Review: Magic (Richard Attenborough, 1978, USA)

This is a film I had been meaning to see for a while now. Mentioned in passing in magazines, never really seen on any show talking about horro and yet the combination of factirs intrigued me. Anthony Hopkins... An evil puppet... Directed by an Attenborough... How could I not want to see this. Only after hearing the trailer discussed on the rather great podcast Filmspotting (look for it on itunes or www.filmspotting.net), did I get the motivation to rent it. And how is it? As weird as it sounds.
Corky (Anthony Hopkins) is a failed magician who suddenly hits it big with a ventriloquist act featuring a dummy called Fats (Voiced by Anthony Hopkins). After getting scared of the level of his success, he goes to his home town where he tries to start a relationship with an old unrequited love, Peggy-Ann (Ann-Margaret), who happens to be married. While doing so, Fats (Or is it Corky's other side), grows increasingly impatient with events. After a tense encounter with Corky's agent Ben (Burgess Meredith), things start to spiral out of control and Fats shows his true self.
This film is hard to find, barely ever on TV and released on a label knon for releasing obscure horror, Anchor Bay. And yet, this is a cracking little thriller which is also really chilling to boot. The whole question of how much of Corky is in Fat's and vice versa is handled brillaintly by Hopkins, Attenborough and the writer William Goldman, adapting his own novel. We are never able to get a true handle on Corky, he is likeable and yet he seems to be psyhotic. You really care about him and it does hurt by the end of the film when you have seen what he has gone through to try and have a happy life. His perfomance during the "five minutes" scene is amazingly subtle; this could have been easily hammed up but in Hopkins hands, he pulls it off with real panache.
The other actors are really orking in Hopkins shadow. Ann-Maraget has a thankless role and acts more like a plot device than anything else, she truly sets off the events of the story but she doesn't really bing anything else to the film. Burgess Meredith brings a touch of showbiz to the film and yet again, where he could have been portrayed as a greedy slimeball but instead seems to really care about Corky. And then there is the puppet... Hopkins makes a chilling alter-ego for Corky in Fats and he really does stay with you after the film ends. As does what could be seen as a "twist" in the end which to be honest, freaked the living shit out of me. The films is wholly ambiguous and whereas sometimes you can see that Corky is obviously one thing, the next scene can contradict that. Thing is, I really don't want to watch it again, as it really did shit me up. And for a film to do that to me these days, is quite a thing. Fucking puppets man.