09/25/2025
By the prickling of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Mr Dark isn't the villain in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) - he's just the enabler. The scariest part is watching your entire town queue up for obviously impossible promises while you scream the truth and nobody listens.
Ray Bradbury wrote a screenplay that was a strange choice for one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. One that depends on the magic and the spectacle to pull children in. But this time, Disney made a film that did the opposite - it warned children about how people you considered friends would sell you out for the promise of a golden age that never existed.
So we see Mr. Dark's carnival arrive at 3am and set up overnight. Then it promises the magic: youth restored, limbs returned and losses reversed. The townspeople don't stop to think or ask questions because they're too busy seeing themselves in the mirrors that show them what they used to be, what they think they deserve to be again. Ed the bartender sees his missing arm return, Miss Foley sees her younger self, and they queue up to pay whatever price Dark demands because the promise is more real to them than the cost.
For me, the parade scene is the one that sticks in my head, even today. Jim and Will try to hide in the crowd while they watch their transformed neighbours march past - hollow-eyed but smiling, changed but not saved - while Jonathan Pryce's Mr. Dark (dressed unsettlingly like a gothic W***y Wonka) hunts the boys through the crowd. It scared me because it showed me that evil doesn't need darkness and secrecy to get to you; broad daylight can be even more dangerous. Because the townspeople aren't hypnotised or spelled: they *chose* this. They're so desperate for the beautiful lie that they'll lie to themselves about children being hunted rather than admit they've been fooled.
Bradbury isn't cautious with his message here. People don't fall for obvious evil - they fall for the promise of restoration. Dark doesn't tell them "I'll destroy you," instead he lies "I'll make you great". Again, that's all it takes. The carousel runs backward but it doesn't restore anything, it just creates a hollow version of what was lost but everyone's too invested in the illusion to admit it's killing them.
But it isn't just the adults who're tempted. Jim nearly falls for it too in his desperation to be older and stronger and less vulnerable. He's watched his father walk away and thinks growing up faster will fix the hole that left. Will has to physically fight him to keep him from climbing aboard, because once you start believing the lie, you'll sacrifice anything to keep it alive - even yourself, even your friends.
Not all of them though. Charles Halloway stands firm against Dark. Not through strength but because he accepted his reality. He refuses to be ashamed of his age, his quiet life, his limitations. When Dark offers him youth -and with it, the chance to be the father he thinks he should be - Charles laughs. Not because it's funny, but because he recognises the con. You can't go backward. You can only move forward with what's real.
And this is what I love about the film - it shows the difference in perspective and, in doing so, treats kids with respect. It trusts them to understand what some adults won't admit to themselves: that the people who should protect you are often the first to fall for beautiful lies, and they'll trade your safety for their nostalgia in a heartbeat. That crowds don't make you safer - sometimes they're all marching in the same parade, transformed into something hollow and dangerous while insisting they've been restored.
Dark feeds on the gaps between what we are and what we think we deserve to be, and he knows exactly which promises make people stop thinking: the promise of return, of restoration, of going backward to when things were "better." He doesn't need to hide his cruelty - he performs it as spectacle and makes them applaud, because people who've bought the lie will celebrate anything that looks like they're winning.
Something wicked doesn't creep in darkness anymore. It arrives with fanfare, runs parades in broad daylight, and promises to restore a golden age that only ever existed in the desperate imagination of people who can't face forward.
I guess it's a hard lesson to learn. -Mom
