Magic

the killer doll film that isn't really a killer doll film but instead a film about the crippling mental health of one cory withers.

his struggles to reach his goal of becoming a succesful performer before meeting the doll is pretty sad. we all have that dream we wanna persue but just can't reach that point to where we actually can pay the rent.
when cory adopts the doll as his new act, he stumbles into succes.
you can visibly see in anthony hopkins performance that cory before meeting the doll already has some signs of something inside of him that is not quite right.
but when meeting the doll it feels like becomes a different person yet there is something eerie about the design of the doll and how the film uses it. the idea that dolls are alive or look alive has been an idea used in cinema for a very long time and in my opinion this is a great example as it adds another layer to cory, its like he channeled some of his personality traits, the traits that are popular with audiences into the doll while not making the doll necesarrily alive.
anthony hopkins gives cory a wooden face, like he's the one that is the doll.

when found out that he talks to his doll, cory begins to kill.
while i think it doesn't reach its full potential and the romance is the worst about it, magic is still an interesting watch because of the surrounding mystery of its main character which said mystery is never fully explained but i kinda like that about it.

for such a b movie level plot, this film got an impressive director and writer in the form of richard Attenborough and writer william gold.
william gold has written films considered good, he even wrote the iconic film misery(1990)
and richard attenborough has directed films like ghandi and chaplin which makes it more suprising that he directed this film in his lifetime.