Synopsis
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.
1978 Directed by Richard Attenborough
A ventriloquist is at the mercy of his vicious dummy while he tries to renew a romance with his high school sweetheart.
Magia, Magia Negra, Магия, Magic - Die Puppe des Grauens, Magic – Eine unheimliche Liebesgeschichte, A mágus, Magic - Magia, Ο Δολοφόνος με τα Δύο Πρόσωπα, Magic: El muñeco diabólico, Kúzlo, 傀儡凶手, Magi, 매직, マジック, Màgic
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
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?
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
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…
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.
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
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.”
Every movie sex scene should be repeatedly intercut with a ventriloquist dummy staring into the mid-distance
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.