MAGIC (1978)
Directed by Richard
Attenborough
Starring Anthony Hopkins and Ann Margaret
Yet another example that even the finest mainstream filmmakers are often incapable of producing excellent horror films.
This was Sir Richard Attenborough's less-than-satisfactory attempt to make a scary movie. He had a great cast: Hopkins, Margaret and Burgess Meredith. The William Goldman novel the movie's based on was a big best-seller in the 1970s. It had all the makings of a big hit. Produced at a time when big-budget horrors like "The Exorcist" were raking in millions, one would have thought "Magic" would have been excellent too. It didn't happen, although it is in some ways an important film.
Best remembered perhaps for the scene where Margaret takes off her clothes (some porno rags reproduced the images in their magazines) the film helped resurrect the "living doll" horror sub-genre which had seen too much action since "The Twilight Zone," although it was done quite effectively in "Trilogy of Terror" which hit TV screens a few years before "Magic." Hopkins plays a magician who uses a ventriloquist dummy as part of his act. The dummy is designed to look a lot like him (pretty creepy). His act is a success, but when he's given the opportunity to star in his own TV show, he balks at the requirement that he pass a psychiatric exam.
We soon realize that he's in a relationship with his dummy. When he runs away from his agent (Meredith), and tries to rekindle a relationship with high school sweetie Margaret, his life slowly starts to unravel. It also appears that his dummy has taken on a life of its own and is killing anyone that stands in the way of his new love affair or of his future as a magician.
The film hints at what "Child's Play" eventually had the balls to show: A possessed dummy on the loose. In fact, "Child's Play" scribe Don Mancini has said he was influenced by this film, quite heavily.