Anthony Hopkins plays a shy, struggling comedian/magician named Corky. That's right - Corky. When his profoundly unfunny comic routine gets him nowhere, he reinvents himself as a ventriloquist with a sassy puppet called Fats. Burgess Meredith reprises his Rocky role as his tough talking, no-bullshit manager with the best of intentions.
Corky develops a strange, dependent relationship with the puppet and talks to him when no one is around. Meanwhile, he falls in love with a childhood friend who is now unhappily married to a big, hostile lumberjack. As cracks begin to surface on both his career and love life, Corky starts taking some unhealthy advice from his wooden friend… with deadly results!
Magic barely qualifies as a horror movie as it is heavily laden with drama. It's even admittedly heartbreaking at times. But the fact that you can take a movie with a plot such as this seriously is a testament to Anthony Hopkins' acting chops. There were times when I actually forgot that Fats was only a doll and I was truly engaged in the conversations he was having with himself. Hopkins actually performed the ventriloquism for the film himself and he was as good as any ventriloquist I've seen (though I'm definitely not an expert on this art form.)
The drama/love story does begin to weigh the whole experience down and by the time the credits rolled, I was hoping for a Chucky killing spree that just wasn't in the cards.
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