Movie · 1978 · Drama, Horror · 1h 47m · R · English
Curator score: 2.2/10 (15.6K ratings)
A terrifying love story.
Overview
A ventriloquist is at the mercy of his vicious dummy while he tries to renew a romance with his high school sweetheart.
Ratings
Curator score: 2.2/10
IMDb: 6.8/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
Metacritic: 49
TMDB: 6.8/10
Director
Richard Attenborough
Production
Joseph E. Levine Productions, 20th Century Fox
Cast
Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith, Ed Lauter, E.J. André, Jerry Houser, David Ogden Stiers, Lillian Randolph, Joe Lowry, Robert Hackman, Mary Munday, Beverly Sanders, I.W. Klein, Steve Hart, Patrick McCullough, Scott Garrett, Brad Beesley, Michael J. Harte, Robert Cole, Valerie Hall
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, Philo, Shudder, Night Flight Plus, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A tense, eerie psychological horror-drama anchored by Anthony Hopkins’ feverish dual performance, Magic turns a killer-dummy premise into something sadder and more unsettling than camp. It’s especially effective if you like 1970s character-driven horror with a tragic edge and a slow build toward emotional collapse.
Best for
fans of psychological horror
viewers who like tragic character studies
70s horror enthusiasts
people drawn to uncanny performance-based stories
fans of bleak relationship dramas with a horror twist
Skip if
you want fast-paced slasher energy
you dislike ventriloquist-dummy horror
you prefer overtly supernatural or gory horror
you need a polished, high-budget production
Overview
Magic is less a gimmick horror movie than a breakdown movie wearing a gimmick. Richard Attenborough keeps the focus on Corky’s loneliness, humiliation, and desperate need to be seen, which gives the film a sad, queasy charge long before the violence arrives.
Worth noting
Anthony Hopkins is the whole engine here, playing Corky with raw nerves and making Fats feel like both a comic release and a malignant second self. The result is creepy, but also oddly heartbreaking: the film understands that the scariest thing may be a person splitting apart under pressure.
Bottom line
It’s a very 1970s kind of horror, patient and psychologically bruising, with a strong atmosphere and a nasty final stretch. If you want a polished monster movie, this isn’t it; if you want something intimate, off-kilter, and emotionally corrosive, it lands hard.
Top Letterboxd reviews
👽 Zara 👽 (3★) · 910 likes
seeing anthony hopkins not old is so fucking weird
haley (4★) · 368 likes
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
Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine (4★) · 355 likes
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… more 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… more
nathaxnne [goodbye <3] (4★) · 253 likes
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… more
2000 · Mystery, Thriller · 1h 53m · R · Curator 9.1/10 (3.2M ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus
For fractured identity and the unsettling feeling of a protagonist whose grip on reality is unstable.