Absolutely Fantastic

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

When I ordered this movie from Amazon it was with some anticipation as it has Jeffrey Combs, Crispin Glover and Brad Dourif on the cast list. And the DVD cover brandished 'a new version of the horror classic' and 'one of the year's most anticipated releases'. Yeah, well, lets just say that I was sorely disappointed.Well, with a result as abysmal as this movie was, I don't even want to delve into the original 1970 version.The story in this movie didn't appeal to me in any way, as it was too forced and didn't ever manage to capture my interest. And truth be told, I even dozed off for about ten minutes. The entire movie was just trying to be a bit too much extraordinary for my liking.What kept this movie semi-afloat was aforementioned actors; Jeffrey Combs, Crispin Glover and Brad Dourif. But they could only do so much in order to salvage this train-wreck of a movie given the limitations of the screenplay and the directorial hand of Jeremy Kasten. Oh, well and the gore in the movie was good as well, and that counts for something, if you enjoy that kind of macabre entertainment.I am sure that there is an audience for this movie, I just wasn't part of that audience, that much is for sure.

The Wizard of Gore is set in present day Los Angeles where Edmund Bigelow (Kip Pardue) publishes a small underground paper, always looking for the next big thing he decides to go to see a stage magician named Montag the Magnficent (Crispin Glover) after seeing an advertisement. Taking his girlfriend Maggie (Bijou Phillips) with him they are shocked & thrilled by Montag's performance & show in which he appears to rip the guts out of a stripper named Cayenne (Cricket Suicide) only for her to reappear moments later seemingly unharmed. Soon after Edmund hears a news report in which Cayneene's body has been found horribly mutilated & he makes the connection to Montag's show & start to investigate which results in mind bending hallucinations, drugs, mind control & a sinister plot as his life starts to fall apart as Edmund struggles to know the difference between reality & fantasy...Directed by Jeremy Kasten this is maybe a result of the recent spate of big budget Hollywood remakes of classic horror films such as Halloween (1978) & Friday the 13th (1980) & as such is a very loose remake of the low budget Herschell Gordon Lewis exploitation gore film The Wizard of Gore (1970) & I have to say I really wasn't that impressed with this confusing mess of a film. The original 170 The Wizard of Gore was a moderately effective exploitation film with some strong if fake looking gore & had a fairly simple & daft yet entertaining plot while the 2007 remake has a few flashes of gore which look more realistic but have less impact & are less frequent while the plot has been totally revamped & changed with Montag the Magnificent almost a secondary consideration as the script feels more like Naked Lunch (1991) with it's hallucinogenic & drug fuelled plot that gets very confused & has no big pay-off at the end either & the character of Edmund striking similarities to Peter Weller's character in Naked Lunch both visual & conceptual are not unnoticed. The script tries to set the events up as a mystery & some hallucinogenic drug plays a major role as the boundaries between fantasy & reality become blurred in some elaborate plan which just has the effect of the film going weird as you never really know what's going on & the script does a poor job of explaining itself as little resolved. The more I think about it the more the original The Wizard of Gore seems like a masterpiece compared to this.The 2007 The Wizard of Gore does actually look quite nice although it is set in the seedy sleazy underground world of the Los Angeles night life where everyone seems to have copious amounts of tattoo's, piercings & dress in fetish gear, unlike the 1970 The Wizard of Gore which was set very much in the real world the average person can relate too this one isn't. There's some style here with scenes mostly shot using neon lights although there are some seemingly random moments like the cross hatch grid that keeps flashing into view & distortion of background images for no apparent reason. I was disappointed with the gore here, most of Montag's tricks take place behind a literal smoke screen & little is seen, there's some blood splatter, a decapitation with a bear trap, some guts are pulled out, someone is burnt, someone is impaled on glass shards & rats heads are bitten off. One area where this one differs from the original is that there is lots of female nudity on show if that's your thing.Probably shot on a low budget this looks quite nice with decent production values & effects. The cast features some familiar faces including a barely recognisable Jeffrey Combs, Brad Douriff, the pretty Bijou Phillips with Crispin Glover as Montag in a really camp performance that makes the character just look silly rather than threatening or menacing.The Wizard of Gore is a low budget remake of a low budget film that didn't need or want a remake, in trying to make it substantially different it strays too far from the original's concepts & anyone who liked the original for what it was probably won't like this anywhere near as much.

Within film communities, remaking Horror movies is a punishable offense. But then, the question arises when filmmakers reimagine Hershell Gordon Lewis' work. Is it criminal to remake films that were poor quality to begin with? Inspired by the buzz generated on the internet, I sought out the 2007 remake of the Wizard of Gore. We are treated to a different plot than the original, marking this update as a reimagination rather than a direct remake.The story follows journalist Ed Bigelow (Kip Pardue), interested in the hype generated around Montag the Magnificent (Crispin Glover). At each show, women (Suicide Girls: Cricket, Amina Munster, and Nixon) are taken on stage to be mutilated in visceral and grotesque fashions, including one that is gutted, another dismembered, and the last immolated. Much to the audience's shock, each woman leaves free of injury; however, they later die of the same injuries Montag subjected them to. Meanwhile, Dr. Chong (Brad Dourif), Montag's accomplice and supplier (of both women and drugs), keeps Bigelow supplied with a hallucinogenic drug called Tetrodetoxin. Before each show, Montag douses his hands in the said substance and shakes each individual audience members' hands upon entry; Bigelow then begins to notice that Montag completely ignores him. It later becomes revealed that those dead women were actually murdered by Bigelow, as he personally visited each one of them after the show. The story later reveals that his girlfriend (Bijou Phillips) met him through an underground BDSM brothel, where men pay to dominate the women. Montag's "assistant" (portrayed by Jeffrey Combs) in actuality is controlling the environment by subjecting the audience to hallucinations.Where to start? Well, I'll start by declaring it difficult to remake movies to begin with, even (or especially) films that had little substance to begin with. However, while the filmmakers desperately attempted to bring method to the story's madness, the plot ultimately nose dived after one jarring twist after the other; each plot twist made less sense than the last. It seemed rather random that Bigelow was behind their deaths, and that the Geek was controlling everything. As a side note, excusing the gratuity of the Suicide Girls' inclusion (seldom are Splatterfilms modest), it otherwise seemed crassly commercial to me; detailing the selection process in the Behind the Scenes feature further underscores it. Finally, if I may complain, the burn victim looked nothing like an actual burnt body. Seeing that this film was made with CGI, I find it rather inexcusable to use a lousy prop.I'd only recommend to those that wish to see this reimagining. It is somewhat worth watching, but be warned.

I just loved this film.It was an unexpected joy from beginning to end.Quirky, bizared, genuinely creepy and I would recommend it to everyone who enjoy the cinema of the perverse. And it doesn't come much quirkier than this.Kip Pardue and Crispin Glover are to "die for'! Funny, crazy, nightmarish and simply beautiful to look at.Very Argento is its use of colour.A min-masterpiece, maybe, but a masterpiece anyway.Jeremy Kasten is, probably, the U.S.'s greatest new Horror director's.The shades of colour leave the audience entranced and unnerved.It is a terrific film that I heartily recommend.