murdered in Wyoming and two students at Columbine High School initiated the deadliest high school shooting in United States history.

It seems to me that the horrors of the real world were getting closer to home.  Perhaps that's one reason that the monsters of the 90s became the most realistic creations yet: serial killers.  In fact, the horror movies of much of the decade could more accurately be classified as "thriller" rather than "horror".  Beginning with The Silence of the Lambs, big-name directors (and actors) used the conventions of horror movies to make movies they insisted were not horror.  These serial killer thrillers included: Man Bites Dog, Trauma, Kalifornia, Natural Born Killers, Seven, Copycat, American Psycho and The Bone Collector.

Serial killer thrillers of the 90s:  American Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, Natural Born Killers and Seven.

The only innovation in horror to come out of the 90s was the approach Wes Craven took with two movies.  In both New Nightmare and Scream, he explored the traditional horror narrative from the inside out.  Since audiences knew what to expect in horror movies, Craven assumed that his characters did also.  This provided a fresh, funny take on horror that was also self-referential and breathed new life into the genre.

As a further sign that the genre was running out of ideas, the 90s gave us big-budget, big-director, big-actor remakes of classic monster movies.  We had Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh), Wolf (Mike Nichols) and the complete bastardization of a classic monster, Godzilla (Roland Emmerich).  These movies may have looked great, but they were so bloated that the last thing they were was scary.

Big-budget remakes of the 90s: Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf and Godzilla.

As dismal as much of the 90s was, the final year of the decade produced two landmark movies that would have long-lasting effects, even today.  The first came from Japan and was our first introduction into a subgenre that would be called "torture porn": Audition.  The other came from closer to home and was our first introduction into a subgenre that would be called "found footage": The Blair Witch Project.  The significance of these movies would not be known in the 90s, but thank goodness a new decade was right around the corner.  Check back tomorrow to read about that one...

Other 1990s milestones:

1992.  Bill Clinton elected President of the United States.
1993.  Pentel introduced the Pentium processor.
1996.  California voters passed Prop 25 to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes.
1998.  Apple introduced the iMac.
1999.  Fear of Y2K spread across the world.
Sources:

Horror Film History: Horror Films in the 1990s