by Miguel E. Rodriguez
DIRECTOR: Jack Clayton
CAST: Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Vidal Peterson, Shawn Carson, Royal Dano, Diane Ladd, Pam Grier(!)
MY RATING: 5/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 62%
PLOT: In a small American town, a diabolical circus and its demonic proprietor grant wishes to the townsfolk…for a price.
Something Wicked This Way Comes answers the question: What would the Disney version of Needful Things (1993) look like? Instead of the Devil opening a curio shop in the middle of town, we get a malevolent carnival impresario, Mr. Dark, and his devilish carnival that promises delights beyond your wildest dreams. But beware, for the price of having your wish granted comes straight out of The Twilight Zone.
And no wonder, the screenplay was written by Ray Bradbury, based on his novel. Too bad the movie fell victim to studio interference, resulting in jarring tonal shifts, some awkward edits, and two re-shot scenes where the two child stars are clearly a year older and a year taller than they appear elsewhere in the film.
The movie starts out as feel-good Americana, right out of Normal Rockwell: a small midwestern town in what looks like the late 19-teens or early ‘20s, complete with a town square, a general store with the obligatory cigar-store Indian out front, and a friendly bartender with one arm and one leg. We are introduced to Will and Jim, our two child protagonists, and Will’s father, Charles (Jason Robards), who looked to old to have an 11-year-old son in 1968, let alone 1983, but whatever.
So, there’s that part of the movie, where it looks like it’s going to be a gentle fantasy like Field of Dreams (1989) or something, with the background score to match…but then really weird things start happening. A local eccentric vanishes after seeing a ghostly woman inside a funeral parlor. Mister Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival opens just outside of town. We watch as the local miser takes a ride on the Ferris Wheel with a beautiful woman…but she’s the only one who gets off the ride at the end. The disabled bartender sees a marvelous reflection in the House of Mirrors and walks in…but never comes out. Our two heroes, Will and Jim, witness something incredible when they peek under the big top at a broken-down carousel that only runs in reverse…
And so on. I’ve seen umpteen versions of this story, and so have you. It can be done well, but it takes a singular vision. Watching this movie felt like someone spliced two films together and hoped no one would notice. First of all, who in their right minds casts Pam Grier as a non-speaking character called The Dust Witch? Granted, she’s a looker, but you don’t cast Pam Grier in a movie just because she’s beautiful. You gotta give her something to do besides seduce men and stare menacingly, which, granted, she does better than most, but what a waste! I wanted to hear her vow to bring the powers of darkness down upon your village in a fiery rage, or something, I dunno, anything.
But that’s a side point compared to the horrors awaiting our heroes. In a scene right out of your nightmares, our two heroes are faced with an army of tarantulas in their bedrooms in the middle of the night. So many tarantulas, in fact, that in one horrifying moment, you can see the bedsheets moving from the sheer numbers of arachnids under the covers. (This was one of those re-shot scenes where the kids are a year older.) Much later in the film, Mr. Dark grips someone’s hand so hard that we see the victim’s hand literally splitting open – in a VERY brief shot, mind you, but there is no question of what has happened, as the victim wears a bandage on that hand for the rest of the movie.
What is this horrific material doing in a Disney movie, for crying out loud? Something Wicked This Way Comes arrived during a transitional period for Disney, when they were testing the waters with more adult-themed fare – The Watcher in the Woods had been released a few years earlier, and Touchstone Pictures was on the brink of breaking out with Splash (1984). But when it came to this weird hybrid family/horror movie, they got a little gun shy.
According to the invaluable IMDb, after a poorly-received test screening, Disney execs delayed the film’s release for a year so the film could be re-edited, an opening narration could be added, additional scenes could be shot and old ones replaced, and an entirely new score could be composed by maestro James Horner. In their attempts to make the movie more family-friendly, they were the embodiment of the axiom “too many cooks in the kitchen.” On an early laserdisc commentary, Ray Bradbury stated that much of his original intention for the film was destroyed as a result of these after-market edits.
There is a really, REALLY good movie trapped inside the existing version of Something Wicked This Way Comes. Watch the movie, and you can see that really good version peeking through here and there (it feels like there was a LOT more that could’ve been done with Jonathan Pryce’s rendition of Mr. Dark). As it is now, the movie is little more than an object lesson on why so many directors dream of getting “final cut” in their contract…so something like THIS doesn’t happen.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 