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| Something Wicked This Way Comes | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Theatrical release poster by David Grove | |
| Directed by | Jack Clayton |
| Screenplay by | Ray Bradbury |
| Based on | Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury |
| Produced by | Peter Douglas |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Stephen H. Burum |
| Edited by |
|
| Music by | James Horner |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | United States of America |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20 million[1] |
| Box office | $8.4 million |
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1983 Americandark fantasy/horror film directed byJack Clayton and produced byWalt Disney Productions, from a screenplay written byRay Bradbury, based on his 1962novel of the same name. It starsJason Robards,Jonathan Pryce,Diane Ladd andPam Grier.
The title was taken from a line in Act IV ofWilliam Shakespeare'sMacbeth: "By the pricking of my thumbs / Something wicked this way comes".
It was filmed inVermont and at theWalt Disney Studios inBurbank, California. It had a troubled production – Clayton fell out with Bradbury over an uncredited script rewrite, and after test screenings of the director's cut failed to meet the studio's expectations, Disney sidelined Clayton, fired the original editor, scrapped the original score, delaying the film by five months, spent $4 million on the new changes, and spent many months re-shooting, re-editing, and re-scoring the film before its eventual release.
In Green Town, Illinois, two young boys, a reserved Will Halloway, and somewhat rebellious Jim Nightshade, leave from an after-schooldetention for "whispering in class" and hurry home. The boys live next door to each other and were born a minute apart onHalloween. Will lives with his mother and father Charles while Jim lives with his single mother; it is heavily implied that his father walked out on them. Alightning rod salesman named Tom Fury arrives and sells one to Jim, claiming that it will protect him from an upcoming storm. The boys soon hear of acarnival coming to town led by the ominous Mr. Dark.
The carnival arrives and is set up overnight. Will and Jim notice that many of the residents seem oddly entranced by some of the attractions such as theamputee bartender Ed who sees his missing arm and leg return in a mirror and the boys' teacher Miss Foley who wishes to regain her youth. Will and Jim see acarousel that is closed off and are confronted by Mr. Dark, who quickly becomes suspicious of them. Later, they witness Mr. Dark using the carousel on his assistant, Mr. Cooger, whoreverts to a little boy. Will and Jim head off to see Foley, but she is with her "nephew", who is actually Cooger, and are forced to leave.
Foley suddenly becomes younger, butloses her vision and is taken by Cooger to Dark. Will gets into an argument with Jim when the latter reveals that he has always been envious of the former being older and wants to use the carousel. They then witness Fury being tortured by Mr. Dark, who wants the secret of the upcoming storm and uses his other assistant, the Dust Witch, to seduce him, but to no avail. The boys run when they are found out and try to go to bed. In the middle of the night, the two are attacked bytarantulas, but the lightning rod that Fury gave Jim earlier saves them.
In the morning, Mr. Dark leads his carnival, now consisting of some of the townspeople, in aparade, though Will and Jim deduce that it is a search party for them. Charles eventually figures out that the boys are in trouble, and when confronted by Mr. Dark, manages to deter him. Charles, Will and Jim head to thelibrary where the former reveals that the carnival had come to town before and that his own father had fought them. Mr. Dark arrives, searching for Will and Jim and offers Charles his youth back, but he resists. He knocks out Charles and makes off with the boys back to the carnival. Charles regains himself and heads to the carnival just as the storm arrives. He runs into Jim's mother and deters her before she too succumbs to Mr. Dark's powers.
Charles heads into the hall of mirrors, where Mr. Dark continues to taunt him about his age. Will declares his love for his father and repels the Dust Witch, allowing Fury to escape his imprisonment and impale her with a lightning rod. Will and Charles find Mr. Dark attempting to use the carousel with Jim in tow, but they rescue him just as lightning strikes the ride. As Mr. Dark begins to age anddecay, before being reduced to a skeleton which collapses into pieces.
Will and Charles express happiness to awaken Jim and the three flee with the horses and ponies and the townspeople just as the carnival begins to get sucked away into a giant tornado. Will, Jim and Charles head back into town and begin to happily dance back home, with the danger now over.
Ray Bradbury first wrote the original screenplay adapted from his 1948 short story "Black Ferris" in 1958, intended forGene Kelly as director. Financing for the project never came, and Bradbury converted the screenplay into a novel, published in 1962.[2]
In 1971, Bradbury agreed to write a new screenplay based on the novel forJack Clayton, with whom Bradbury previously worked onMoby Dick.[2] In January 1973,Sam Peckinpah was announced as director for the film, with a script written by Bradbury.[3]
In June 1976, Clayton returned as director and the property was being developed byThe Bryna Company, a production company formed byKirk Douglas.[4] Douglas became interested in the property after meeting Bradbury at a bookstore inLos Angeles, and intended to star in the film.[2] Douglas' sonPeter Douglas was set to produce, withRobert Chartoff andIrwin Winkler. They secured a deal with Paramount Pictures to finance the $6,000,000 production, to be filmed on location inTexas.[2][5] However, production never began and the film was eventually put intoturnaround by Paramount CEOBarry Diller over the objections of feature division presidentDavid V. Picker. At various times,Mark Rydell andSteven Spielberg expressed interest in making the film.[2]
At this time,Walt Disney Pictures was focusing on films with more mature themes in an attempt to break free from its image as an animation and family film studio. In 1981, they acquired the film rights toSomething Wicked This Way Comes and announced that it would go into production with a $16 million budget.[2] They asked Bradbury for his input on selecting a cast and director, and he suggested Clayton, feeling they had worked well together at Paramount. Peter Douglas returned as the film's producer, but Kirk Douglas was unable to appear in it despite playing a major role in its pre-production.[2] In a 1981 issue ofCinefantastique, Bradbury said that his top choices for Mr. Dark werePeter O'Toole andChristopher Lee, but to keep the budget down, Disney decided to castJonathan Pryce, who was still relatively unknown.
Principal photography began on September 28, 1981, and lasted 77 days. Filming was mostly on Disney'sGolden Oak Ranch inNewhall, California, as shooting on location would have been too costly. Some exterior scenes were shot inVermont.[2] As the film progressed, two visions emerged for the film: Bradbury and Clayton wanted to stay as faithful to the novel as possible, while Disney wanted a more accessible, family-friendly film. Bradbury and Clayton fell out when Bradbury learned that Clayton had, at the studios insistence, hiredJohn Mortimer to do an uncredited revision of Bradbury's screenplay.[6]
At a Q&A session following a 2012 screening of the film, actor Shawn Carson explained that he read some ten times for the part of Will, but after a request from Bradbury, he read for and was cast as Jim Nightshade. Although he had blond hair at the time, and co-star Vidal Petersen had dark hair, Carson's hair was dyed jet black and Petersen's was bleached blond to fit the new casting.[7]
For the original score, Clayton pickedGeorges Delerue who had scored his filmsThe Pumpkin Eater andOur Mother's House, but his score was removed and replaced on short notice with one byJames Horner after concerns were raised about its "aggressively sinister" nature.[8] A soundtrack album of Delerue's unused score was released byIntrada Records in 2015,[9] who had released Horner's replacement score in 2008.[10]
Editor Barry Gordon was hired as assistant to the film's original editor, Argyle Nelson Jr. He recalled in 2012 that after Clayton submitted his original cut, Disney expressed concerns about its length, pacing and commercial appeal. The studio then took the project out of Clayton's hands and conducted an expensive six-month reshoot and re-edit, resulting in the two child leads looking noticeably older in some shots. Nelson was let go for budgetary reasons, and although Gordon was prepared to follow Nelson and leave the production, Nelson encouraged him to stay, and Gordon edited the final cut (resulting in the film's dual editor credits).[citation needed]
Disney spent $4 million on re-filming, re-editing and re-scoring, with the changes requiring delaying the planned Christmas 1982 date by five months.[2] Gordon was required to make a number of changes to Clayton and Nelson's original cut, removing several major special-effects scenes, and incorporating the new material directed by visual effects artist Lee Dyer, including a new prologue narrated byArthur Hill. Among the casualties was a groundbreaking animation scene which would have been one of the first major uses ofcomputer-generated imaging in a Hollywood film: combining the then-new technology ofCGI with traditional animation, it depicted Dark's circus train rolling into town, and the carnival magically materialising—the smoke from the locomotive becoming the ropes and tents, tree limbs merging to form a Ferris wheel, and a spider web morphing into a wheel of fortune. The deleted scene was previewed in detail in the May–June 1983 issue ofTwilight Zone Magazine, but the re-edit retained only a few seconds of the sequence.[citation needed]
Another cut sequence depicted Mr. Dark using his sinister powers to send a huge disembodied hand to reach into the house to grab the boys. Disney executives felt the mechanical effect wasn't realistic enough, and was replaced by a scene where the room is invaded by hundreds oftarantulas, which was shot using real animals. Years later, Shawn Carson recalled the considerable discomfort he and Vidal Petersen experienced being exposed to the irritatingurticating hairs of the 200 tarantulas used in the sequence.[citation needed]
The original themes of Bradbury's novel, the suggestion of menace, the autumn atmosphere of an American Midwest township and the human relationships between characters that attracted Clayton escaped preview audiences completely, with Clayton heavily criticized. New special effects sequences were shot and a hastily composed new score by composer James Horner replaced Delerue's original music.[11] Initial test screenings did not fare well with audiences, and Disney recommissioned Bradbury to write an opening narration sequence and new ending.[citation needed]
Bradbury referred to the film's final cut as "not a great film, no, but a decently nice one".[12]
The railroad scenes were filmed on theSierra Railroad inTuolumne County, California.[13]
The film grossed $8.4 million at the domestic box office against its $20 million budget.[citation needed]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun Times gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, and wrote: "It's one of the few literary adaptations I've seen in which the film not only captures the mood and tone of the novel, but also the novel's style. Bradbury's prose is a strange hybrid of craftsmanship and lyricism. He builds his stories and novels in a straightforward way, with strong plotting, but his sentences owe more toThomas Wolfe than to the pulp tradition, and the lyricism isn't missed in this movie. In its descriptions of autumn days, in its heartfelt conversations between a father and a son, in the unabashed romanticism of its evil carnival and even in the perfect rhythm of its title, this is a horror movie with elegance."[14]
Janet Maslin ofThe New York Times wrote the film "begins on such an overworkedNorman Rockwell note that there seems little chance that anything exciting or unexpected will happen. So it's a happy surprise when the film...turns into a lively, entertaining tale combining boyishness and grown-up horror in equal measure"; according to Maslin, "the gee-whiz quality to this adventure is far more excessive in Mr. Bradbury's novel than it is here, as directed by Jack Clayton. Mr. Clayton, who directed a widely admiredversion ofThe Turn of the Screw some years ago, gives the film a tension that transcends even itspurplest prose."[15]Kevin Thomas of theLos Angeles Times praised the film as "one of Walt Disney's best efforts in recent years—a film that actually has something to offer adults and adolescents alike."[16]
Variety wrote that the film "must be chalked up as something of a disappointment. Possibilities for a dark, child's view fantasy set in rural America of yore are visible throughout, but various elements have not entirely congealed into a unified achievement...Clayton has done a fine job visualizing the screenplay by Bradbury himself, but has missed really connecting with the heart of the material and bringing it satisfyingly alive."[17][1]
Gene Siskel of theChicago Tribune gave the film 2 stars out of 4 and wrote that it "opens promisingly" but has a script which "tries to cram too much material into one story" and a climax that "couldn't be more disappointing", with "neon special effects that overwhelm the last half hour of the movie. The result is an oddball combination of aTwilight Zone episode with the climactic, zapping-the-Nazis scene fromRaiders of the Lost Ark."[18]
Richard Harrington ofThe Washington Post criticized the "lethargic" pace, "stolid acting", and special effects that "are shockingly poor for 1983 (a time-machine carousel is the only effective sequence on that front)."[19]
Tom Milne ofThe Monthly Film Bulletin lamented: "The novel's texture has been thinned out so ruthlessly that little is left, but the bare bones; and all they add up to, shorn of the slightly self-conscious Faulknerian poetics of Bradbury's style, is a dismayingly schoolmarmish moral tale about fathers and sons, the vanity of illusions, and homespun recipes for dealing with demons ('Happiness makes them run')."[20]
Christopher John reviewed the film inAres Magazine #15 and commented that "if the chance ever comes your way to take this one in, grab it. Rarely does such a quiet, yet strong picture get made in this country."[21]
Colin Greenland, reviewingSomething Wicked This Way Comes forImagine magazine, called it "one for the SFX connoisseur, a visual feast".[22]
As of November 2025, the film holds a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 35 reviews. The consensus reads: "True terror and typical Disney wholesomeness clash uncomfortably inSomething Wicked This Way Comes."[23]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 68 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[24]
The film won the 1984Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film andSaturn Award for Best Writing, and was nominated for five others, including best music forJames Horner and best supporting actor for Jonathan Pryce. It was also nominated for theHugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and Grand Jury Prize at theAvoriaz Fantastic Film Festival.[citation needed]
The film was released byWalt Disney Studios Home Entertainment onBlu-ray for the first time on September 07, 2021, as a Disney Movie Club exclusive, which has since closed and therefore this is out of print.[25]
The film is noticeably absent from streaming on Disney+ and UK film database 'tv-films.co.uk' has no record of the film being shown in the UK on TV.
On October 3, 2025, it was made available to stream on Disney+, making it the first time the movie has been available on any streaming service.[26]
In 2014, Disney announced a remake ofSomething Wicked This Way Comes withSeth Grahame-Smith writing the script, making his directorial debut, and producing with David Katzenberg from their producing banner KatzSmith Productions. Reportedly, Grahame-Smith wanted to focus mostly on Ray Bradbury's source material from the book.[27]
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