SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES recalls an earlier time in small town Midwest America when everyone knew everyone and felt safe and secure in the comfort of tradition and continuity. This is disrupted when a carnival arrives on a mysterious, middle-of-the-night train. The tents, rides, and games go up in seconds, as if by magic, and soon terrible things are happening to townspeople, including Will and Jim (Vidal Peterson and Shawn Carson), two 10-year-old boys who are chased and caught and who worry about their imminent murder. The carnival owner, a man named Dark (Jonathan Pryce), is an incarnation of the devil, and the evil he casts depends on understanding each person's deepest desire and then fulfilling it, with a devastating twist. A lightning-rod salesman gets tortured with electricity. An aging teacher is given a moment back in the beauty of her youth and then is immediately struck blind before she can admire herself. Anyone who rides the carousel backward gets younger, even going into infancy if Dark so desires. There is much scary music, thunder, lightning, nefarious green mists, and a roomful of tarantulas designed to terrify the boys because "they know too much." It turns out, with no explanation, that one man, a librarian with a bad heart (Jason Robards), has the power to save the town from evil if he just refuses to take what he wants most from Dark, his lost power and youth.