Box office The film grossed $8.4 million at the domestic box office against its $20 million budget.
Critical response Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun Times gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, and wrote: "It's one of the few literary adaptations I've seen in which the film not only captures the mood and tone of the novel, but also the novel's style. Bradbury's prose is a strange hybrid of craftsmanship and lyricism. He builds his stories and novels in a straightforward way, with strong plotting, but his sentences owe more to
Thomas Wolfe than to the pulp tradition, and the lyricism isn't missed in this movie. 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."
Janet Maslin of
The New York Times wrote the film "begins on such an overworked
Norman Rockwell note that there seems little chance that anything exciting or unexpected will happen. So it's a happy surprise when the film...turns into a lively, entertaining tale combining boyishness and grown-up horror in equal measure"; according to Maslin, "the gee-whiz quality to this adventure is far more excessive in Mr. Bradbury's novel than it is here, as directed by Jack Clayton. Mr. Clayton, who directed a widely admired
version of
The Turn of the Screw some years ago, gives the film a tension that transcends even its
purplest prose." Kevin Thomas of the
Los Angeles Times praised the film as "one of Walt Disney's best efforts in recent years—a film that actually has something to offer adults and adolescents alike."
Variety wrote that the film "must be chalked up as something of a disappointment. Possibilities for a dark, child's view fantasy set in rural America of yore are visible throughout, but various elements have not entirely congealed into a unified achievement...Clayton has done a fine job visualizing the screenplay by Bradbury himself, but has missed really connecting with the heart of the material and bringing it satisfyingly alive." Gene Siskel of the
Chicago Tribune gave the film 2 stars out of 4 and wrote that it "opens promisingly" but has a script which "tries to cram too much material into one story" and a climax that "couldn't be more disappointing", with "neon special effects that overwhelm the last half hour of the movie. The result is an oddball combination of a
Twilight Zone episode with the climactic, zapping-the-Nazis scene from
Raiders of the Lost Ark." Richard Harrington of
The Washington Post criticized the "lethargic" pace, "stolid acting", and special effects that "are shockingly poor for 1983 (a time-machine carousel is the only effective sequence on that front)." Tom Milne of
The Monthly Film Bulletin lamented: "The novel's texture has been thinned out so ruthlessly that little is left, but the bare bones; and all they add up to, shorn of the slightly self-conscious Faulknerian poetics of Bradbury's style, is a dismayingly schoolmarmish moral tale about fathers and sons, the vanity of illusions, and homespun recipes for dealing with demons ('Happiness makes them run')." Christopher John reviewed the film in
Ares Magazine #15 and commented that "if the chance ever comes your way to take this one in, grab it. Rarely does such a quiet, yet strong picture get made in this country." Colin Greenland, reviewing
Something Wicked This Way Comes for
Imagine magazine, called it "one for the SFX connoisseur, a visual feast". As of November 2025, the film holds a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 35 reviews. The consensus reads: "True terror and typical Disney wholesomeness clash uncomfortably in
Something Wicked This Way Comes."
Accolades The film won the 1984
Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and
Saturn Award for Best Writing, and was nominated for five others, including best music for
James Horner and best supporting actor for Jonathan Pryce. It was also nominated for the
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and Grand Jury Prize at the
Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival. == Home media ==