Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

I don't usually start off a new month with a Disney Week entry, and to be honest this blog tends to deviate from the conventional structure quite alot... but something on my phone caught my attention the other day: "Disney's Creepiest Live-Action Film is Hard To Shake Off". I read the headline and I immediately knew that whatever it was, it was a contender for a blog feature. It transpires, aforementioned headline was referring to the 1983 version of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Adapted from a Ray Bradbury novel, apparently a man who was a friend of Walt Disney himself according to the article, the movie was considered a commercial failure; grossing $8.4 million against a budget of $20 million and garnering mixed reviews upon release, it was victim of a troubled production with it's Director Jack Clayton and original author; Ray Bradbury falling out, the Director ultimately getting excused from his duties, the Editor getting fired, and an entire new musical score written and adapted for the movie. It's one of those Disney oddities that is the bread and butter of this blog...and ironically one you won't find on Disney+... and represents a time when Disney were experimenting with more edgy, adult orientated content. A theme we will be revisiting at later dates on this blog. I won't pretend that I've read the book (because I haven't) or that I'm familiar with Ray Bradbury's work (because I'm not), but just the sheer fact that it's not available on Disney+ makes me genuinely interested to see how this film plays out and with it being almost 40 years to the day since it first saw release it feels like now is the perfect time to add it to the catalog.

The town of Green Town, Illinois, is doing just fine until without-.... well, with quite considerable amounts of warning actually, Dark's Pandemonium Carnival arrives in town quite literally overnight which is incredibly exciting for young boys; Will Halloway (Vidal Peterson) and Jim Nightshade (Shawn Carson) but less so for Mr, Halloway; Charlie Halloway (Jason Robards) who laments at being too old to play with his boy Will but also feels a certain sense of foreboding over a carnival visiting town in October... His feeling of foreboding is potentially well placed as despite looking like a "plain 'ol carnival" according to Will, local barkeep and double amputee victim; Ed (James Stacy) sees both his amputated leg and arm return to him in his reflection at the mirror maze and other residents of the town suddenly begin to have their long standing, if not simple, desires magically satisfied by the carnival. As an increasingly inquisitive Jim and Will explore the carnival they discover an out-of-service carousel and begin to have a wander around until they are snatched up from behind by by Mr. Cooger (Bruce M. Fischer), one of the carnival's proprietors, but spared from discipline by Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce) himself who scolds the boys but sends them on their way with free passes to ride the carousel once it's back in service. Hiding in the park until after sundown, Jim and Will return to the carousel to witness Mr. Dark operating it with Mr. Cooger riding, only the carousel operates strangely, driving in reverse, and far quicker than any regular ride and from it a considerably much, much younger Mr. Cooger emerges, now the same age as the boys. Racing back into town, the boys call in on their teacher, Ms. Foley (Mary Grace Canfield) and discover that young Mr. Cooger is now posing as the lady's nephew and he spooks both Will and Jim when he intentionally smashes one of Ms. Foley's windows leading her to believe it was one of the boys. After the boys flee the scene she gazes in the mirror wishing to be younger and prettier again, only for her wish to come true but at the cost, seemingly, of her eyesight. Later that night, after worrying for his mum, who was widowed by his disappearing father, Jim makes the decision to go back to the carousel so that it can make him older, but Will tackles him before he can even get there and after figuring out his plan goes back to the carnival with Jim. When they arrive they discover Mr. Dark is holding local lightning rod salesman Tom Fury (Royal Dano) hostage, tied to an electric chair, with Mr. Dark demanding to know when the storm is due as it exposes the evil intentions of the carnival. Mr. Cooger is now very much full sized and older again and inside, Will and Jim spot other members of the town now fully converted into attractions within the carnival, including the now young but blind Ms. Foley. When Tom Fury refuses to co-operate with Mr. Dark, he flips the switch on the chair, inducing an electric shock until Will cries out, giving away their hiding space, and Mr. Dark sends the dust witch (Pam Grier) after them ordering her to bring them back to him. The boys make it all the way back home but during the night have a nightmare that they are awoken and attacked by a plague of big hairy spiders, saved only by a lightning strike hitting a lightning rod, that Jim had brought from Tom Fury a couple of days prior, jolting them awake from the nightmare. The following morning, Mr. Dark leads a search through the town under the pretence of it being a carnival parade, forcing the boys into hiding. Meanwhile Charlie Halloway becomes increasingly suspicious, even more so when arriving in town he finds the barbers uncharacteristically closed and the pub uncharacteristically empty. Whilst inside he is about to confess his suspicions to the town Doctor but is interrupted by Mr. Dark walking in and asking Charlie if he has seen "two boys." under the pretence that they have won prizes at the carnival, but Charlie doesn't answer instead excusing himself. Only for Mr. Dark to follow and when Charlie lies about the boys identity, Mr. Dark reveals that he got their names from the blind teacher and that he knows Charlie is the towns Librarian, a vocation he looks down on. As Mr. Dark and the carnival leaves, Charlie recognizes a young boy in the parade as a much younger version of Ed the barkeep, and ensuring they are all out of the way, he passes a message on to the boys in hiding to meet him at the library later that evening. At the library the boys explain what they have seen to Charlie, and he reads a passage from his fathers diary from over a 100 years ago who describes an evil autumn carnival coming to town and destroying people by granting their hearts desire but with a price and upon leaving casting behind them an "unusual" storm. But before Charlie can read further their studies are interrupted by ghostly goings on in the library with Mr. Dark appearing as Charlie begins to quote MacBeth. Mr. Dark begins to try and tempt the boys, more so Jim, out of hiding until Charlie confronts him and explains that his father knew them as the autumn people. Mr. Dark explains that they feed on misery and desire and that if he reveals the location of the boys he can make Charlie young again. But Charlie resists his temptations and turning violent, Mr. Dark gives him a taste of death with Charlie collapsing to the floor in pain. He continues to stalk the library looking for the boys in hiding, trying to tempt them with temptations of their own until he happens upon their hiding place and drags them away, taking them back to the carnival. Regaining consciousness, Charlie hurries to the carnival where he finds a waiting Mrs. Nightshade who believes her husband is returning... he sends her on her way and continues into the carnival inside after traversing the hall of mirrors he almost falls foul to Mr. Dark's temptations but manages to overcome them when he hears of Will from inside the hall screaming that he loves him. With the dust witches magic beginning to fade, a lightning bolt strikes the carnival reviving Tom Fury who rushes through the house of mirrors and impales the dust witch with a shining lightning rod causing the hall of mirrors to completely collapse. Materialising outside, Charlie and Jim rush into the carousel and are just able to rescue Jim before a lighting bolt hits the ride and the magic begins to dissolve, aging Mr. Dark rapidly until nothing but a rag covered skeleton remains and the carnival begins to collapse under bolts of lighting and lashings of rain until the storm develops into a twister and pulls it apart completely.

This was a good one! Yeah, I enjoyed this! I mean, I'm cheating a bit because despite maybe not being favourably received on release, this movie has gone on to garner a bit of a cult following, but yeah I thought this was pretty good. It did get a little bit convoluted towards the end and a bit confusing. Especially at it's climax and I feel like if the movie had spent maybe just 5 or 10 minutes more fleshing that part out and revealing a bit more detail it would have made a bit more sense as it felt a bit like they rushed through that part but it didn't completely ruin the movie for me and yeah I thought this was really enjoyable.

For a start, there was some outstanding acting in this. Both child stars; Shawn Carson as Jim and Vidal Peterson at Will were excellent, especially considering their age and the chemistry they had together as a pair was brilliant. They were the backbone of the movie, without them it fails and it's odd but it looks like they didn't go on to do much else of note which is shame. Equally Jason Robards as Charlie was very good although his screen time was a bit more limited however absolute standout was Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark. He commands the screen every time he's on it and is perfect as the movies suave, sometimes menacing, sometimes humble, but always manipulative main villain. Mr. Dark is the perfect anthesis to the naïve innocence of the boys and Jonathan Pryce does outstanding work in that portrayal.

Plot-wise and storyline as well were spot on here. I thought the movie was really well paced, a little slow in the build up at the beginning but it's necessary to flesh out key plot points that form later, and although as I mentioned before the ending felt a little bit rushed, the movie takes it's time to develop the story moving you on to key moments and building up a picture. Aside from occasional moments sandwiched in to develop the relationship between characters, it's always building up and moving you on to the next key point and I didn't feel like there was any part of the movie you could strip out that wouldn't otherwise harm it as a full production. Most importantly though, it kept it interesting. There was enough drama in key moments to keep you engaged and the relationship building moments were kept short and succinct enough that it didn't kill any interest built up until that moment. It did a proper job of delivering the story from start to finish with just enough emotion added in to flesh it out.

I was also really digging the soundtrack here and if it cost a whole chunk of money to redo the soundtrack after test screenings it was certainly worth it. The musical selections really help to build an atmosphere in each scene, whether that be the sinister undertone behind the carnival mixed with the jovial music of the carnival's attractions or during key points when tension needed to be built. It was expertly applied and struck a good balance between being something slightly fresh but retaining the hallmarks of Disney production.

I could probably go on to be honest, there was very little really here that I felt wasn't done correctly or could have been done better. There was some nice cinematography to keep the movie visually interesting. The special effects were decent for the time, although in retrospect were very stylistically 80's but I'm ok with that. And in terms of costume and set design, nothing was really underproduced here that gave the movie an amateurish feeling to it. Everything just competently and professionally executed to make sure the movie was the best it could potentially be.

Did this live up to the "creepiest live action" moniker that first reeled me in? Well I'm not 100% sure on that, I certainly got a different vibe from this than I usually get from Disney productions. A very strong Stephen King-esque movie kind of vibe which is ironic as Ray Bradbury is apparently one of Stephen King's inspirations... but it certainly dipped it's toe more into the horror curiosity / macabre kind of genre but stayed true to Disney tropes with the kids prevailing at the end. I thought this was a really enjoyable experience though. If I want to levy some unfair criticism, perhaps in comparison with more fully fleshed out curio movies like this one, they did dial back on the more adult themes to a strong degree in order to keep things family friendly and I don't feel like it ever really pushed the envelope, even for 1980's standards, but I had a good time watching this and it's the kind of movie I feel I could watch again and again and appreciate. 4 out of 5.