MOVIEVIBE ← Back to Home

Magic

1978 1h 47m
Drama Horror
MOVIEVIBE Rating
6.8/10
333 reviews
Your Rating
Magic

A ventriloquist is at the mercy of his vicious dummy while he tries to renew a romance with his high school sweetheart.

"A terrifying love story."

Top Billed Cast

Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Corky Withers / Fats (voice)
Ann-Margret
Ann-Margret
Peggy Ann Snow
Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith
Ben Greene
Ed Lauter
Ed Lauter
Duke
E.J. André
E.J. André
Merlin
Jerry Houser
Jerry Houser
Cab Driver
David Ogden Stiers
David Ogden Stiers
George Todson
Lillian Randolph
Lillian Randolph
Sadie

Detailed Critic & Audience Reviews

C Cat Ellington Verified TMDB Critic
2017-02-15

'We're gonna be star-arrrs.'
— "Fats"

It had been two weeks after seeing Phantasm that my family's weekly "Movie Date Night" continued on with the next film treat on our list: Magic, the Richard Attenborough directed psychological horror, in which the now legendary Anthony Hopkins stars as Charles "Corky" Withers, an aspiring magician and Ventriloquist, whom, "in partnership" with a profanity-spewing ventriloquist dummy named "Fats", perform their comedy shticks before live audiences and together become a huge success. But the newfound fame - even coming with an offer to star in his own ...

W Wuchak Verified TMDB Critic
2024-05-13

**_Anthony Hopkins as a schizophrenic magician and Ann-Margret the woman he loves_**

A shy man finds success as a ventriloquist with his dummy “Fats,” but vacations in his hometown in the Catskills where he seeks to reunite with a high school friend. As his agent tries to find him, the woman's hubby might show up. Burgess Meredith and Ed Lauter play the latter two.

“Magic” (1978) is a slow burn Hitchcock-ian psychological drama/thriller that mixes bits of "Psycho" with the creepy mannequins of several 70's movies/shows, like Kolchak: The Night Stalker's "The Trevi Collection." Th...

C CinemaSerf Verified TMDB Critic
2025-06-29

After a distinctly rocky solo start, “Corky” (Anthony Hopkins) has become quite a celebrated ventriloquist but that fame with “Fats” has come at a price. Indeed, it’s not always clear who has their hand up whom? In order to take a breather from all this lucrative adulation, and despite the insistence of his more venal agent “Greene” (Burgess Meredith), he seeks somewhere more remote to recharge his batteries. That somewhere just happens to be where his boyhood crush “Peggy” (Ann-Margret) lives with her husband “Duke” (Ed Lauter). Things are tense at the best of times, but...