MovieChat Forums > Magic (1978) Discussion > After avoiding this movie for YEARS beca...

After avoiding this movie for YEARS because of the TV spot....

posted 5 years ago by artguylarry (498)
1 reply | jump to latest

I finally watched Magic, despite being the child MOST TERRORIZED by the TV spot in the 70s. To the point of inconsolable. Once even to the point of vomiting he scared me so bad. I carried the fear of this dummy into my adulthood. I can't say I know what prompted me to sit down and watch this movie now, but I have now seen it, and I do know this: I am very underwhelmed by it. Not by the movie itself. It is a great movie, wonderfully written and acted. But I am underwhelmed by the level of horror I expected to find in this movie. While yes, it can be very unnerving at times, it is entirely psychological, and very different from what we are led to expect. This all leads me to wonder just one thing:

Exactly why was there a need to make the infamous TV spot so horrifying?

[–] nufsaid16 (629) 2 years ago

Same reason there's a trailer for every horror movie-----to hook you into going into the theatre and seeing it, lol. You were traumatized by only because you were so young at the time. Hopefully, you got some therapy for that, and maybe finally seeing the film hopefully cured you of that fear. That same commercial scared the heck out of me as a kid, too---with that clever, memorable rhyme being spoken by that creepy-a** doll, lol. I pulled it up on youtube a couple of years back---didn't scare me as much. I finally saw the movie a couple of weeks ago, and it was actually pretty good, and creepy. It was interesting to see a young Anthony Hopkins in what I think was only his second horror flick---the first one being Audrey Rose (1977). He was pretty good in it, too.