Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)
Anchor Bay DVD (region 1)

d. Jack Clayton; pr. Peter Vincent Douglas; scr. Ray Bradbury; novel. Ray Bradbury; ph. Stephen H. Burum; m. James Horner; ed. Betty Mark Gordon, Argyle Nelson; cast. Jonathan Pryce, Jason Robards, Pam Grier, Diane Ladd, Royal Dano, Vidal Peterson, Shawn Carson, Ellen Geer (95 mins)

Introduction

The film version of Ray Bradbury’s classic dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes is an intriguing confluence of a number of factors. 

Whilst there has been a general critical consensus that the film and television adaptations of Bradbury (The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles) have been less than enduring, Bradbury had the chance to correct such with this project as he wrote the screenplay adaptation of his own novel.  With Jack Clayton (who had essayed unease well in The Innocents) scheduled to direct, there were expectations for a fine, suspenseful work.  However, the film was to be produced by the Disney studios, then itching to try more adult subject matter and broaden their audience base.  Disney had already tried a new form of horror movie for children to some problematic success in The Watcher in the Woods and sought to expand this: but where Clayton preferred a sinister, malevolent mood, Disney felt the need for more direct scares and had the film slightly re-ordered against the director’s wishes.  In retrospect, the resultant film slips uneasily between children’s movie and adult horror-fantasy and perhaps unsurprisingly never really connected with an audience.  Indeed, after a disappointing initial run it virtually disappeared from distribution, not even on DVD until the always diligent distributor Anchor Bay made a deal with Disney.

Synopsis

In the early part of the 20th century, it is autumn in a small Illinois town.  Two boys are close friends in the midst of their childhood, one perhaps maturing slightly faster than the other. 

The father of one of these boys is the town librarian (Jason Robards), an ageing man with his own regrets over his past lack of action.  A lightning rod salesman comes to town ahead of an impending storm.  Soon the boys see leaflets in the wind announcing the arrival of a traveling carnival, an unusual event at this time of year.  When the carnival arrives, the boys sneak in for a closer look, but are unnerved by what they see.  When the carnival opens the next night though, they are there again, looking at how unusually confused and even mesmerized some of the townspeople are by this event.  Indeed, for many of the locals, the carnival offers them a kind of secret fulfillment, but at a horrible cost, as the boys soon discover.  Indeed, they see a mysterious out of bounds carousel at work and realize that the carnival owner (Jonathan Pryce) is a slyly demonic figure.  Pryce spots these eavesdroppers and wants to catch them.  The boys appeal to Robards for help, although Pryce arranges for a parade through town in the hope of finding them.  For Robards, the chance to help these two boys is a possible chance at redemption and he begins to research the carnival, soon discovering its mystery.  Pryce, however, is rapidly upon him.

Although the protagonists in this film are two young boys, it remains a movie about regrets and the yearning for a second chance to re-live lost opportunities.  Indeed, the menace in this film comes from the suggestion that regret and melancholic longing are the emotions that this traveling evil feeds upon with glee. 

Human desperation thus summons evil in the form of the carnival.  The central character in this film is hence the father, Robards, who is haunted by his inability to act when his son almost drowned but is given a second chance to act decisively.  He is a man aware and fearful of his own impending death, full of the loss and even the resignation that the film considers part of ageing.  He is frequently juxtaposed to his son, the film thus extending its thesis to examine how a young boy reacts to his father’s fearful timidity regarding the real object of fear for all humankind – mortality.  The impetus to cheat this inevitability is the lure for evil.  In its way the film is less another idealization of childhood than a moody reflection on the emotional needs of the ageing.  Childhood, though with no fear of mortality, is a standard reference point for these failed adult dreamers, a self-reflexive point of departure for the Disney studios.  It is the fear of mortality that underlies the film’s best scene, an extraordinary confrontation between Pryce and Robards wherein the former tears away pages from a book as if each page is a year in the latter’s life.

The film correspondingly examines the ultimate price of human wish fulfillment fantasies.  Every yearning for a second chance comes with its own toll, a terrible and always ironic comeuppance that in effect signs away one’s identity.  

With ageing comes the dread of having failed in life to pursue opportunity to the fullest, the film becoming an examination of what it is like to live in a melancholia that consists of perpetual, fearful regret.  Few films have been as eloquently evocative of this sorrowful state of mind as Something Wicked This Way Comes manages to be in its finer moments.  Although the film is not entirely successful, it is always suggestive of hidden riches, especially in the contrasting obsession each boy has with their fathers, one physically absent and the other in a state approaching emotional paralysis.  Thus, these children have needs they can barely comprehend and the film essays their passage into adulthood as their discovery of the role of fear in self-definition – the fear of the evil that would consume and drain life as it pretends to renew it.  In its way, it is about worries innate in the human condition, about doubts that provoke people to look for supernatural escape but in the process summon damnation.  Triumph in this life means to be comfortable with one’s achievements, for to live in regret is to live in fear and despair.  It is a complex philosophical assessment and handled with surprising restraint.

DVD DETAILS:

Vision

The visual transfer is quite arresting, available in both fullscreen and widescreen letterbox formats, upon menu selection.

The widescreen has only some minor issues in background clarity and is the basis for this review.  Autumnal colors and textures are carefully maintained throughout and the overcast skies suggestive of the pervasive grayness that underlies the thematic stress on a burgeoning melancholia.  Fallen leaves, chilled winds and a slightly artificial sense of period Americana work well although it is the sinister and shadowy carnival that is suitably menacing, its attractions being wicked temptations.  For a children’s film, the mood through much of Something Wicked This Way Comes is ominous, even morbidly Romantic, perfectly evocative of the often fearsome beauty in the sinister and malevolent.  With some fine symmetrical compositions and a use of point of view that makes much of the film unfold from a child’s eye level, this is one of the best of Disney’s more experimental tonal pieces.  The macabre carnival’s arrival is portentous and the parade through the town is a startling and suspenseful sequence.  Dusk becomes an important time in this film, replete with its symbolic association to age as a state of mind.  The mixture of youthful wonder, carnival garishness and sinister amazement makes for a richly textured movie that sadly is never as stylish or evocative as a whole as are many of its parts.

Sound

The sound transfer is engrossing in Dolby Digital 4.0 Surround, the ominous weather and train of the carnival setting the mood well. 

The tense score is nicely evocative of the unease and wonder this film is able to achieve.  The voice-over narration adds a necessary quality of reminiscence, ideal for a film about regret for missed opportunities and the stating of a young boy’s realization of his father’s plight.  Wind is always crisp, leaves rustle nicely and the details of fall all inform this carefully textured movie as off-screen noises are unnerving when needed.  The distinctive sound of a calliope is used for eerie effect at various instances and the score often plays directional musical tricks to add considerable suspense.  In short, it uses its surround transfer well in ways that serve the design of the original movie.  This is a subtle technical achievement for the film itself and evidence of a superior DVD transfer process.  The overlap of sounds makes for unsettling moments as when an opening train whistle is mixed with screams, neatly suggesting the infernal misery this carnival brings with it.  The carousel music matches the hallucinatory intensity of the visuals in sequences which reveal the carousel’s ominous power, making a children’s ride seem malevolent.  Indeed, as a film about children’s rite of passage in the act of perceiving the sinister in life, Something Wicked This Way Comes is a most welcome and unusual exploration.

Special Features

Sadly, the only special feature is an original theatrical trailer.  It should be noted, however, that the Anchor Bay DVD release used for this review is now out of print, replaced by an official Disney DVD release with differing visual and aural transfers.

COLLECTOR'S NOTE: THIS FILM HAS BEEN RE-RELEASED IN AN OFFICIAL DISNEY COLLECTOR'S VERSION

Copyright (C) Robert Cettl All Rights Reserved Last modified: April 14, 2009