  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | Abracadabra, I sit on his knee. Presto chango, and now he’s me. Hocus pocus, we take her to bed. Magic is fun; we’re dead. | „ |
| ~ Fats. |
Fats is the main antagonist of the 1978 psychological horror film Magic.
He is a ventriloquist dummy voiced by Corky Withers himself and portrayed by the actor Anthony Hopkins, who also played Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, Henry Wilcox in Howards End, and Ted Crawford in Fracture.
Personality[]
Fats is Corky's second sociopathic personality in the film, which is rude, vulgar and nasty. Corky actually suffers from a dissociative indentity disorder and uses his dummy named "Fats" to portray his second personality. When his agent, Ben Greene, tells him that before going on TV, he will have to pass a medical examination, Corky will decide to flee the city so that nobody realizes that he delirium. As the film progresses, Fats' personality takes more and more control and pushes Corky to commit horrible acts like killing his impresario Ben or Duke so that they don't discover his escape and the worsening of his mental state. In the end, Fats tries to convince Corky to kill Peg but Corky refuses and kills himself, causing his and Fats' demise.
Biography[]
To be successful, Corky get a ventriloquist dummy that works very well and has a lot of fun for the audience. Ben Greene his impresario, impressed, decides to make him browse several American theaters before appearing on the show what Fats replied "We're gonna be a star!". Corky rejoices, just before learning her medical exam pass. Frightened that someone might discover the truth about his mental health, he heads to Crossinger, where he lived as a young man and finds Peg Ann Snow, a woman Corky was in love with and still is. He takes Fats with him, but spends more time with Peg and gets closer and closer to her.
This is where Fats becomes jealous (and a change of dummy face is needed, a sadder and more frightening face than the previous one to show the dark side of Fats). Corky returns to his bungalow and gets confused with the puppet (rather with himself on returning to New York). It is then that his agent appears before him, the secret being revealed to him or he had to discover by himself what was wrong with Corky. Ben then challenges Corky by asking him to silence Fats for five minutes. If during this time Corky does not succeed, Ben will take care of him by contacting "somebody", surely a psychologist to help Corky. Of course, Corky does not keep up, and Ben gets out of the bungalow. Corky then loses hope and Fats orders him to stop the postman with the dummy. In the forest, Corky manages to brutally assault his agent before Fats tells him to drown him in Lake Melody.
The next day, Peg's husband Duke arrives at his bungalow and Corky is invited and takes Fats. He makes Peg and Duke laugh and he recognizes that he is happy to see Corky and Fats. Later, Duke proposes to fish with Corky (who is worried that he discovers the body of Ben). However, they find the latter last stranded on the waterfront and Duke tells Corky to call an ambulance. Then when Duke sees that Corky does not come back, he decides to enter his bungalow and there he finds Ben's belongings. Now Duke knew too much. Corky decided to stab him to death with Fats. The latter then told him to sink it at the bottom of the lake with the agent thanks to a heavy stone. Towards the end of the film, Corky's condition deteriorates: he screams, gets on all fours on the ground, while obeying his dummy. Still, he refuses to kill Peg because of his love and screams that Fats will not oblige him. Meanwhile, Peg in his bungalow waits indefinitely for Duke (unaware that he's dead), and Corky, taking Fats's voice, drops a heart of wood in front of her bedroom door but hesitates to kill her.
Refusing, Corky stabs himself and returns to his bungalow and sits dying in front of his puppet. It is then, that before dying, Fats blames Corky by saying that he was responsible for everything all this time. He finishes hoping not to die first. Corky reassures him that they will die together and he falls on an inert Fats.
Gallery[]
