magic horror movie review

‘Magic’ (1978) a mesmerizing psychological thriller (review)

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1978 psychological horror flick “ Magic ” stars Anthony Hopkins , Burgess Meredith , and Ann-Margret . The Richard Attenborough -directed horror film received a 1979 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay from the Mystery Writers of America, and earned Hopkins BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for his lead role. With its superb screenplay, excellent cast, and fantastic mystery elements, 1978’s “ Magic ” remains an oft-overlooked horror romp.

Charles “Corky” Withers (Hopkins) is a failing professional magician. Mentor “Merlin” ( E.J. Andre ) advises Corky to assume a gimmick catering to show business. Flash forward a year, and Corky resurges as one of the most popular magic exhibitions. It’s his combined ventriloquist and magician act, centering on the crude-talking dummy Fats, which fostered such success.

Ann-Margret lends an inspired performance as Peggy Ann Snow. Margret plays a realistically indecisive and honest character. Her constant questioning of whether or not to leave Duke and pursue a relationship with Corky feels stikingly genuine. Peggy comes delightfully to life under Ann-Margret who plays her character with an air of charm and innocence. Similarly, Burgess Meredith is terrific as the believably energetic Ben Greene.

Renowned composer Jerry Goldsmith provides a score rippling with somber strings, and eerie, warbling, carnival numbers. Goldsmith’s soundtrack is decidedly understated. Nevertheless, it works brilliantly in conjunction with the cinematography, screenplay, and powerful acting performances for a technical tour de force.

What truly sets “Magic” apart is its sleight of hand. Repeatedly, “Magic” presents a slow boil which proceeds to defy expectations. Additionally, throughout “Magic” the viewer isn’t quite sure if there’s a supernatural element or merely madness. Its finale particularly reminds me of another 1978 horror filck, “ The Legacy ” starring Katherine Ross and Sam Elliott . Not because the endings are topically similar. Rather, it’s the shocking, unpredictible final scenes which parallel one another. Yet “Magic” concludes on a much bleaker note than “ The Legacy .” “Magic” doesn’t pull its final trick until the third act, and there’s a massive payoff. The last shot is remarkably, and refreshingly, dark.

But “Magic,” for all its charm, does occasionally lose its charisma. As a horror film, it’s not particularly effective. That is, “Magic” lacks an atmosphere of fright. Rather, the film creates an air of mystery through its clever masquerade; the relationship between Fats and Corky doesn’t become apparent until the conclusion. Especially early on, Hopkins is a bit wooden. While it’s mostly cohesive, a few flashbacks are poorly placed, unnecessary, and create a disjointed flow.

Still, “Magic” manages to pull one over on the audience. I enjoyed the character progression, particularly from Hopkins’ Corky, and the endearing Peggy. With strong acting performances, taut writing, and a lovely twist of an ending, “Magic” is a truly underrated psychological horror flick.

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Magic Reviews

This Richard Attenborough film is less scary than it is sad, about a mentally ill man wrestling with his inner demons and finding them no easier to control when they’re in tangible form.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2023

It is fun to watch, chiefly because of the deftness and bravura of Anthony Hopkins's brilliantly split personality in the leading role, but... One yearns for the sidelights and starts that Alfred Hitchcock might have brought to this story.

Full Review | May 17, 2023

Magic is a psychological horror with strong performances and moments that will linger in your brain.

Full Review | Mar 8, 2022

...an irresistible setup that is, at the outset, employed to exceedingly promising effect...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 6, 2021

Hopkins is very impressive -- he learned ventriloquism for the film, and uses the art most effectively. But it is the emotional impact which he scores that lifts his performance beyond mere trickiness and up to the level of masterwork.

Full Review | Apr 22, 2021

In adapting his own best-seller, William Goldman has opted for an atmospheric thriller, a mood director Richard Attenborough fleshes out to its fullest.

Full Review | Mar 26, 2009

Magic has few scary moments and is really a rather maudlin examination of a nervous breakdown.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 8, 2007

It makes you feel uncomfortable in your own skin.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 9, 2006

A hammed-up version of the old chestnut about the ventriloquist who is 'taken over' by his dummy, clumsily adapted by William Goldman from his own novel.

Full Review | Jun 24, 2006

Because of Hopkins, because of Ann-Margret (who hardly looks like that Ann-Margret, adeptly proving herself as an occasional dramatic actress), and because of Burgess Meredith as well as Fats the dummy, "Magic" is one of the top-notch films of the 1970s.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jun 21, 2006

Odd combo, but it's creepy and generally works.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 9, 2006

A very well-crafted suspense-thriller that unfolds with one dramatically tense scene after another. Hopkins is superb.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Mar 15, 2006

Very likely to produce nightmares.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 7, 2005

Still creepy story of Hopkins and his psychotic dummy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 12, 2005

Magic is neither eerie nor effective. It is, however, very heavy of hand.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 9, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 8, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 7, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 18, 2004

Good cast can't keep this thriller afloat.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 15, 2003

Magic (1978): Movie Ending, Explained – ‘Us’ Was ‘You’ All Along, Schmucko

Magic (1978): There’s something unsettlingly sinister about Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter. Despite being a slightly altered version of Thomas Harris’ antagonist in his renowned book series, Hopkins’ Lecter has a way of getting under your skin with his offbeat charm and frightening intelligence.

Pair that with his ability to discern what exactly makes you tick, and you have a dangerous game of quid-pro-quo unfurling, and if you’re unlucky, you might end up on his dinner plate.

However, before Hopkins’ Lecter, the veteran actor played a timid ventriloquist in David Attenborough’s 1978 psychological horror, Magic. Although Charles “Corky” Withers comes nowhere near Lecter’s deliberate, methodical villainy, Hopkins invests the emotionally-torn character with the right amount of chilling menace and pathos.

Magic (1978) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

When Corky is first introduced, we get a glimpse into the mind of a shy yet gifted magician who wishes to enthrall audiences with his craft. A conversation with a dying Merlin Jr., also a magician, reveals the reality of things – although Corky lies about a successful opening night as a magician, Merlin sees right through him.

The crowd he encounters is especially disinterested in his card tricks, and Corky’s nervous anxiety accentuates his downward spiral, leading to a bombed performance. This, unfortunately, leads him to have an outburst onstage, and Merlin asks him to find some charm if he wants to be a successful magician of good standing.

Fast forward a few months later, Corky has now cemented himself as a ventriloquist who also uses a crass-mouthed dummy named Fats during his magic acts. As evidenced by one of his performances we are privy to, the crowds thoroughly enjoy the contrast between Corky’s ever-polite mannerisms and Fats’ blunt, foul-mouthed quips.

Network television executives hound after Corky to book him, and his agent, Ben Greene (a brilliant Burgess Meredith), informs him that CBS wants to book him, but he needs to clear a medical exam first. This angers Corky to no end, urging him to go into hiding to clear his head about the path ahead.

Throughout these sequences, Corky appears appropriately grounded and easy-going, managing to charm everyone with his own amicable demeanor and Fats’ bold punch lines, which often cross the boundaries of social acceptance.

Nobody seems to mind these little transgressions — it is a talking dummy, after all, who is simply meant to entertain — but there is something quietly unsettling about Corky during pauses that linger a little too long and sudden outbursts that hint at the onset of mania.

When Corky quietly watches his childhood home in the suburbs, it becomes clear that he is a man who experienced grief and loss too fast and too hard, leading to some sort of unresolved trauma festering inside his psyche.

Deliberate Isolation and a Yearning to Re-Connect

Corky’s resistance to taking a medical exam is baffling to Greene, who rationalizes this behavior as a coping mechanism to evade the fear of success. Meanwhile, our gifted ventriloquist travels to the suburbs and arranges lodging for himself in the home of his college crush Peggy Ann (Ann-Margaret)—the two reminiscences about their youthful days.

Although married, Peggy is unhappy with her husband, who is mostly away on hunting trips, and Corky uses Fats to bridge the gap between them, using his own subtle charm and Fats’ brash flirtatiousness to win her over. There’s visible tension and angst between them, which culminates in a telepathic card scene that displays Hopkins’ incredible range as a character doomed by his own expectations from himself.

What’s troubling is that Corky does not drop the act with Fats the moment he is alone — there are full-blown conversations between the two, where the latter eggs on the former to be more assertive when it comes to wooing Peggy. However, when Corky succeeds, Fats seems to exhibit an unhinged brand of jealousy; why would he be deprived of the same solace and comfort Corky experiences through his love for Peggy?

Moreover, Fats runs the risk of being discarded forever now that Corky has finally found an emotional tether to ground him in life. After all, the two are conjoined, being warring aspects of the same mind, but Corky seems to treat Fats as a separate entity in itself. This schism spells trouble.

The idyllic bliss offered by the lake-flanked haven is shattered when reality comes knocking: Greene arrives unexpectedly and catches Corky in the act of arguing with Fats. Deeply worried about Corky’s mental state, Greene asks him to get help. When Corky refuses, Greene calmly says that he will leave Corky alone if he manages to do something that should be very simple: shut Fats up for five whole minutes.

The brilliance of this tense scene cannot be articulated in words as we experience the various stages of emotions that flit across Corky’s face, who goes from smug denial of his reality to hapless desperation when the truth dawns on him. Corky Withers cannot, in fact, go a full five minutes without Fats. They’re co-dependent on each other to the point that Corky feels incomplete without his foul-mouthed dummy.

Corky’s Mask Slips, And an Unfortunate Saga of Violence

When Greene is about to leave, thoroughly disappointed in Corky, Fats warns Corky that he is about to lose everything should Greene make it back to New York. “How do I stop him?” Corky exclaims in terror, to which Fats replies, “With me, me, me, me, ME!” This is the beginning of a horrifying, tragic turn of events, as Corky uses the wooden dummy to bludgeon Greene in the woods.

Repulsed by what he’s done, Corky wishes to turn himself in, but Fats’ cruel words prompt Corky to drown Greene in the lake, which he manages to do after a rather tense squirmish between him and a still-alive Greene. When he thinks the worst is behind him, Peggy’s husband, Duke (Ed Lauter), returns.

The reason why Magic rises above run-of-the-mill psychological horrors about murderous dummies is that we are never sure whether Fats is just an extension of Corky or whether he has gained sentience as a diabolical entity. Attenborough ups the creep factor with steady, lingering shots of the doll, who is propped in the foreground, looking ever-alive and up to no good.

The scene in which Corky and Peggy have sex with Fats looking on maliciously is expertly done, as it succeeds in conveying the anxieties surrounding the true nature of the situation. When Fats seems to stab Duke later on, it appears for a moment that the dummy acts on its own, only to reveal a sweat-drenched Corky controlling the doll from behind the curtains.

There are significant changes to Corky’s usual behavior as well — he is more confident when wooing Peggy. He takes on a more rogueish, assertive role when it comes to charming her.

All of this transpires while a dead body rots in the lake, with Duke ever-so-close to unmasking Corky’s crimes. Now that all the obstacles have been demolished, will Corky be able to get the girl? While this would have been ideal, Fats has other plans.

Magic (1978) Ending, Explained:

Self-sabotage and profound tragedy.

Peggy and Corky decide to run away together, but the former wishes to tell her husband about this face to face, as she does not want Duke to blame himself for the separation. Unaware that Duke is dead, Peggy waits for him to return, much to the ire of Corky. Fats become more incensed by the minute as he is unable to contend with the fact that he might be locked away in a suitcase once the lovers are reunited.

Fats lashes out, emerging as the dominant personality, puppeteering Corky to do as he wishes, including whittling a wooden heart for Peggy and killing her for good. This occurs after Fats tells Peggy that Corky views him as a dumb girl who’s easy to manipulate, which leads Peggy to rethink her decision to leave Duke for Corky.

This act of self-sabotage is true to Corky from the very beginning of the film. In the opening act, Corky is unable to charm his audience, but instead of bettering his craft, he lashes out, sabotaging his prospects of ever performing live again. Although his passionate outburst is well-received by Greene, who recognizes his raw talent, Corky once again sabotages himself by fleeing away from what could have been a glorious career.

Apart from the real fear of success, Corky fears truly being seen — he is okay as long as he can channel his darker, more impulsive instincts through Fats, but to be seen for who he truly is, would mean accepting those parts of himself — something he does not quite succeed in until it is too late.

Corky suffers from your standard imposter syndrome, mixed with a primal urge to prove his true mettle, and these warring selves manifest in the Corky-Fats dichotomy. Even in the end, after Corky stabs himself to save Peggy, Corky tells Fats that he is nothing without the dummy and that any semblance of success he’s had — whether worldly or personal — is thanks to Fats and their joined endeavor.

This leads to the most heartwrenching part of the film, where Fats simply says, “Us was you all along. It was you…all along.” The truth hits Corky like a lightning bolt, but by that time, it’s all over.

In death, Corky finds bittersweet acceptance as he glimpses himself as a person who had it all but was unable to accept it, even when the truth was right within the reach of his fingertips, which he had used to move his friend and partner-in-crime, Fats.

In the end, Peggy comes to the lake and asks Corky to come out of his cabin, willing to make amends and run away together. When Corky does not respond, Peggy imitates Fats to coax him out. Fats’ hold on reality is stronger than we believe, as he will always be charm personified, with something deeply disturbing lurking underneath.

Related to Magic (1978): All The Scream Movies (Including Scream VI), Ranked From Worst To Best

Magic (1978) links: imdb , rotten tomatoes , wikipedia magic (1978) cast: anthony hopkins, ann-margret, burgess meredith, where to watch magic.

An intersection of hope and hell. Wildly passionate about poetry and cinema, maddened by the idea of beauty.

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One of Horror’s Most Terrifying Love Stories: ‘Magic’ Turns 45

The phrase “they don’t make them like they used to” is thrown around a lot in the context of nostalgia, but in the case of the first teaser for Magic , it’s quite accurate. Imagine sitting around the TV with your family and seeing this commercial pop up on screen back in the 1970s . The simple but terrifying ad didn’t give away much about the actual plot, but it did instill a lot of traumatic nightmares for any young viewers that happened to catch it. The TV spot was so effective that it’s arguably scarier than the actual film; it wasn’t the straightforward horror story the teaser indicated but much more a psychological thriller. Released 45 years ago on November 8, 1978 , Magic is an underappreciated classic and one of horror’s most unnerving love stories.

Written by William Goldman ( The Stepford Wives , The Princess Bride ), and adapted from the novel he also wrote, Magic revolves around a ventriloquist seeking to renew a relationship with his former high school sweetheart. The only problem is that his dummy is the jealous type.

That ventriloquist, Corky, is played by Anthony Hopkins . Corky opens the film as an aspiring magician, but lacks the charisma of his mentor Merlin. Socially awkward, Corky chokes on stage and his subsequent outburst toward a less than enthusiastic audience has his ailing mentor warning him to develop a better stage presence and gimmick. Cut to a year later, where Corky has completely turned his show around thanks to the addition of ventriloquism in his act, with his dummy Fats. The act is so compelling that his agent Ben Greene ( Burgess Meredith ) has lined up a great TV deal for him. But the network requires a medical exam to close the deal, and Corky runs back home to the Catskills out of fear. Corky’s fears are amplified when he renews a relationship with married woman Peggy ( Ann-Margret ), and Fats isn’t thrilled about it.

Unlike the ambiguity in Goldman’s source novel, the film version of Magic doesn’t make any attempts to conceal the truth about Fats. Hopkins plays Corky always on the edge, always manic and nervous save for the fleeting moments of calm happiness with Peggy. Fats even looks just like Corky, and is voiced by Hopkins too. Fats is a manifestation of Corky’s id, and Corky is aware of his mental instability from the get-go.

There’s a sadness in Corky’s desire for normalcy despite knowing Fats won’t ever let him have it, but the true tragedy is the way Peggy is caught in the middle. Stuck in an unhappy marriage, it’s easy for her to be manipulated by Corky. Corky is always a means of escaping not just her marriage but her small town, making it easier to turn a blind eye to his erratic behavior. Ann-Margret has the tough job of playing the straight-man against Hopkins’ manic man losing his grip, and she pulls it off well. According to Goldman, he wrote Peggy with her in mind.

Though many names were tied to this film prior to production, from Roman Polanski to Steven Spielberg , the directorial duties ultimately fell to Richard Attenborough , the director behind Gandhi and A Bridge Too Far , but who fans will ultimately recognize as Professor John Hammond from Jurassic Park . Throw in the talents of cinematographer Victor J. Kemper ( Audrey Rose , Xanadu , Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure ) and a score by legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith ( Alien , Gremlins , Poltergeist ), and Magic became an impressive film inside and out.

Magic wasn’t the first time that a ventriloquist was terrorized by his own dummy, but its emphasis on the psychological, Hopkins’ intense performance, and Attenborough opting for straightforward tension without a hint of camp elevated the film into something that holds up well, even if nowhere close to being as scary as the initial TV spot suggests. Moreover, Magic served as direct inspiration for Don Mancini’s original screenplay for Child’s Play , fittingly released almost a decade apart to the day. The story of Corky and Fats may not be as well known, but the influence of Magic is still strong in horror even 45 years later.

Magic is now streaming on the Bloody Disgusting-powered SCREAMBOX.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on November 8, 2018.

Horror journalist, RT Top Critic, and Critics Choice Association member. Co-Host of the Bloody Disgusting Podcast. Has appeared on PBS series' Monstrum, served on the SXSW Midnighter shorts jury, and moderated horror panels for WonderCon and SeriesFest.

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Looking Back on the Underrated Xenomorph Campaign in 2010’s ‘Aliens vs. Predator’

Every time a new licensed horror game gets announced, a sizable chunk of the horror community emits a collective groan when it’s revealed that upcoming the title will be an asymmetrical multiplayer experience. While I actually enjoy the virtual hide-and-seek thrills of titles like Dead by Daylight and Gun Interactive’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre , I can still understand the frustration. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that even our asymmetrical multiplayer frights came bundled with fully-fledged single player modes.

In fact, one can even argue that the licensed asymmetrical horror experience itself was invented by a franchise that was just as well known for its campaign as its legendary multiplayer mode. Naturally, I’m referring to the Aliens vs. Predator games, a series that has been mostly forgotten despite its tremendous influence on gaming as a whole. And with Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus showing plenty of love for the franchise’s long history of terrific video games, today I’d like to look back on a criminally underappreciated part of Alien history: the Xenomorph campaign in 2010’s lovable hot mess, Aliens vs. Predator .

Based on series of licensed comics published by Dark Horse in 1989, AvP would take the world by storm with an insanely successful expansion into toys, books and video games (with the film series only happening decades later). And while the initial beat ‘em up games were fun enough, it’s generally accepted that the crossover franchise only came into its own when Rebellion Developments released their phenomenal First-Person-Shooter, 1994’s Alien vs Predator .

Inspired by controversial adaptations like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the Atari 2600, Rebellion realized that playing as the monster could be even more fun than simply running away from them, which is why they made sure that players would be able to take control of humans, Predators and the Xenomorphs in their groundbreaking titles. This decision led to some of the most profitable licensed games in history, with Aliens vs Predator 2 and its expansions often being cited as one of the best FPS games of all time. Unfortunately, there would be a long hiatus after the sequel titles once Twentieth Century Fox finally decided that it was worth focusing on a theatrical version of the crossover.

This is why it would take a decade for Rebellion’s AvP to finally make a comeback, though the much-anticipated sequel would then be turned into a full-on reboot in order to better conform with the movies’ newly established lore. Unfortunately, executives split between this project and the ill-fated Colonial Marines (as well as some rumored studio interference) made development of the 2010 title a complicated process, which is why it came as no surprise that the finished title was so negatively received when compared to its groundbreaking predecessors.

While critics at the time were correct in lambasting the game’s short campaign length and plethora of technical issues, it’s much easier to look back on the game today as a flawed yet commendable throwback to a bygone era of gaming – especially since the idea of a commercial release containing three completely different playstyles (four if you count the multiplayer) would likely seem ludicrous to modern consumers.

Despite middling reviews, even the harshest critics from the time had to admit that the regrettably brief thrills of the Alien campaign made up some of the most unique and entertaining segments of the game. And now that you can purchase AvP online for next to nothing, I’d argue that the title is worth buying simply to play this gory third of the experience. For starters, this portion of the campaign borrows most of what made the previous Xenomorph modes so much fun, allowing players to zoom across floors, walls and ceilings with little regard for gravity as “Number 6” stalks its prey from the shadows – armed only with teeth, claws and a razor-sharp tail.

And while it’s true that the 2010 game removed some features from the original games in order to focus on visual fidelity (like playing as a Face-Hugger and having alternate vision modes), Rebellion mostly made up for this by placing the lead Xeno in a series of unique story-driven situations paying homage to the films rather than making every level a variation of the same old colonial marine buffet. You even receive telepathic commands from the Queen as you play, which gives the story missions some much-needed context.

Personally, I love the idea of a mistreated Xenomorph escaping from Weyland-Yutani and wreaking havoc among his captors, with the initial break-out reminding me a lot of the fugitive Xenos from Alien Resurrection . It’s also really cool how the story accompanies you from Chest-Burster to Praetorian to Queen as this monstrous underdog embarks on an epic quest to keep its kind going, even slaying a Predator along the way. And since these are standalone campaigns, you don’t even have to play through the terrible Colonial Marines story in order to understand what’s going on.

By having you systematically destroy lights and turrets while hunting down your foes in the dark as you search for a brainy snack, the Alien campaign actually reminds me of that common internet meme where fans point out how Predators act more like hunters while Aliens are the true predators (though both creatures are technically aliens).

Obviously, the experience here isn’t perfect, with the Alien’s extreme agility even causing motion-sickness in certain players (Number 6 is clearly tapping into the Speed-Force as it crawls through ventilation shafts like a bat out of hell), and that’s not even mentioning the janky animations that often lock you into an action while you’re still getting shot at. However, in the grand scheme of things, I’d argue that most of these shortcomings can be overlooked simply because the game around them is so much fun – especially for Alien fans. Hell, I can even forgive the repetitive execution animations since eating your enemies’ heads remains an inexhaustible source of thrills.

Honestly, my biggest gripe with the experience is how short it is, as I’d pay for a AAA Alien game based solely on this third of the AvP experience. A hypothetical successor could even expand on the idea of helping your fellow Face-Huggers out as they search for suitable hosts, with those future chest-bursters then serving as your replacements if you die.

I’ve heard it said that putting players in the shoes of a living embodiment of cosmic horror completely misses the point of the Alien films, and while I agree that this approach wouldn’t make for a particularly scary experience, I think the power fantasy might just make you appreciate the brutality behind these monsters that much more when you encounter them from the victims’ perspective. It’s just a shame that the Xenos end up being treated like canon fodder throughout the rest of AvP (which has honestly been an issue ever since James Cameron showed us how cool it looked when Aliens got shot up with pulse rifles).

Regardless, now that an Aliens vs Predator revival has become a very real possibility (with Fede Alvarez even suggesting that he team up with Prey director Dan Trachtenberg in order to develop the project), why not bring back the long-time tradition of tie-in video games with a next-gen Aliens vs Predator game? After all, I can’t be the only one wanting to dive back into the biomechanical shoes of our favorite phallic space monster.

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Directed by Richard Attenborough

A terrifying love story.

A ventriloquist is at the mercy of his vicious dummy while he tries to renew a romance with his high school sweetheart.

Anthony Hopkins Ann-Margret Burgess Meredith Ed Lauter E.J. André Jerry Houser David Ogden Stiers Lillian Randolph Joe Lowry Robert Hackman Mary Munday

Director Director

Richard Attenborough

Producers Producers

Joseph E. Levine Richard P. Levine

Writer Writer

William Goldman

Original Writer Original Writer

Casting casting.

Jane Feinberg Mike Fenton

Editor Editor

Cinematography cinematography.

Victor J. Kemper

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

C.O. Erickson

Production Design Production Design

Terence Marsh

Art Direction Art Direction

Richard Lawrence

Stunts Stunts

Gregory J. Barnett

Composer Composer

Jerry Goldsmith

Joseph E. Levine Productions 20th Century Fox

Releases by Date

08 nov 1978, 14 feb 1979, 03 mar 1979, 08 mar 1979, 26 mar 2021, 12 feb 2021, releases by country.

• Physical DVD & Blu-Ray
• Digital VOD

Netherlands

• Theatrical 16
• Theatrical 15
• Theatrical R

107 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by 👽 Zara 👽 ★★★ 2

seeing anthony hopkins not old is so fucking weird

Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 10

This film is like a box of chocolates; you never know what to expect. I mean, you have a picture that would normally feature and be made by a low-level actor and director that everyone would probably forget. And yet, you have Richard Attenborough directing a film written by William Goldman, composed by Jerry Goldsmith, and starring a deranged young Anthony Hopkins in a dual role as this pathetic puppeteer and the voice of this diabolical puppet whose banter is all pure gold. It's bizarre, disturbing, and amusing; it's a film that, in a rational world, would never exist, but here it is.

All in all, I'm not sure what more to say; if the cast and crew, as well as the premise of a disturbed guy who utilizes a spooky-looking puppet to offload his homicidal traumas, don't compel you to see this film, I'm not sure what will.

TODAY SCHEDULE Magic Novitiate Agnes of God Forgotten

Review by nathaxnne [hiatus <3] ★★★★ 4

When you take your hand and put it inside of yourself and move the levers and gears that make you blink and talk and smile and raise your eyebrows to punctuate a sentence or improve your line delivery whose hand is it and whose voice?

Uncanny from the very start, wherein the misdirection is that it never is not what it is and what it is doing all along even as it encourages us to forget a little here a little there, puts off our attention so that maybe we don't notice the lengthening shadows until night has really fallen and we can't find our way back to a place that never really was and we knew that all along but we forgot just a little here or there or forgot to pay attention but that isn't true because we wanted to even though we knew better and what does that always get us in the end?

Review by haley ★★★★ 5

anthony hopkins wearing matching sweaters with fats was so cute and i will be very upset if sam raimi doesn't include this in his remake

Review by Erin 🍺 ★★★★ 2

That man is right! Ann-Margret’s tits do belong in a museum

Review by jude! ★★★½ 1

Every movie sex scene should be repeatedly intercut with a ventriloquist dummy staring into the mid-distance

Review by Dan Abel ★★★★ 7

Corky is a struggling magician trying to get by on open mic nights with card tricks. Audiences aren't biting and desperation is setting in. That is until Corky spices up his routine and introduces Fats the ventriloquist dummy to audiences. Fats is the sharp personality that the shy Corky lacks and his addition has a tremendous impact on his life. On the verge of mainstream fame he takes Fats and runs away to escape the pressure. Up to the Catskills near an old love interest. A love interest who has no idea that Corky isn't himself anymore. He's different. Dangerously different.

Young Anthony Hopkins and the great Burgess Meredith in the same film? That's a lot of legend on one…

Review by SlimySwampGhost ★★★★ 2

Devastating. I went in, not expecting Child’s Play, but something more traditionally spooky with a killer doll. What I got was more akin to Dead Ringers, with an incredible dual performance from Anthony Hopkins as Corky and his dummy Fats. The “five minutes” scene is gut-wrenching, and the ending cuts you open.

“It was always just you.”

Review by Helen ★★★★

This was a great psychological thriller and it’s one that’s been on my list forever. 

Hopkins is unsurprisingly fantastic in his role as the mentally unwell magician, Corky. The dummy (Fats) is as unsettling as most.

You can tell there was a low production value but that doesn’t make the atmosphere any less eerie and effective or the story any less disturbing. There’s still lots of attention paid to the cinematography in creating scenes that are downright chilling. 

If you enjoy 70s horror, this is one of the good ones.

Review by The Horror of Marna Larsen ★★★★★ 8

For when there needs to be wtf oscars or Anthony Hopkins&Dummy matching dagger collar shirts and fair isle sweaters oscars.

I found the whole card trick scene inexplicably hot WTF is wrong with me? That, um, oscar

Review by MrSneakyMan ★★★★ 2

The scene where Burgess Meredith is attacked in the woods is amazing cinema. On the one hand, from a narrative perspective, it's a heavy scene. It's sad to see a character fall so far, so fast and hurt the only living person who has been looking out for him. On the other hand, It is insidiously hilarious. The mental image of Anthony Hopkins swinging a ventriloquist's dummy like a club at an old man while screaming in the puppet's voice... I almost passed out I was laughing so hard.

Review by CinePhil ★★★★ 2

Anthony Hopkins sweatiest performance

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Magic DVD Review

Written by Steve Pattee

DVD Released by Dark Sky Films

Directed by Richard Attenborough Written by William Goldman 1978, Region 1 (NTSC), 107 minutes, Rated R DVD released on April 25th, 2006

Starring: Anthony Hopkins as Corky/Voice of Fats the Dummy Ann-Margret as Peggy Ann Snow Burgess Meredith as Ben Greene Ed Lauter as Duke

After failing miserably at his debut, magician Corky (Anthony Hopkins – The Silence of the Lambs ) refines his craft and a year later is blowing up on the club circuit. He’s added something new to his show that the crowds love: Fats, a foul-mouthed dummy.

When his manager, Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith – Rocky ), informs him that a television deal is within reach, and all Corky needs is a medical clearance, Corky freaks out and leaves town to get away from the pressure.

He ends up hiding out in the Catskills, at a cabin owned by Peggy (Ann-Margret – Grumpy Old Men ), a woman whom he had a crush on in high school. Peggy is in a loveless marriage, and after some talking (and sex), the two decide to run off together and get away from their problems.

However, Fats has other plans, because no one is gonna come between him and Corky. And if they try, they die.

Jealous little bastard.

When Dark Sky Films announced they were releasing a special edition of Magic, I was elated — for a couple of different reasons. The first was, considering the work they did with Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and The Manson Family , I knew I’d be in for a treat. The second was this movie scared the piss out of me when I was a young buck, and I was quite curious to see how it held up.

Well, one thing’s for sure: This is not the same movie I remember.

The movie I remember was about an evil dummy with a switchblade that it used to kill people.

The movie I watched is about a man having a mental breakdown, who has a dummy, and people die.

And it is better than the movie I remembered.

Instead of a Chucky-esque story of an evil doll running around hacking people to bits, I was treated to Hopkins’ stellar performance as a man going mad.

Now, don’t get me wrong, killer dolls are a blast. But a killer doll movie doesn’t leave you with any more thoughts after it’s over. Well, other than maybe “that was cool” or “that sucked.” The bottom line is, generally, they aren’t very deep.

But not Magic . Magic is a thinking man’s maniac doll movie.

In one of his early roles, a young Hopkins shines. It is easy to see why he eventually became the well-respected actor he is today. And, dare I say it, Hopkins’ performance as Corky easily rivals, and in some instances is better than, the one that solidified Hopkins as a household name — Hannibal Lecter. The Lecter character was just plain evil. In Magic , Hopkins was required to play both hero and villain. He made it look easy.

And while Hopkins’ performance is stellar — and it is — Burgess Meredith as Ben Greene is amazing. Greene is a man who puts up with no shit, and Meredith handles the role so well that I’m damn inclined to believe part of the real person is shining through. Throw in the beautiful Ann-Margret, who manages to easily hold her own as the love interest, and you have some great performances.

But even great performances require a great script, and Magic shines there, as well. Written by William Goldman — author of All the President’s Men , Misery and Marathon Man , and novels such as "The Princess Bride" (as well as its script) — Magic manages to not only be believable, but never cross the line into hokey. And, let’s face it, when dealing with killer dolls (or dummies), that line is very easily crossed.

Richard Attenborough, the Oscar winning director of Gandhi , should be mentioned as well. He not only pulled outstanding performances out of one already outstanding actor and one up-and-coming one, he took a tight script and turned it into a gripping movie without missing a beat.

Oh yeah, and Ann-Margret gets naked.

Video and Audio:

Like everything else about the movie, the 16:9 presentation is great. Colors are natural — with reds being especially vibrant — and blacks are suitably dark. In addition, I saw no spots or damage on the film. That’s right, no visible blemishes. A beautiful picture.

The 2.0 track is very clean. While I wish there were more bass, but all things considered, it’s more than adequate.

English subtitles are available.

Special Features:

• Fats and Friends Featurette
• An Interview with Victor J. Kemper
• An Interview with Anthony Hopkins
• Anthony Hopkins Radio Interview
• Ann-Margret Make-Up Test
• Theatrical Trailers
• TV and Radio Spots
• Photo Gallery

Dennis Alwood, ventriloquist and creator of Fats, is the centerpiece of the “Fats and Friends Featurette.” Clocking in at just under a half hour, this featurette covers a lot of ground, from a brief history of ventriloquism to some interesting trivia about Magic — some of which is told by Fats himself. If you watch no other special feature on this disc, watch this one.

Victor Kemper, Magic ’s cinematographer, explains what a cinematographer does, and the choices he made when filming Magic. This cat has done almost 60 movies, including Pee-wee’s Big Adventure , Arthur! Arthur! , Eyes of Laura Mars and Dog Day Afternoon , and the 12-minute interview is pretty damn good.

There are two interviews with Hopkins, a radio interview and a television interview. The television interview was obviously filmed for a Spanish station, as the interviewer asks Hopkins questions in English and immediately translates the questions to Spanish (as well as Hopkins’ response). It’s not too annoying, as the interview runs just over six minutes, but it does get somewhat distracting.

The radio interview is just over three minutes and it plays over a video of some behind-the-scenes clips as Hopkins briefly talks about the film.

Ann-Margret’s make-up test is about a minute and a half and has no audio. But it’s a minute and a half of Ann-Margret, so that’s cool with me.

The trailers, TV and radio spots are exactly that. The trailer has a very interesting opening tagline that some horror fans may find amusing. And one of the TV spots (“English 2”) is interesting, as it only aired once, but was pulled due to complaints from parents. Sweet.

The photo gallery contains 26 pictures, including lobby cards and posters. But the last few contain head shots of Fats and Hopkins. I’m not a fan of photo galleries, but the Fats head shots were pretty neat.

Conclusion:

Sometimes you catch a movie you haven’t seen in years, and it’s different than you remember it — especially if you haven’t seen the movie since you were kid. But it’s very rare when the movie that scared you as a kid still affects you as an adult. Magic does that. It’s better than I remembered and it still creeps me out — but this time on a completely different, higher, level. Go out and buy it. It’s more than worth its $19.98 MSRP.

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I just watched “Magic” (1978) on Tubi and it’s much better than I expected, you all should check it out

I suggest reading as little as possible about it. It’s a psychological horror about a ventriloquist. That’s a surprisingly common sub-subgenre and you’ve probably seen it done before but the execution is great. Great script by William Goldman, great performances by Anthony Hopkins, Ann Margret, Ed Lauter, and especially Burgess Meredith. The direction and feel will remind you of Hitchcock and Cronenberg.

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• Entertainment

'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' Review: Marvel Magic Casts a Horror Spell

Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen and director Sam Raimi add jump scares to the MCU in this weird and wild blockbuster.

Benedict Cumberbatch lights up the screen as Doctor Strange tackling the Multiverse.

After more than a decade and dozens of movies and TV shows, the last thing Marvel needs is to get more complicated. And yet Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness , in theaters now, whips up a headache-inducing melange of backstory you may or may not remember, multiple genres and tones, a bunch of new characters -- and even alternate versions of existing ones. Is this the flick where Marvel starts to lose its audience?

No, obviously. In the hands of director Sam Raimi , Multiverse of Madness is a marvelously assured balancing act of bizarre weirdness and affecting human drama (and a huge box office hit ). 

I have to admit I had doubts about the first Doctor Strange movie  in 2016. Detractors were already talking about superhero fatigue, and I wondered if Marvel's unprecedented streak was facing a collapse, caused by this lesser-known comics conjurer in his wacky cape (sorry, cloak). But Marvel's magic held up, and audiences turned out for the franchise's typical mix of quips and eye-popping visual effects, even if the actual film was a distinctly average origin story. It must have been reassuring for the folks at Marvel and their overlords at Disney to know we'd go with them if they pushed into the weirder corners of comics canon. It can't hurt that the Marvel formula also includes a likable leading man, played in this case by Benedict Cumberbatch.

And so here we are, with Doctor Strange 2, the strangest Marvel movie yet. We open with a ponytailed Cumberbatch outrunning a fire demon in a CG-psychedelic cosmic realm, before moving on to different universes in an adventure that includes mystical mountain fortresses, evil versions of your favorite characters, a magical musical duel and people made of paint.

And zombies.

Marshaling the madness is director Raimi. He began his career with the zingy Evil Dead  series and delighted horror fans with shocker Drag Me to Hell, but also oversaw the trilogy of pre-MCU Spider-Man movies with Tobey Maguire. In fact, for Multiverse of Madness he taps both his horror and superhero experience: The early stretches of the film could be drawn from a 1960s comic as a monster threatens a woman pushing a pram on a colorful New York street. But as the film progresses, it ramps up the horror. The villain's monstrous power is signaled by jump scares and sinister horror movie flourishes, building to the most macabre final battle you're likely to see in a family-friendly blockbuster (here's what you need to know about whether you can take your kids to see it ).

Rachel McAdams, Benedict Cumberbatch and Xochitl Gomez star in Marvel's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Superhero films have become unnervingly intense over the years, notably in this year's The Batman . But where that serial killer chiller cultivated a grim atmosphere of relentless dread , Multiverse of Madness is a much more entertaining brand of horror. Long-time Raimi fans will recognize familiar elements including cursed books, the camera punching in on slamming doors and other stylistic techniques. 

But the horror genre touches are only window dressing compared to the emotional driving force of the narrative, which is grounded in a relatable human story. Marvel's villains don't always measure up, but this flick solves that problem by simply presenting the good guys with impossible choices and then enjoying the fallout when they fall out. 

The last time we saw Dr. Stephen Strange, he was casually rearranging the fabric of reality so Peter Parker could again enjoy a quiet life in Spider-Man: No Way Home . But his spell accidentally ushered in a new chapter of Marvel blockbusters driven by parallel universes spilling into each other. This is just as complicated for fans as it is for the characters, as films and TV shows dizzyingly cross over. As well as following on from No Way Home, Multiverse of Madness takes the familiar MCU whirl of multimedia continuity to new levels: there's the inevitable post-credits scene setting up the next film and even some cross-brand synergy in the form of an Avatar 2 trailer playing before your screening. It also references the events of two Disney Plus TV shows: Loki set up the multiverse, while in WandaVision , Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda trapped a town in a sitcom and had magic babies, or something?

Fortunately you don't need an intimate recall of either show to follow the action in Multiverse of Madness. The film wears its continuity lightly, using the multiverse concept to go large with cameos and twists on Marvel lore that will no doubt draw whoops of delight in packed theaters. But these fun moments don't outstay their welcome.

Elizabeth Olsen is the tragic villain of Marvel's Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

This film knows it needs to actually present a human dilemma rather than just using alternate realities as a gimmick. Parallel universes have to be more than sandboxes full of fan-pleasing variants of our heroes. I mean, yes, they are that, and Multiverse of Madness has fun showing stuff which couldn't happen in our main reality. But primarily it uses the multiverse as a lens to explore choice and possibility, fantasy and regret, taking the idea of being your best self and making it literal. It's no coincidence that in the midst of the CG spectacle, the final blow is struck in the most everyday circumstances. 

Elizabeth Olsen is the standout as the super-sorceress Wanda, continuing her journey from WandaVision. When her powers are unleashed she's a terrifying force, but she's still a sympathetic and even tragic figure. 

Cumberbatch is watchable as the familiar, charming asshole, but considering he's the one with his name in the title, Strange is far from the most interesting character. His relationship with Rachel McAdams' Christine Palmer seems like something we're meant to care about, but their dynamic is pretty inert compared to what's going on with everyone around them.

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Newcomer to the MCU Xochitl Gomez plays plucky America Chavez, a comic book character also known as Miss America who has the ability to kick holes in the multiverse. Gomez brings a lively spark to the film, even if her underused character retreads No Way Home's running joke about Strange being grumpy with wide-eyed teenagers. Among the rest of the cast, Benedict Wong remains one of the MCU's most charming secondary characters. And even with limited time, Chiwetel Ejiofor's returning friend-turned-foe Mordo feels like he's got some actual emotional turmoil going on.

Even if the nominal hero of the film feels a little lost, a strong central chase keeps the narrative moving and the mix of adventure, horror and action is balanced with a swagger worthy of cocky superhero Doctor Strange himself. Marvel's winning formula may be a formula, but this injection of weirdness keeps it feeling fresh. What doesn't kill a franchise only makes it stranger. 

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Magic Magic (2013)

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Magic Magic Review

Writer/director Sebastián Silva already “Wow’ed” me this year with his independent road-trip “comedy” Crystal Fairy , so I happily jumped at the chance to tackle his other summer release, Magic Magic . Also taking place in Chile, this story of a vacationing American is a much darker, sinister, and psychologically abusive tale, with Michael Cera returning to play an awkwardly terrifying exchange student named Brink. Silva trades laughs for tension this time around, shooting for his version of a grounded horror film, which is apparent through his indistinguishably independent delivery yet again. I absolutely loved his psychedelic take on the comedy genre, but how did his first foray into “horror” go? As quirkily as you would have imagined.

Alicia (Juno Temple) is a weary American tourist visiting her cousin Sarah (Emily Browning) while she’s studying in Chile, marking her first time outside the United States. After arriving, she meets Sarah’s boyfriend Agustín (Agustín Silva), Barbara (Catalina Sandino Moreno), and the oddly extravagant Brink (Michael Cera). After some short introductions, Alicia finds out they’re about to travel 12 hours to a little island off the coast of Chile, where they’ll have a quiet vacation all to themselves. But after Sarah is called back to University for a test, Alicia is left alone with her new friends, proving to be much less enjoyable than planned. Feeling trapped and secluded, Alicia enters a state of insomnia that causes her to become on edge at all times, and Brink’s aggressive advances start to scare the innocent girl. But are the horrors she is experiencing all in her head?

It’s funny, because even though Magic Magic is being billed as a horror movie here in the States, anyone can tell this is nothing but a psychological thriller with hints of suspenseful intrigue. There are no monsters, killers, baddies, or slashings – just a scared girl struggling with her surroundings and developed paranoia. Sure, that may sound terrifying, but don’t expect to actually be scared by Silva’s movie. His very grounded indie style makes even the wacky Cera seem somewhat normal and believable, while focusing on the psychosis of Alicia instead of true horror-style filmmaking. Don’t be fooled by the head-scratching genre label, as gorehounds and adrenaline horror fans might be put to sleep by this title.

But when properly analyzing Magic Magic as nothing but a dark thriller, Silva presents a mixed bag of results. While there are undeniably creepy moments, mostly provided by Cera, other stretches will leave you bored, a tad bit confused, and without much explanation. Silva essentially just picks you up and plops you at the beginning of a story that offers no backstory, making you figure motivations out as they come. He never wants to break the constant story that flows from Point A to Point B, but sometimes it’s hard to buy Alicia’s downward spiral without accompanying information. It’s easy to tell she has mental problems, it’s obvious that she’s unwell, but the minimalist storytelling method also prevalent in Crystal Fairy wasn’t able to duplicate the entertainment factor this time around, as Alicia felt force into craziness.

Michael Cera and Juno Temple are unfortunately a delight in their roles though, which makes me wish Magic Magic  was able to cash in on their efforts. It’s hard to describe Brink’s personality exactly, but he reminded me of one of those kids who turns out to be a serial killer, and this is mirrored in his actions. The eerie vibe Cera puts out remains consistently unsettling, even when playing the victim himself at times, and his looks (as exemplified above) are probably the most terrifying part of Silva’s movie. Sure, it’s still the same goofy Michael Cera as always, but the way he mixes shyness with an overbearing attitude – it’s just impossible NOT to feel a chill every time goes wild.

Juno Temple on the other hand represents our protagonist, freaking out at the most mundane things, but it’s her madness that keeps viewers entranced. While some of her actions may be questionable, Temple always peaks our curiosity, and manages to show psychological trauma rather well. She’s scared, fears the worst, but somehow never full develops into a full main character though, as it becomes harder to justify her traumatic outbursts. Honestly, it’s easy to mimic our supporting character’s confusion, as we’re left equally in the dark.

By the time Magic Magic reaches its interesting yet outlandish conclusion, a mundane fate has already been sealed, and Silva’s more creative efforts are lost on us. Don’t get me wrong, Michael Cera and Juno Temple try their hardest to draw viewers in, and they do to a degree, but with such a bare bones script, the psychological terror was all but lost. Sebastián Silva certainly knows his way around character work, and has a brilliant collaborator in Cera, but where Crystal Fairy benefitted from a underdeveloped delivery, Magic Magic suffers a much more forgettable fate.

'The Life of Chuck' Review: Mike Flanagan Makes Stephen King’s Story Soar | TIFF 2024

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Review by Jason Gorber

Many of the most beloved films of all time stem from the narratives birthed by the literary works of Stephen King . There are obvious contenders that are more explicitly horror films such as Carrie , Misery , or Dead Zone , or those that take his narratives and reshape them in certain ways like with Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining . Yet it’s the slightly oddball, less overtly part of King’s overtly-genre themed canon that seems to translate with even greater success to the big screen. Stand By Me , Rob Reiner ’s stunning adaptation of King’s novella “The Body,” continues to resonate decades later. Frank Darabont ’s The Shawshank Redemption regularly appears on best-of lists to this day. And now, with Mike Flanagan ’s stellar The Life of Chuck , we have another adaptation that immediately contends for being crowned the best King-originated film ever made.

Flanagan is, of course, no stranger to mining the works of this author, with 2017’s Gerald's Game , a psychological horror film, and 2019's Doctor Sleep finding a unique way of tying Kubrick’s version with the novel’s original precepts, creating a wild hybrid that was deserving of more praise than it received upon release. Flanagan is continuing to mine the scribe’s works as he’s set to captain an “ oil tanker-sized ” production based on the epic Dark Tower series, one of King’s most wild and epic creations that’s a merging of fantasy and Western motifs . At The Life of Chuck ’s premiere, Flanagan discussed first reading King’s “If It Bleeds” collection of novellas soon after its April 2020 release, just as the COVID pandemic was resulting in global lockdown. For a storyline that uses prescience about future traumas as one of its central tenets, and questions our choices at the start of worldwide catastrophes, this was quite obviously the perfect story at the perfect time to reflect upon the need to take chances, to embrace the art in all things, and to hold dear those memories that make us who we are right up until the end.

What Is 'The Life of Chuck' About?

The Life of Chuck contains magnitudes, as Walt Whitman ’s “Song of Myself” most famously articulated. King has crafted a philosophically rich, emotionally deep, intensely joyful narrative that in this adaptation feels like the culmination of Flanagan’s craft. Toying with our fears is a fundamental skill set for King and Flanagan alike , but it’s the deft touch in this project, where intertwined stories are knit together in ways both subtle and overt that, from its opening to closing frame, encourages us to find moments of joy in the face of existential dread.

Mirroring the novella’s structure, Chuck is told in reverse chronological order . Act Three (the first we see), subtitled "Thanks, Chuck;" introduces a teacher Marty Anderson ( Chiwetel Ejiofor ) where, mid-class, the student’s phones announce that all of California has slipped out into the sea. As global communication breaks down and a sense of aimlessness leads many to simply reject life in favor of suicide, we see as Marty clings to hope despite the world literally crumbling around him.

Reconnecting with his ex-girlfriend ( Karen Gillan ), they are haunted by an image on a billboard of a smiling, bespectacled man in an almost oppressively generic businessman suit, with “39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck" emblazoned below. The image begins to appear everywhere as things become all the more chaotic – from park benches, to glowing luminously from the windows of an oppressively normal suburban local. The mysterious figure appears both portentous and dull at the same time, this seemingly paradoxical divide is a touchstone to many of the film’s narrative shifts.

'The Life of Chuck' Dances Through Time

In the Second Act, “Buskers,” the narrator (performed with a perfect drawl by Nick Offerman ) shares the story of an accountant ( Tom Hiddleston ) who gets swept up thanks to the beats of a street drummer played by Taylor Gordon , crafting an infectious, percussive performance that’s one for the ages . While not a huge narrative surprise when some joyous action finally takes hold (think Mads Mikkelsen in the Oscar-winning Another Round , or Christopher Walken rocking out to Fatboy Slim), the audience at the premiere was so taken by the performance that there was a mid-film ovation, clapping along with the on-screen crowd.

As the first-yet-final chapter unfolds (dubbed, fittingly, “I contain multitudes”), we’re introduced to a number of other people who help tell the story of a full life , from Mark Hamill and Mia Sara as grandparents, Samantha Sloyan as an instructor, to Jacob Tremblay , David Dastmalchian , Harvey Guillén , and, of course, Flannagan’s partner both on and offscreen since Occulus , Kate Siegel .

While much of the film’s charms lay in these various narrative machinations, there’s far more at play here than merely relying on a series of shifts. Rather than employing simple twists, the storytelling equivalent of a jump scare for cheap effect, in King’s storyline, and Flanagan’s adaptation, there’s a well-designed interplay that provides both thematic richness and moments of more sublime character moments. Credit to King’s original where it’s due, but in the end it’s the translation to the big screen, with all its physicality and warmth and rhythmic capabilities, that truly makes the source material soar. While on the written page Chuck’s story may work well enough , it’s when employing the unique capabilities of cinema, with elements from montage to performance to the magical act of merging sound with a moving image being the tools that are truly needed to maximize this story. It's where things truly become profound.

Flanagan Does It All With 'The Life of Chuck'

With Flanagan writing the adaptation, directing and co-producing, as well as editing the film, his fingerprints are all over the project, and so it’s at his feet that so much of the success of this film lies. His interdisciplinary role in the telling results in a remarkable consistency, leading viewers with an underlying tonal, performative and aesthetic coherence to help navigate something that feels at first a series of scattershot moments, but in the end encapsulates something gloriously personal .

As a famous Carl Sagan metaphor that serves as one of the film’s principal guiding tracks illustrates, in the grand scheme of cosmic time, our lives occupy a slice that is miniscule to the edge of meaninglessness, a blip-of-a-blip where our existence itself is, by almost any measure, trivial to the point of erasure. And yet, as the film so beautifully articulates, within that galactic, yawning void, there’s still love to be shared, art to be made, and lives to be lived to their fullest . The human capacity to have knowledge that it all inevitably ends is in conflict with our equally human capacity to revel in the ride we have along the way. Even as everything falls into the sea, and that which we hold dear is stripped away like dimming stars, at our best we can in these most dire, most truly horrific of situations, find ways of holding onto joy to the very end.

Flanagan’s latest is simply a stunner. His finest film is a deeply heartfelt, glorious thing. Dancing between the ruminative and the revelatory, it never succumbs to being maudlin or cloying. The Life of Chuck is a modern fable told with the deftness of a fairy tale , with the sheer exuberance of a musical while exuding the same sense of wonder one gets staring up at the heavens. A Life well-lived, indeed.

The Life of Chuck

Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck is a stunner and one of the all-time great Stephen King adaptations.

• Writing, directing, editing, and more, Flanagan encapsulates something gloriously personal
• The film employs the tools of cinema to full effect, making King's writing leap off the page.
• In merging this story and the magic of cinema, Flanagan crafts something truly profound.

The Life of Chuck had its World Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

• Movie Reviews

• Mike Flanagan

Screen Rant

Lee daniels’ new netflix horror movie continues a disappointing 11-year trend after the butler.

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What happened to the real ebony, latoya ammons, after the deliverance, i'm delighted at how kaos fixes 1 of greek mythology's most horrifying myths.

Lee Daniels' Netflix-trending horror movie The Deliverance continues a "rotten" streak with critics that's prevailed since the director's 2013 historical drama, The Butler . Netflix's The Deliverance succeeds several Daniels-directed films that have either sank or swam with critics. Daniels' directorial debut, Shadowboxer , was his first critical flop - but he was able to follow it up with the sensational book-to-movie adaptation, Precious , which was a big success with critics, who scored it with a Certified Fresh approval rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes . Despite Daniels' rough directorial introduction, Precious helped raise anticipation for his 2013 movie, The Butler .

Daniels was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Directing for Precious .

For the most part, The Butler met the expectations of critics, as demonstrated by a positive 78% RT Tomatometer score. Even more, the film became Daniels' highest-grossing movie to date, earning $177.3 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo ). However, the rapport Daniels built with critics as a result of Precious and The Butler's outstanding performances would come to take a stark turn. Since The Butler , Daniels has yet to direct a movie that's made an impact with critics , even though the films have either drawn impressive crowds or rated high with general audiences.

As one of the oldest of the most popular entertainment mediums, the film industry has built an impressive catalog of legendary directors.

The Deliverance Continues Lee Daniels' "Rotten" Score Trend After The Butler

The deliverance was given a 32% approval rating by critics.

The Deliverance has performed well ever since its August 30 release on Netflix. For the week of August 26 to September 1, The Deliverance ranked third on Netflix's Global Top 10 chart with 14.5 million views and 27.3 million hours viewed. Currently, it sits in the No. 1 spot on Netflix 's Top 10 U.S. movies. Despite all this, critics have come to a condemnatory consensus about Daniels' supernatural horror, bestowing it with a frightful 32% RT score and continuing a “rotten” streak that began with The United States vs. Billie Holiday .

Whereas The Deliverance has proven its ability to draw crowds, The United States vs. Billie Holiday played its hand at impressing general audiences. The 2021 biographical drama about singer Billie Holiday earned itself a 79% audience approval score. Nevertheless, it didn't hold up as well with critics . Combined, the disappointing critical scores of The Deliverance and The United States vs. Billy Holiday - which possesses a low 55% critical approval rating - formed a trend that can only be broken by a future Daniels-directed project. At the moment, Daniels does not have any upcoming projects queued under his direction.

Why The Deliverance's Reviews Are So Negative

Critics slam the deliverance as unoriginal.

Underneath The Deliverance's mostly negative reviews , critics could find some bright spots. The Deliverance aims to document the haunting of the Jackson family, and amid its supernatural occurrences, critics gave props to the film's layered family story and cast performances. From The Deliverance's cast of characters came standout performances from Andra Day as Ebony Jackson and Glen Close as her mother, Alberta Jackson. Unfortunately, the film's clichéd genre tropes and predictable plot line overpower the potential The Deliverance had in its cast and family drama , making it hard to gauge it as anything but another unoriginal horror movie.

The audience reception of The Deliverance shared the same sentiments altogether but gave it just a little more credit. With 250+ ratings, general audiences granted Daniels' film a 49% score, citing The Deliverance's nostalgic feel and exploration of themes of faith and family trauma as additional strengths. All that said, none of The Deliverance 's strengths could save the film from the "rotten" territory that Lee Daniels has found himself in once again.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes , Box Office Mojo , Netflix

The Deliverance

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A woman returns to her childhood home to confront dark secrets from her past. As supernatural forces emerge and family tensions rise, she must uncover the truth behind her haunting visions and protect her loved ones from an ancient evil threatening their lives.

‘April’ Review: Abortion Drama Is a Singular Horror Show

Venice Film Festival: Director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s distinct film follows an OB-GYN who performs illegal abortions in Georgia

Don’t let the name fool you: “April” is a wintery affair. By far the most uncompromising vision to play at this year’s Venice Film Festival, director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s slow cinema horror show might also be the most audacious. That audacity translates less by way of length or provocation – Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” and Harmony Korine’s “Baby Invasion” have those laurel locked up – than by way of self-assurance, from the filmmaker’s steadfast belief in her own creative gambit to her audience’s willingness to immerse themselves within.

This is, in so many words, a swing for auteur enshrinement so crystalline in intent that it namedrops Mikhail Kalatozov’s “The Cranes Are Flying” and visually cites Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” from the very jump.

Kulumbegashvili can reasonably wager on her film’s long-term prospects once it meets the right crowd (“April” boasts the producing support of Luca Guadagnino, who showered Kulumbegashvili’s prior effort, “Beginning,” with just about every eligible prize when he headed the San Sebastian jury in 2020), but the diverging festival response between Kalatozov’s 1957 Palme d’Or winner and Glazer’s 2013 subject to boos and jeers reflects the shakier outlook for such formal extremes upon immediate arrival.

Of course, the film is all too conversant in those particular risks, capping an opening prologue that finds a humanoid monster slinking into a pitch black abyss with a depiction of live childbirth for an infant that (narratively, at least) doesn’t last minutes in this world. Shot from above and leaving nothing to the imagination, the extended sequence has a jolting effect, at first shocking with a clinical view of the single act that unites us all (don’t worry those born of Cesarean, Kulumbegashvili later circles back to cover that as well) before lingering long enough for us to wonder why an act so common should remain so obscure.

Viewed in a certain way, “April” can be described as a character study centering on Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), the OB-GYN-turned-scapegoat upon that tragic turn. Only we don’t actually see Nina’s face fully lit in close-up until the one-hour point, nor do we hear her name spoken aloud before the penultimate scene. Instead, Kulumbegashvili overlays perspectives, collapsing her camera, her lead, and her audience atop one another. If not fully assuming the first-person, the film often frames interactions in near POVs that hew the character’s general eye-line and position in space at a given time.

Even when it breaks or plays with that framing and blocking device, “April” subsumes the main character’s Hippocratic view into all aesthetic choices. As a doctor, Nina is, rather by definition, a clinical pragmatist; she treats the symptoms and tries to resolve the problems in front of her. That one of those issues is the complete lack of (legal) family planning in this devout and rural patriarchy doesn’t really faze our physician. Somebody’s going to do it, she figures; might as well be the one with medical training. As with that early birthing sequence, the film translates this same clinical reasoning in visual terms, confronting elements often left off-screen and casting them in cold light.

Time and again, Nina confounds the patriarchal order by refusing it recognition, but she pays the price for her insolence, from a transactional sexual encounter turned violent once she asks for reciprocation, to the career put in danger once rumors of her extracurricular medical services begin to swirl. That career is all she has, as the price for living beyond the reigning order is a life of solitude and abnegation. The director’s almost-but-not-quite POV compositions accentuate that solitude, framing characters in conversation or sexual congress as completely isolated forms.

Shirking exposition until absolutely necessary, “April” follows Nina over a nominally condensed period of just a few days, all destabilized by long takes that curdle and warp the felt passage of time. We see her with a hospital superior whose overly familiar questions might hint at workplace harassment until we learn of their shared past and undimmed flames. We see travel across vast plains whose great expanse belies a cloistered world where everyone is up each other’s business, and we see her at work, both on the clock and off. As it builds a rather deliberate pace, the film implicates and includes us in Nina’s sense of trudging responsibility until we finally see her face in full as her eyes beam at the sight of a healthy newborn, and better understand the passion that guides her.

Lest we slip too close to realism, Kulumbegashvili often returns to that opening homunculus – a stooped figure with a spine protruding from mounds of melted flesh that might be a version of Nina finally removed from all the human impulses still anchoring her, or maybe something completely different (a wink to that goop deformed thug from “Robocop?” Who knows — this is an open text). To that end, the odd sight adds a final, unresolvable question to a film that continually makes formal leaps assuming that the audience drawn in will work alongside to catch up. That takes a certain mad audacity, and a level of belief both in self and in the audience that flatters – and bewilders.

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At The Movies: In Cuckoo, an Alpine idyll becomes a home to horror

Cuckoo (M18)

102 minutes, opens at The Projector on Sept 5 ★★★★☆

The story: Teenager Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), her father Luis (Marton Csokas), stepmother Beth (Jessica Henwick) and stepsister Alma (Mila Lieu) head to the German Alps to live in a resort run by Herr Konig (Dan Stevens). Gretchen dislikes the place. It is too isolated, and the locals behave strangely, especially Herr Konig. A series of terrifying events convinces her that the resort is home to a cabal headed by Herr Konig.

In this German-American production, German writer-director Tilman Singer takes things that he loves from Gothic thrillers and drops them into the setting of a monster movie. Here is a gaslighted woman, Gretchen, whose fears are belittled and dismissed by those who speak of her unprocessed feelings about her late mother.

For the first third or so of the film, Singer holds out the possibility that Gretchen might be going through a stress-related mental health episode.

The plot solidifies into a survival thriller by the second half, but Gretchen’s disturbed psychological state remains pertinent. There is plenty of running and screaming, but the action is driven as much by the teenager’s inner turmoil as it is by her need to stay alive.

As the mysterious and menacing Herr Konig, English actor Stevens (period series Downton Abbey, 2010 to 2012; the Marvel series Legion, 2017 to 2019) has a great time as the classic Weird Northern European, the unflaggingly polite person whose every pronouncement is tinged with condescension.

Every “thank you” and “please” appears to carry the subtext, “go away, stupid American”.

Singer fills the Alpine forest with shadow and foreboding. Gretchen and her family are housed in pretty cottages, but after nightfall, the dwellings become points of light in a sea of darkness. Seen through Gretchen’s eyes, the leafy groves are less a hideaway for holidaymakers and more like an enclosure, a pen for animals.

Everything in the story is seen through the teenager’s eyes.

For American actress Schafer, whose main credit so far has been a supporting role in the drama series Euphoria (2019 to present), her performance in Cuckoo proves that she can carry a movie. From a sullen American teen dragged along on a family trip to a survivor struggling to live through the film’s bloody climax, Schafer never puts a foot wrong.

Hot take: This work of psychological horror transforms the sunny uplands of the German Alps into a vale of darkness through Singer’s deft use of atmosphere and Schafer’s versatility.

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