Something Wicked This Way Comes

It tells you something about the state of adaptations that a movie can simultaneously be, it seems, an author’s favourite adaptation of his own work and also something he finds fairly disappointing. That seems to have been the case with Ray Bradbury and Something Wicked This Way Comes. And as adaptations go, it’s not a bad one exactly. But it does seem to miss a certain something, even though I must also admit it’s been a long time since I’ve read the book myself.

Will Halloway (Vidal Peterson) was born a minute before midnight on October 30. His best friend, Jim Nightshade (Shawn Carson), was born a minute after midnight on October 31. When the movie starts, the boys are in detention for whispering in the class of Miss Foley (Mary Grace Canfield). When she releases them, they run into the glorious autumn day in Green Town, Illinois. Tom Fury (Royal Dano) gives Jim a lightning rod, and despite the fact that carnivals stop running on Labor Day, one is coming to town. It is the domain of Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce), and it is no ordinary carnival.

This should, quite frankly, be a children’s horror staple. That’s a genre that gets ignored by a lot of people, even dyed-in-the-wool horror fans, but it’s one worth discussing. Children’s horror is not about gore and viscera. It’s about the terrors of being young. Always being too young to do something that looks interesting but also knowing that you’ll be considered too old to do things you love when you grow up. The world is a frightening place to children, and it doesn’t always make sense to adults that children are afraid. Adults have often lost the memory of being that age.

Now, I’m not saying this is the best example of it. I’m not convinced it’s even the best Disney example of children’s horror. (That would probably be Return to Oz.) But it is a decent enough example, and it’s not streaming anywhere. I found it on YouTube, but goodness knows how long that will last. You can’t even rent it. The edition released on DVD had a weirdly designed cover because Disney apparently didn’t want their name on it.

As a movie, it’s fine. Jonathan Pryce is really good as Mr. Dark, which makes it a little alarming to learn that they hired him because he was cheaper than, say, Christopher Lee. Pam Grier doesn’t get a lot to do as the Dust Witch, but she does it with the flair you’d expect. Jason Robards is exactly who you’d want as Charles Halloway. Diane Ladd, like Grier, is doing the best she can with a small role, in her case Mrs. Nightshade. (No, I don’t believe she gets a first name.) The boys aren’t Disney’s best-ever child actors, but again, there’s a lot of options there and it’s hard to beat a two-time Oscar winner.

I think the special effects are dated, but given the poor quality of the copy I watched, it’s hard to be sure. A lot of things there it’s hard to be sure about. The audio wasn’t great, either. It would be really nice if Disney made this available; it feels as though they’re ashamed of this era of the studio’s history. Which, okay, it’s not the best era. But it’s deeply frustrating that the alleged opening of the Vault has missed pretty much all the live action from Kurt Russell to Lindsay Lohan.