October is my favorite time of year. 1982’s Something Wicked This Way Comes is set in a small American town in the 1910’s over the course of three days late in that month, and it captures a certain October-ness. This, in a movie without much imaginary associated with the month, bar one shot of a field full of ripe pumpkins and the intrusion of wind-blown leaves in most every other outdoor shot.
Fitting for that month, it is a horror movie of sorts. But it is a Disney production from the early 80’s, when they were trying to find their way in an industry where even children’s entertainment was becoming more adult in nature. A divide was growing between family and kids’ entertainment and the studio tried to accommodate this through such compromised pictures as The Black Hole and Watcher in the Woods.
The plot concerns a mysterious carnival that arrives by train in the middle of the night and with little advance notice. Still, anybody would have to be able to tell this endeavor is evil, given it bears the name of its top man, Dr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce). Way to keep it on the down-low, dude.
As explained by Pryce to Jason Robards, he and his kind find and feed on the torments of the most miserable in each town they visit. A bait-and-switch is done on such people. Their wildest dreams are answered, except they suffer an ironic fate which turns them into a carnival attraction. I’m going to call this “doing an O. Henry”. The barber who dreamt of beautiful women (Richard Davalos) gets turned into the bearded lady. Amputee bartender James Stacy goes into the hall of mirrors, gets his missing arm and leg restored, but is reverted to being a pre-teen. The spinster schoolmarm Mary Grace Canfield also goes through the hall of mirrors and is restored to her younger and beautiful self, only to lose her eyesight. Cigar vendor Jack Dengal dreams of winning a huge amount of money, but he only has that for a moment before being turned into a cigar store Indian. Sorry for the wording, folks, but I have never heard of a cigar store Native American or cigar store Indigenous Person.
One of the things I found most difficult to understand is why any prospective customers would want to see these attractions. Did people used to go to the such places to see a blind woman without any unusual characteristics? Why would anybody pay to see a perfectly ordinary kid in a football uniform? If that is a draw, then it seems the stands should be packed at peewee football tournaments.
All of these and more are in the parade that goes through town. In the case of their new bearded lady, I wondered how nobody in this small town could recognize some of their fellow residents, especially since those people just went missing. Carried on a throne by four bearers is Royal Dano, the traveling lightning rod salesman who still looks like a homeless person. I can imagine kids watching this parade and begging their parents to take them to the fairground to see the king of the hobos.
The heroes of this film are pre-teen boys Vidal Peterson and Shawn Carson. The latter is fatherless and only wants to be an adult. I’m not sure about this, but I believe there is the suggestion mother Diane Ladd is a prostitute. Peterson has a father (Jason Robards), though the man is of rather advanced age and has a heart condition. Robards has a regret and that is a stranger had to intervene when he failed to intervene when his son needed him most, when Peterson was caught in a river current.
He is also the town librarian, so he is the only one who bothers to look into the town’s history and learn this same carnival arrived in 1891, headed by a man who was named Dr. Dark and whose description matches that of Pryce. Who knows if the same means is used to prevent all of Pryce’s employees from ageing, but we see him use the carousel to revert henchman Bruce M. Fischer to the same age as our young heroes. Why this is necessary was beyond me though, admittedly, the dead-eye kid he becomes (Brendan Klinger) is awfully creepy.
The film sure could use a lot more creepy, as absolutely nothing in it is scary. Pryce may exude a dark intelligence, but he is overqualified for this production. Nothing that happens at the carnival is even uncanny or unnerving. There is a great deal made about tarantulas, including a scene with the kids finding their houses suddenly full of the things. Such scenes are inherently scary only because that’s what spiders are. They are the jump scares of the animal kingdom and employing them here is lazy. I wasn’t surprised to later learn that scene was added almost a year later, after some unfortunate test screenings.
At least the tarantulas give Pam Grier some more screentime, as her character is somehow associated with the things. It was a pleasant surprise seeing her in this, even if the script doesn’t give her much to do except look beguiling. And she is beguiling.
The special effects aren’t bad, with more hand-drawn animation than one would normally see in such movies of the time unless they were made by Disney. There is a decent tornado, which I’m not sure how it was accomplished except I wouldn’t be surprised if it was along the lines of how one was done for The Wizard of Oz. There are also effects moments which didn’t make any sense to me, such as the purple rays of light which shoot out of cemetery monuments as the kids watch the carnival train arrive in the middle of the night. Why this happens, I don’t know, but the law in the 80’s required purple rays of light to be shooting out of shit, so it had to be worked in somehow.
My main impression from seeing Something Wicked This Way Comes is what a massive influence the original book must have been on Stephen King. If I didn’t know any better, I would have assumed the town everything takes place in here was named Castle Rock. Everything just has that vibe to it of some of the man’s work, including monsters who feed on the pain of others. I haven’t read Ray Bradbury’s novel, so I can’t accurately judge the material by the movie adaptation, but I only say of the film, though perhaps unfairly: “By the pricking of my thumb, Something Wicked sure is dumb.”
Dir: Jack Clayton
Starring Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Diane Ladd, Pam Grier, some kids who get more screentime than these actors combined, yet their names are cruelly left off the poster
Watched on Disney Movie Club (R.I.P.) blu-ray