The Wizard of Gore

A dreadfully repetitive script, coupled with an abysmal central performance from Ray Sager as the titular character (who delivers every last syllable of his many boring monologues in a drawn out manner guaranteed to irritate) make Herschell Gordon Lewis's The Wizard of Gore a real chore to sit through at times; however, several delightfully outrageous moments of cheesy Grand Guignol splatter and a jaw-droppingly daft ending thankfully prevent it from being a complete waste of time.

Curvacious Judy Cler plays Sherry Carson, a TV talk show host who becomes intrigued by mysterious, mesmeric magician Montag the Magnificent (Sager), who uses his hypnotic powers to lure female volunteers to take part in incredible illusions in which they appear to be mutilated and killed on stage, but are finally revealed to be very much still alive.

When these same volunteers are found murdered not long after the show is over, with wounds that match those inflicted by Montag during his act, Sherry's boyfriend, a sports reporter, becomes suspicious and alerts the authorities. But the police are unable to tie the grisly murders to the magician, and so Montag is free to continue his act, with his latest and deadliest performance to be broadcast live on Sherry's TV show...

Montag's messy on stage antics—sawing a woman in half with a chainsaw, removing a girls brains after hammering a spike into her head, using a punch press to squish a lady, forcing swords into throats, and gouging out eyeballs—just about compensate for the terrible acting, poor editing, and a script that leaves so many unanswered questions that it even feels compelled to mention them all at the end. Unsurprisingly, Lewis is unable to deliver many satisfactory answers, and so opts instead for a WTF finalé that somehow transforms The Wizard of Gore from a gleeful slice of low-budget splatter into a totally whacked-out piece of existentialist horror cinema.

Now that's what I call a trick!

While its strange, mystical sense of suspense aids it, this movie is pretty mediocre in all other aspects, and yet I still find myself enjoying it. It's got terrible acting, bad picture quality and shaky, flawed transitions between scenes (and even stranger ones when it tries to demonstrate the Wizard's "power"), but it's still enjoyable. I wouldn't call this a horror movie so much as a strange combination of fantasy and gore, but it fits my Halloween bill well enough. The Wizard of Gore doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but then, like Phantasm, it isn't really supposed to.

There is a 2007 remake of this around, and I might just be inclined to check it out, to see what modern film-making could do for this little gem...

This movie has been on my Netflix queue for quite a while so I can safely say that I've wanted to see it since before Juno was out. This is the fourth Herschell Gordon Lewis film I've seen so far and only the second I've liked, the other was Two Thousand Maniacs. This, much like Two Thousand Maniacs, is a good movie. Not because it actually has substance and is well thought out, but because it is a lot of fun to watch and has become a cult classic.

Let's be honest for a minute here, when Herschell Gordon Lewis was directing films, he had no idea what he was doing. As a friend of mine said "he is the Ed Wood of gore films." I have to agree completely. The editing is always choppy and horrible, the music is poorly placed, the acting seems to be straight out of a junior high play, and nothing seems believable. This brings me to the gore. If HGL only got one thing right in his career, it was gore. The gore in this film is awesome and cheesy. He may have made bad films, but they sure are entertaining.

Sorry for going off on so many tangents, I'll get back to this movie. The story follows a TV reporter and her boyfriend who attend a magician's show of blood and dismemberment. They become suspicious of several deaths being linked to the show. It's a simple story but it is a lot of fun. I really like the magician theme. The bad acting factor definitely applies in this movie. I often wonder where HGL found these people. But as always, the gore is magnificent(no pun intended) and almost saves the movie. I had a lot fun with it.

See this movie if you're a fan of Herschell Gordon Lewis and you won't find much of anything new but it is a very good time. Go! Now!

Utter madness from HGL and probably his most accessible and entertaining film. The central premise is brilliant - someone should remake it - but all the weird subplots and scenes all add to the deranged atmosphere.

The gore is pretty nastier and a definite progression from A Taste Of Blood and The Gruesome Twosome. The "eyeball" scene really surprised and shocked me because for once the effects are reasonably convincing. But it's Ray Sager's pompous portrayal of Montag that is the most appealing aspect for fans of kitsch and the ending is a genuine eyebrow raiser. Questions of existentialism and hardcore gore? It's all here. You will, at some points, question your sanity. That is, of course, if we're not all a figment of someone's imagination. Indeed, are you in fact sitting reading this review now? Or are you actually at home, asleep, dreaming that you are here? Aaaaagh!

Another sensationally over-the-top splatter party directed by everyone's favorite horror lunatic; THE Hershell Gordon Lewis! "The Wizard of Gore" might not be his 'best' film, but it's definitely a fun experience and actually one of Lewis' most ambitiously plotted films, since he toys with subjects like hypnotism and optical illusions. None of the magical tricks are properly explained, as Lewis' sneakily avoids that in the dumb finale, but at least he tried to do something extra and ingenious with this film. Ray Sager, some sort of crossover between Vincent Price and porn actor Harry Reems, plays Montag The Magnificent; a self-acclaimed illusionist genius who butchers girls from the audience live on stage but has them return to their seats again in one piece. A young reporter, who's always dragged along by his girlfriend to see Montag's shows, discovers that the girls turn up dead after all and their corpses are damaged exactly like they appeared to be on stage. It's rather curious how you never grow tired of the way Lewis displays the gore in his movies! The sequences here in which female bodies are disemboweled, impaled or even crushed with an industrial punch press are overlong, monotonous and completely implausible, yet you stare at the screen with a gigantic smile on your face. Of course, these are the only significant scenes in "The Wizard of Gore" as the rest of the film hangs together by lousy acting, embarrassing dialogues and a shortage of decors. By the year 1970 and after having unleashed a handful of similar horror movies already, Lewis still couldn't care less about building up tension or continuity and went straight for exploitative grossness. The least you can say is that his work is an acquired taste, but he shall be forever worshiped by drive-in fanatics and other sick puppies, like myself. Amen, Mr. Lewis