WIZARD OF GORE

Remake of HG Lewis’s gore classic “The Wizard of Gore”

directed by Jeremy Kasten

reviewed by David L. Tamarin

03.31.2008

Wizard of Gore tells the story of a sadistic stage magician (brilliantly portrayed by Cripsin Glover) whose show includes the violent murder of audience members- but of course it is just magic, right? Montag the Magnificent goes way beyond the usual magician cliches such as sawing a woman in half, and resorts to elaborate and gruesome execution methods, including death by Brazen Bull, a cruel ancient torture device. Are the murders real, or is it an act? The victims walk away unscathed after the bloodshed- it is just an illusion- yet 24 hours later they die in the same manner in which they were killed, burned or eviscerated onstage.

With Wizard of Gore, director Jeremy Kasten has created a new cross-genre he calls Splatter Noir. Think Sunset Boulevard meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre-on acid. The movie is filmed in such a way that we see the action through layers of darkness and smoke.

Crispin Glover’s over-the-top performance is great fun to watch. Horror icons Jeffrey Combs and Brad Dourif also star. Thrown into the puzzling storyline and graphic gore are the Suicide Girls, most of whom are nude, and horribly massacred.

This adaptation of HG Lewis’s gore classic does not try to imitate the original but update it and in the process the film makers have created something new, a gory detective story in a bleak, unreal world. Throughout the movie, I felt both aroused and sick; lots of beautiful women, always accompanied by fountains of blood and gore.

As in The Attic Expeditions, director Kasten has given us a movie that makes us question what is real and what is fantasy- he toys with our minds like a mad marionette- the way Montag toys with the minds of his audience.

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