Long before he shot to international stardom for his chilling performance as Doctor Hannibal Lector in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, Anthony Hopkins played the lead in numerous films but the first place I recall seeing him was 1978’s Magic. The film’s tag line billed it as a terrifying love story.

Playing Corky a stage magician whose act includes his foul-mouthed ventriloquist’s dummy Fats. On the eve of his break out as a major star and with Networks wanting him to star in a series (It was 70s and at that time that actually gave prime time shows to mimes.) Cork panics, shocking his agent/manager Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith) by bolting from the city and vanishing into parts unknown. Cork flees to his childhood home in the Catskills and reconnects with the Peggy Ann Snow (Ann Margaret) the girl he had a crush on in high school but never asked out. Peggy, trapped in a failing marriage, connects with Corky but unfortunately for everyone involved, Fats has his own ideas.

Existing in that liminal space between thriller and full out supernatural horror film Magic, directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, is a taunt psychological script by William Goldman, adapted from his own novel of the same name. For those who only know Goldman from the delightfully charming The Princess Brideor the conventional action thriller The Marathon Man, this movie may come as quite a shock. Magicworks it spell not by way of gruesome kills and spectacular make up effects, techniques that would come to dominate the horror genre following that massive success of the following year’s film Halloween, but through in-depth character work and marvelous performances. The movie is currently available for streaming on the horror dedicated service Shudder and at just under two hours it makes for a treat if your taste for horror turns more on character than on blood.