“Magic” is an eerie little movie about schizophrenia done in the same vein as “Psycho” and although not the ‘perfect’ thrill Alfred Hitchcock’s film is, this movie directed by Richard Attenborough (“Gandhi”) works very well.

In “Magic”, Anthony Hopkins (“The Silence of the Lambs”, “Mission: Impossible II”) stars as a troubled magician named Corky, who uses ventriloquism to capture his audience, manages to get the opportunity to have a pilot episode on NBC. However, he refuses to take the medical examination and goes along with his puppet, Fats (voiced by Hopkins), to a cabin where he meets Peggy (Ann-Margret “Tommy”), the woman he’s loved for over 15 years. Fats then manipulates Corky and violent acts take place.

Anthony Hopkins is absolutely fantastic here as he always is and while his work as Corky is exceedingly good I feel his voicing of Fats showcases his great abilities. Corky is a timid and severely frustrated magician while Fats is a rude loud-mouth and the thing that is great is that they don’t make the puppet come alive or anything silly (a mistake made by the “Child’s Play” series) but instead make all in the mind. Ann-Margret is good as Peggy. Burgess Meredith (“Rocky”, “Batman: The Movie”) is okay as Corky’s agent Ben Greene.

“Magic” unfortunately suffers from looking like low-budget horror rubbish, which may deter some viewers and that’s a shame because it is actually quite a smart film. I dislike the film’s ending as I hoped for something a little more… shall we say ‘optimistic’ (that shouldn’t give too much away). The performance from Hopkins is simply fantastic and I think this film is actually a little scarier than “Silence of the Lambs” so I think those are two good reasons to see it. It’s a movie that knows dolls aren’t scary but people’s interaction/obsession with them is.