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Radio/Movie Combo: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

6 Aug

Ray Bradbury’s 1962 novel about a sinister carnival rolling into a small Illinois town one week before Halloween is one of his most iconic and thought-inducing tales. I’m a sucker for a classic Devil vs. Good tale.

Cover for Something Wicked This Way Comes, produced by The Colonial Radio Theatre. A dark silhouette of a figure in a top hat stands centered against a moody blue twilight sky, with a large Ferris wheel framing the figure from behind. The title "Something Wicked This Way Comes" appears in white hand-written script. "Ray Bradbury" is printed in large white letters at the top, with "The Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air Presents" above the figure and "With Jerry Robbins and the Colonial Radio Players" along the bottom.

For those unfamiliar, Something Wicked This Way Comes is Bradbury’s 1962 dark fantasy horror novel about two teenage boys, Will and Jim, who confront a supernaturally sinister carnival led by Mr. Dark. The carnival preys on secret desires, offering wishes at a terrible price. The boys and Will’s father fight the carnival and Mr. Dark to save themselves and the town. I’d also consider it a coming-of-age story that pokes at the fear of growing old.

​The Radio Production.
I admit, I haven’t read the book, and while searching for it I found a gem – the live radio production, dramatized by Bradbury himself, from the Colonial Radio Theatre complete with a full cast, sound effects and original music.

This is Bradbury’s work, and not just a regurgitated word-for-word reading, which makes it a lot of fun to, frankly, close your eyes and watch the imagery flow.

The key sense, obviously, to tap into here is hearing – you hear the carnival arrive, Mr. Dark get defeated, the boys run for their lives, and even in the hesitation of the dialogue.

The Film (1983)

Movie poster for Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983). Two boys' faces emerge from swirling red and blue smoke at the top. Below, a man in a top hat and suit stands in front of a carnival featuring a Ferris wheel and tents. The title reads, "Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes" in white lettering, with the Disney logo at the top.

Directed by Jack Clayton with the screenplay by Bradbury, this film stars Jason Robards as Charles Halloway, a middle-aged, worn-down librarian, and Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark, the carnival owner who collects human souls.

This is early Disney storytelling, so the dialogue is a little cringy and the structure a bit wobbly, but overall it is an endearingly satisfying heroic-arc tale that honors Bradbury’s manuscript well.

Bradbury reportedly had issues with some production changes, but, in the end, the film was a general success, and Bradbury accepted the retelling.

My assessment. It’s imperfect, but it’s innocent in how the boys see the world. I also loved James Horner’s score.

If you haven’t read the book, start with the movie first, so you can better imagine the radio production.

Find the radio production in Hoopla here.

Reserve the movie in the BCCLS system here.

Comment below your thoughts once you’ve had a watch and listen.

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Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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Movie Review: Children of the Corn (1984)

11 Jun

How this movie/Stephen King turned driving through a cornfield (a pretty boring experience, trust me, as a Midwesterner) into one of the most horrifyingly claustrophobic and isolated cult rituals I have ever seen is brilliant. 

Movie poster for Children of the Corn, 1984. A silhouetted hand raises a sickle against a blood-red sky above a dark cornfield. The title "Children of the Corn" appears in bold white text at the bottom.

I discovered the movie while researching comparable titles to my own next novel. I always knew it existed but, for some reason, it never quite appealed to me, until I learned it was based on a Stephen King short story. That pushed me over the edge. 

What makes Children of the Corn classic horror is its roots in the fear of sensory deprivation.

Burt and Vicky are driving through Nebraska when they accidentally hit a child. They swear he came straight out of nowhere. And when there are miles and miles of tall, sun-bleached, waving corn blowing in the wind, there is simply no way to tell what’s hiding inside of it. That image,  simple as it sounds, is the beating heart of this film.

The two scramble with how to deal with this, and the further they go into the endlessness of the roads ahead, the more they find themselves circling nothing but corn, decimated storefronts, and evasive, guarded residents. This leads them to the ghost town of Gatlin. 

But that’s just what the surface shows.

Underneath, a twisted cult-preacher boy named Isaac and his second-in-command, Malachai, run the town. No adults remain. He Who Walks Behind the Rows commanded the children to slaughter every one of them.

A scene from Children of the Corn. A group of children sit in a circle at the edge of a cornfield. A boy stands at the center. Behind him is a police officers skeleton perched as a scarecrow attached to a tall wooden cross made of dried corn stalks.

Thus, Burt and Vicky’s crime is a simple one: being adults in the wrong place at the terribly wrong time.

One of King’s early literary inspirations was William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and it shows here. Children of the Corn is about the terrifying idea of a world without rules, without adults, without the structures we’ve grown complacent to. It takes one of the most ordinary and mundane American settings, a small town where a stranger would expect a friendly hello, a polite wave, and easy hospitality, and makes everything in it disturbing and petrifying.

The corn breathes alongside them, growing more unsettling with every scene.

I won’t go into the rich undercurrents of fundamentalism, cult and folk ritual, or the movie’s representation of self-imposed malicious parentification. 

The movie created such a powerful dread that it spurred a new archetype for the genre: The Children of the Corn Dynamic – youth-led groups or cults that completely overthrow and control the adult population (King, 1978; TV Tropes).

P.S. Do not confuse this with the 2023 remake/reboot. The original is much more worth your time!

Reserve your DVD copy in the BCCLS system here.

Bluray here.

Or, read the short story published in 1977 on Overdrive/Libby.

Comment below your thoughts once you’ve had a watch.

Hit subscribe to get weekly updates on posts from the Hoboken Public Library!

Written by:
Sean Willey
Information and Digital Services Assistant

Tags: , , , ,

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