Puppet-Creepy

This week, we begin with Richard Attenborough's 1978 psychological horror curio Magic, in which deranged magician Corky (Anthony Hopkins) faces off against his darker impulses in the form of his ventriloquist dummy Fats. Plus, a new meta-slasher and a book recommendation. Light-to-medium spoilers below.

From the Grave.

Three ideas from horror cinema's past.

◆ Magic, dir. Richard Attenborough, 1978.

Creepiness. Ventriloquist dummies present a creepiness that exists at the other end of the realism spectrum from the uncanny valley—they aren’t near-human, they’re just human enough. Like dolls, they are objects that we shouldn’t apprehend life within, and yet it’s incredibly easy to do so. And the Kuleshov effect is absolutely operative with respect to a crude dummy’s face. When Corky says or does something that Fats doesn’t like, a reaction shot on the immobile dummy reads like a real reaction—we can see the disapproval on his face. We know we shouldn’t, though, and it’s unnerving precisely because it moves us even despite the rational thoughts in our reasoning minds. 

Darkness solid. Is embodied darkness—evil given solid shape—especially potent, or is it safely contained by a material form? Different movies and stories would answer this question differently, but the answer here is that the monstrous form is uniquely dangerous. In Magic, Fats channels Corky’s worse impulses—he's an id or a dark half. Fats is the opposite of a safe container, pushing and cajoling Corky to malevolent heights of bad behavior. And Fats is also someone who Corky can’t quit. There’s a scene in which Corky’s agent asks him (challenges him really) to refrain from voicing Fats for just 5 minutes: Corky cannot do it. In Magic, Corky’s darkness—instead, maybe, of being integrated into his personality—is, in the form of an external, embodied presence, entirely irrepressible.