‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ Unearthed By Disney+, Resurfacing Long-Buried Nightmares For Gen X

Families looking for something scary-but-not-too-scary to watch as we get closer to Halloween are in luck. Disney + just unleashed one of the oddest titles in its archive, never before available on a streaming platform. The 1983 film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes is a nostalgia-rich Americana tale that, for Gen X kids who watched a lot of cable TV, is one of those movies that seemed to be playing on a loop back in the day. As one who fits in that category, I can attest that looking at it with fresh eyes was a bit like revisiting some long forgotten dream.

Many of the images in this dark fantasy about a supernatural carnival were deeply familiar to the hibernating parts of my brain, while other parts of the movie had me asking “wait, was it always like this?” One thing is as true now as it was then: this is a strange, somewhat lop-sided film that only makes sense as “vibes,” but looks terrific, is strangely emotional, and has a sincere creep factor. 

As it was released a year before the creation of the PG-13 rating and produced by Disney, it somehow snuck out with a PG — and created a tidal wave of nightmares as a result. That PG rating also meant it could play any time of day on cable, meaning no family was safe from a kid turning on the tube and getting scarred by the devastating tarantula scene, or the vision of Jonathan Pryce’s flesh decaying into that of a sinister skeleton.

The 1983 movie focuses on two kids, Will and Jim, in a small midwestern town at a not-too-specific time. (It could be the 1920s.) The boys are first to realize that a travelling circus (arriving in late fall, an unusual time for such a thing) is actually some sort of harbinger of evil. The only one who’ll believe them is Will’s father Charles (Jason Robards), the sadsack town librarian who almost never takes off his tie and has a preoccupation with death. In time we will see that the only thing that can defeat evil is the purity of familial love and forgiveness, but before that happens there will be no shortage of zany special effects and wild freakouts.

The movie’s tone is peculiar. One minute it is a fun sound-and-light show, the next it is a morose meditation on aging. Robards was 60 when the film was released, and his son is supposed to be nine or so. The late-in-life parentage is presented as something of a tragedy; Charles’s bad heart prevents him from playing ball with his kid (no big deal) but he’s also unable to rescue his son when he nearly drowns (a little more traumatizing.) 

Weirdly, the one who did rescue Will years ago was the town drunk — Jim’s father. He’s been missing now for years (Jim deludes himself saying he’s off on an African safari) while Jim’s mother is either bed rotting or taking gentleman callers. Both boys are on the cusp of adolescence and are obsessed to the point of horror with the onset of puberty. The recurring vision of terror is an alluring Woman of the East that can turn men into jelly and who keeps a pet furry tarantula, which she seductively strokes. One doesn’t need to have a degree in psychology to put that one together. (Reminder: this was a Disney movie.)

When the movie kicks into gear it is a fun romp. The kids run through town, racing ahead of an animated, deleterious green mist. The head of Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival, one Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce), mugs for the camera in his eerie top hat, and pulls tricks out from under his sleeve. (Quite literally at times, with some dazzling animated tattoos.) But for every energetic scene, there’s the counter weight of doom-and-gloom drama. Will and Charles mope around the house late at night and get into weirdly heavy conversations. “3 o’clock, the soul’s midnight,” Dad explains, suggesting this is the most common time for people to die. Real upbeat, pops!

A project this strange doesn’t come into the world easily. It began as a short story, first published in 1948 as The Black Ferris. (It’s worth noting that “The Black Ferris” was eventually turned into a stand-alone episode of NBC’s Ray Bradbury Theater anthology series in 1990). Ray Bradbury then adapted it into a screenplay and gifted it to his friend Gene Kelly to direct. The project never happened, but Bradbury then expanded on it for a novel, which was released in 1962, part of several works set in the nostalgia-soaked (and slightly corn pone) setting of Green Town, Illinois. 

In the early 1970s it looked like the movie was a go with Kirk Douglas producing it and director Jack Clayton at the helm. (Clayton was an assistant director and editor on many classics from the British film industry, and held his own as a director on some highly regarded projects like Room at the Top and The Innocents; his most famous movie would come later, the Robert Redford-led adaptation of The Great Gatsby.) Before production started there was some discord at Paramount Pictures, and the movie ended up shelved. Other directors were attached at various times, including the maverick Western director Sam Peckinpah, and lore has it that Steven Spielberg was sniffing around the project, too. 

Enter the 1980s, when The Walt Disney Company was throwing anything at a wall to see what would stick — a cascade of beguiling flops. There was the thuddingly dull sci fi epic The Black Hole, there was The Watcher in the Woods (which, like, Something Wicked, is a horror film with many scenes involving shattered mirrors), and there was Tron, which at least made some dough back thanks to the video game. Luckily for the company, the now-cherished “Disney Renaissance” was just around the corner with The Little Mermaid. It’s a weird chapter in the legendary company’s history.

Bradbury’s script got the greenlight, but Disney didn’t like what director Clayton delivered. There were substantial reshoots, supposedly to make it more family-friendly. However, the big bonanza in which the boys are overrun by tarantulas, was one of the added scenes. This was, is, and always shall be the best part of the picture, so the narrative of the suits always being wrong isn’t going to fly this time. The end result is definitely hodge podge, but still fascinating. 

Considering that October’s chill is a key element to the story (the carnival denizens are also called The Autumn People), the time to watch Something Wicked This Way Comes is right now. The camera effects and animated enhancements still look great, as do the matte painted vistas of midwest meadows with multihued fall trees. The score by James Horner, hot off Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and who would later go on to Braveheart, Apollo 13, Avatar and other biggies, is rich and lush and cribs a bit from Star Wars during all the right moments. 

Though the dramatic scenes in the movie don’t always work, they are remarkable for their sincerity. Instead of wisecracks and know-it-all references, you have lines like “Dad, don’t talk death!” I’d like to say that they don’t make family-friendly movies like Something Wicked This Way Comes anymore, but, I don’t think they ever made them like this regularly. It’s a one-of-one abnormality. 

Jordan Hoffman is a writer and critic in New York City. His work also appears in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and the Times of Israel. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and tweets at @JHoffman about Phish and Star Trek.