Le sorcier macabre

Kip Pardue, Bijou Phillips, Crispin Glover, Brad Dourif and The Suicide Girls (!) star in the 2007 remake of "The Wizard Of Gore" as directed by Jeremy Kasten. While the box-art seems enticing – an intense Glover beckons you to join him amidst scantily clad females – the movie itself is rather flat and self-indulgent. Glover plays Motag The Magnificent, a bizarre magician who is fond of dismembering and torturing his volunteers to horrified audiences on a nightly basis. It's all fun and games in the crowd's eye, as each would-be victim emerges unharmed. However, when a young reporter by the name of Edmund Bigelow (Pardue) catches onto some crazy coincidences – namely, the participants turning up dead the next day in a fashion similar to their staged fate – the line between his reality and Montag's stage-show is blurred. Is Bigelow somehow responsible for their fates? Is Montag playing a game with him that he doesn't know about? Or is it all just a side-effect of some mind-expanding drugs?

Kasten (whose previous credits are as thin as the movie's plot itself) tries to juice up a weak story with a bit of visual flare, but unfortunately wacky camera angles and color filters can't hide the lack of substance. The film is almost redeemed by its strong cast, though. Brad Dourif plays a creep well, and it serves his role appropriately. Following up "Hostel II," Bijou Phillips turns in one of her more likable roles, but it is Glover who truly steals the show. With his hilariously over-sized codpiece and Conan O'Brien-from-Hell hairstyle, it's hard to imagine he didn't know he was involved in a train-wreck, but he makes the best of things, hamming it up and his scenes are the best the film gets. Genre fans will appreciate some of the creative death scenes, although, the way they are presented (with some truly obvious and offensive CGI) kills any effectiveness whatsoever. The biggest problem, though, is the air of self-importance this film carries, especially considering how weak the story is. The bad attempt at mind-games – especially in the final act – kills any sense of enjoyment and strips the movie of at least earning the label of "enjoyable B-movie." Too pretentious for its own good and too nonsensical for what it attempts, "The Wizard Of Gore" is a messy failure, at best.

At one point – somewhere in the final act – my wife turned to me and asked me if I "get this movie." The answer was "I think so," but the real question should have been "Are you enjoying it?" to which I would have answered a solid "no." "The Wizard Of Gore" doesn't have much to offer. It may confuse you into thinking it is actually a smart movie, but nothing could be further from the truth. The film is too amateurish to be convincing (think late-night HBO/Cinemax fare) and too pretentious to be enjoyed on the most basic level. I personally can't comment on how it compares to the original movie as I've never seen it, but that is irrelevant, since the movie – on its own merits – is one sorry piece of work.

What a totally crazy (yet highly admirable) ambition to remake a Herschell Gordon Lewis film and actually add story depth, detailed character drawings, mystery and an atmosphere of morbidity! But it works. At least, … partially it works. Horror fanatics familiar with Lewis' oeuvre know that his films are entertaining and sensationally gross, but they always severely lacked in the plotting department. Of all Lewis' splatter films, "The Wizard of Gore", released in 1970, was definitely the one with the greatest potential and it's actually most unfortunate that the basic concept ideas weren't properly elaborated. Director Jeremy Kasten and writer Zach Chassler obviously must have felt the same way, as their remake cuts down on the gore (but luckily not to much) and attempts to give meaning and background to the whole idea of a maniacal magician. "The Wizard of Gore" is actually quite a unique oddity in the area of horror cinema nowadays! People always complain about the overload of needless remakes and modern directors' lack of own creativity (and they're right, too) but here's finally one remake that doesn't aspire to just bluntly copy the original, but to complete and perhaps even "improve" it. The result may not be entirely successful, but it's definitely a courageous approach and an overall enjoyable and recommended experience.

This new version largely maintains the same plot as Lewis' original film. Montag the Magnificent is a thoroughly uncanny magician/illusionist who, along with his hermit assistant, tours around with a quite unique and nightmarish act. He butchers seemingly random girls from the audience live on stage, yet when the audience panics and tries to flee, the light go on and the victims are standing there back in one piece again. A young reporter quickly discovers that the girls turn up dead the next day after all and their corpses are damaged exactly like they appeared to be on stage. Severely against the will of his girlfriend, he becomes obsessed with Montag's show and becomes entangled into a web of surreal nightmares, primitive drugs, physical agony and mental deterioration. "The Wizard of Gore" is still a pretty incoherent mess in which a lot of twists make absolutely no sense and a lot of vital questions remain unanswered, but at least you get the impression that Kasten and Chassler put thought and effort into providing an explanation for the events, and that is already an accomplishment to itself. Especially given the entirely illogical mishmash of half-decent ideas Herschell Gordon Lewis left behind. Moreover, this 2007 version benefices from a supremely macabre atmosphere and all the decors and set pieces look very grim. The gore and splatter effects clearly can't hold a candle to those of the original (at least, when it comes of outrageousness), but still there's some excellent carnage on display. Gore, nudity, atmosphere and immensely creepy carnival music … These are all great elements that allow you to overlook the occasionally senseless subject matter. Another thing which makes "The Wizard of Gore" a must-see for horror fanatics is the presence of no less than three phenomenal genre veterans, namely Crispin Glover, Brad Dourif and Jeffrey Combs.

Never saw the original 1970 version and not sure if I want to after viewing this one. I am sure it is vastly different in terms of plot, but from what I have read about that one its performances are less than stellar. Here we have some fairly good names as Crispin Glover plays the strange magician Montag and we also have Jeffrey Combs and Brad Douriff. Actors known for their horror roles and they could not even save this one so I really do not want to see a version with less talent. It was not entirely bad, had a couple of good kills and some nice nudity. I was also wondering where the story was going. Unfortunately, it did not end up in a good place for me and so I must say I found for a lot of this movie I was just getting a headache from the way things kept flashing here and there. The story follows a man who sort of owns an underground newspaper or something. I am guessing he is looking for a story as he and his girlfriend are at this strange goth like carnival. Well they end up going to a show titled the Wizard of Gore featuring the magician Montag. The show features this man talking to his audience and disrobing usually a female and then dispatching her in a gruesome way and when the audience starts to flee the lights go out and come on and the girl is apparently fine. She does, however, turn up dead later. So we follow this guy as he goes to each of Montag's shows looking for a story or perhaps more. I will give it credit for trying to do some different things as from what I read about the original it really does not follow that movie's path, but in the end it tries to be to clever and fails a bit.

The idea of remaking the classic 1970 Herschell Gordon Lewis movie "The Wizard of Gore" did have potential. But in its actual execution, this remake fails in just about every way you can think of. True, Crispin Glover does add a little life into his scenes, and the movie does boast some okay gore sequences. Other than those things, I can't think of anything positive to say about the movie. It's terribly shot, looking like it was photographed with a camcorder and with extremely bad lighting. (And just about every shot of the movie has the camera at an odd tilt.) The lead character is annoying and unsympathetic. And the story moves at a crawl, and often doesn't make that much sense. The movie is so bad at times that one could almost swear that the filmmakers were trying to do as bad a job as possible. Like when it comes to most remakes, stick with the original.

An underground reporter (Kip Purdue) stumbles upon a magician (Crispin Glover) who kills his assistants on stage. What first looks like an illusion starts to get more suspicious as they turn up dead the day after. How is a local strip club tied in to this? And what happens as layer after later is peeled away from the surface?

The biggest flaw of this film, from director Jeremy Kasten, is the fact it's a "remake" of a Hershel Gordon Lewis film. I kept comparing the two in my head, which was very unfair to Kasten's work because the films have very little in common. Aside from a magician whop performs bloody tricks, the entire plot is reworked, as are the characters. The best I can recommend is that if you are going to see this one, do not see the original first. Without that influence on your opinion, you may like this one.

What is not to like? The cast is great, not least of which includes horror veterans Jeffrey Combs and Brad Dourif, as well as the Suicide Girls. Crispin Glover has a long history in horror, as well, and Kip Purdue (who I am not very familiar with) has a personality that uniquely fits this tale. He is the one character who could not be changed without altering the entire film.

While I prefer the original film, it is not really fair to compare them. Montag the Magician is not even the same guy, and there is the whole other stripper and mind-control drug aspect here that was never even hinted at in the 1970 version. So I cannot say, "Skip this one and go see the original." As much as I want you to see the original, I think this film has its merits. It certainly upped the sex and nudity, which may appeal to viewers.