Magic: Corky and Fats Forever.

If you are like most warm blooded creatures, then you find yourself to be creeped out by dolls, dummies, and puppets- namely ventriloquist dummies which are all of the above. Personally, I despise puppets. They have these awful little plastic hands, and those lifeless eyes and it's just all kinds of nasty. Horror movies seem to understand this fear as the number of doll centered movies seems to be very high-and for those of you also scared of cannibals named Hannibal Lecter, then I have the movie for you.

Magic- said best by the Netflix envelope in which my movie came in, is a creepy and psychological role for Tony Hopkins decades before he was raving about liver, fava beans and Chianti. He plays Corky, an amateur magician/ventriloquist who is about to make it big...in the magician/ventriloquist circuit. Before his career really starts taking off however Corky decides to reconnect with an old flame from his school days- and it is there we find that his dummy, Fats- may be more powerful than we thought.

Now first off this movie is not about a possessed doll as much as the synopsis and trailer might make you think. Rather, Corky is plagued by a severe psychological complex probably related in some way to his first show and how badly he bombed. Fats takes the personality of everything Corky aspires to be, and without Fats, Corky often feels that his career would be over. And unfortunately that's pretty much true- because magician's have to have some kind of extra something you know? What good would those boring card tricks be without a funny dummy making everything all better? So poor Corky- his mind is very complicated. Turns out the "Fats" personality is pretty violent- and although he is extremely hilarious he is still creepy and he still likes to kill people who want to complicate things.

I enjoyed Fat's great sense of humor- which for the most part made him slightly less creepy. I also just loved witnessing the degradation of Corky and all those great shots of him and Fats looking out a window, or just hanging out. Their similarities are amazing and I just really loved having such an obvious double personality right there in front of me. There was no twist about who was doing the killings or if Fats was really alive- everything is straight forward which is certainly something seen less and less of these days.

Sure the movie looses some steam somewhere along the way- but seeing Tony Hopkins lose his cool over a magic trick gone wrong is still enough to make you pull back in fear that he will bite your face off. The other strange thing however is that Corky is so innocent and cute at times. Those moments of innocence, "What's a Pilot?" etc, are so telling about his character and I found that I just loved how things developed from that point on. The ending is as heartbreaking as ever, and while the kills aren't anything to exclaim about it's really all about Corky and Fats so who really cares?

Here is a lovely photo journal detailing my favorite pictures of Corky and Fats together.

Corky and Fats Forever.

Buy Magic at Horror Movie Empire!

And to answer your questions-yes. I sang this song all day yesterday.