One of the weirdest and most unsettling horror films I saw as a child, Magic ranks quite highly in my nightmare fuel meter. Written by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Stepford Wives) and directed by Richard Attenborough (A Bridge Too Far, Gandhi), Magic is a totally bizarre horror film that skirts the limits of madness through the psychology of entertainment and identity.

The film follows Corky Withers, a magician who fails horribly on his first stage performance. Looking for inspiration, he finds that a side-kick in the form of the wise-cracking Fats saves his career. Fats is a ventriloquil figure that wins over the audience and makes him a hit. However, when it becomes clear that stardom beckons on TV, Corky crumbles and fleas his agent for the Catskills to get his head together. In reality, Corky has become so addicted to his alternate personality 'Fats' that he literally cannot live without him. When his agent Ben Greene finds him in a secluded cabin, he starts to realize the severity of the problem. Corky cannot last five minutes without picking up Fats and cracking jokes through the dummy's mouth.

But it gets worse. When threatened with seeking psychiatric help, Corky snaps and murders Greene, using Fats as the murder weapon. By chance he finds that his cabin is near his high school crush (played by the delicious Ann-Margret) whim he seduces and starts an affair with while he steadily loses more of his sanity.

The entire movie is held together by an unbelievably intense performance from Anthony Hopkins (also seen in Thor and some other movies). Hopkins learned some real magic tricks for the role and appears to be so in character at times that I imagine he suffered greatly in attempting to separate himself from the movie. Earning Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, Hopkins received acclaim for his part in Magic, a movie so creepy that the trailer was pulled from TV.

Trailer

If you're looking for some other cult/horror film suggestions for the Halloween season, why not delve into the Daily P.O.P. archives?

Fiend Without a Face

Casa Negra (Black Pit of Dr. M (aka Misterios de Ultratumba), Brainiac AKA El Baron Del Terror, The Curse of the Crying Woman and The Witch's Mirror)

Bela Legosi – White Zombie

The Ghost of Frankenstein

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

Videodrome

Head Trauma

The Last Broadcast

The Host

American Scary

Gojira

Phantom of the Paradise

Tod Browning's 'Freaks'

House of Dracula

The Mummy (1932)

Quatermass And The Pit AKA Five Million Years to Earth

Dementia-13

The Evil Brain from Outer Space

The Brain Eaters

Phantasm

Existenz