Something Wicked This Way Comes Reviews
March 22, 2021
...offering up horror tropes but grounded in small-town Americana, this is about the most wholesome horror film ever made...
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
April 4, 2019
It's not hokey fun like Watcher in the Woods but just chilling and thoughtful and extremely well acted.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
October 4, 2018
In the end, the storytelling saves the film. Like the book, it's a perfect mash-up of two of Bradbury's favorite themes: small-town life and innocence lost in the wake of something sinister.
October 4, 2018
It's a reminder of when kids movies were about more than farts and wise-cracking animals, and its visuals retain their power to unsettle and unnerve.
February 23, 2016
Book-based '80s movie about an evil carnival is scary.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
November 14, 2013
Even amidst readily apparent imperfections, "Wicked" still holds a melancholy grip. That's because its supernatural elements are really but a grace note to the symphony of its everyday drama, whose elegant, elegiac qualities have diminished little.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
May 14, 2013
Along with The Watcher in the Woods, it may be Disney's only honest-to-God effort to tell us a horror story.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
March 10, 2009
The property was snapped up by Disney, which promptly sucked the life out of it, turning it into a scrubbed and innocuous coming-of-age tale. Too bad.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
March 10, 2009
Possibilities for a dark, child's view fantasy set in rural America of yore are visible throughout the $20 million production but various elements have not entirely congealed into a unified achievement.
March 10, 2009
The plot concerns a mysterious carnival outside a small town in the early 1900s that grants the wishes of the town's citizens, with dark consequences.
August 4, 2008
WICKED needs to be viewed as a different kind of film
February 21, 2008
Original Score: 2/5
August 26, 2006
Try as I might to get into this movie, based on the classic Ray Bradbury tale, I've found myself blocked by its off-putting ways.
Original Score: 3/5
June 24, 2006
Ultimately, though, it's an uneasy blend of horror and whimsy, with the allegory being hammered a little too hard for comfort. It's also marred by some dreadfully tacky special effects and set designs.
August 3, 2005
Original Score: 3/5
February 10, 2005
Original Score: 2/5
February 9, 2005
Original Score: 2/5
October 23, 2004
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.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
September 30, 2004
Original Score: 4/5
August 30, 2004
A lively, entertaining tale combining boyishness and grown-up horror in equal measure.
Original Score: 3.5/5