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| MAGIC (1978) |
Thirteen years before his Oscar-winning role as Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins gave an even better, more impressive performance headlining one of the best horror thrillers of the 1970s.
Based on the best-seller by William Goldman, “Magic” opened at theaters on Friday, Nov. 8, 1978 – two weeks after John Carpenter’s sleeper hit “Halloween” shocked everyone by raking in millions at the box office.
To this day, I believe “Halloween” was an unintentionally funny, vastly overrated low-budget shocker – one that sadly initiated the mad-slasher genre that saw a series of pointless “Halloween” sequels and the “Friday the 13th” series. “Magic,” however, is totally different.
This is the story of Corky Withers, a man who finds sudden fame as a successful magician; of Peggy Ann Snow, an attractive middle-aged woman afloat in a dying marriage; and of Fats, Corky’s ventriloquist dummy that is slowly taking over his personality.
