The Wizard of Gore (2007)

I love B-camp, bloody, gory horror films, but honestly, what just happened? 

Directed by: Jeremy Kasten 

Released: 2007

Staring: Crisping Glover, Brad Dourif, lots of horrible unknown actors and strippers. No really, they are an actual group of strippers/porn stars...The Suicide Girls

Rating: R or Unrated 

......I wish I had a running sound bite for chirping crickets because that's the only thing I heard when I try to think of something logical to say about Wizard of Gore. The concept of the film was so promising and it's execution so dismally disappointing. And if you're wondering, yes this film was watched on my Crispin Glover viewing escapade...Sadly, not even Glover's creepy charms could save this horrific illusion of a "mind bending" horror rampage. 

Basic Synopsis...A downtown journalsist attends several shows featuring the magician Montag the Magnificent in a seedy, underground venue. During the show, the Wizard of Gore chooses a member of the female audience and appears to dismember their body on stage, but when the lights come up it is revealed as nothing more than an illusion. The following day the bodies of the girls are found murdered in very similar fashion to their on stage deaths. As journalist Edmund travels down the rabbit hole, he discovers that he has become more apart of this wonderland than he'd like. 

  Sounds like a solid outline for an interesting game of cat and mouse movie making right? This is just the problem...this script and the film makers don't keep to this solid story, instead they choose to trip themselves and the audience up on back stories, side stories, incomplete stories, past stories, present stories and any other type of added "story" you can imagine.

  We have a magician who is possibly using his show as a cover for his murderous urges yes? Yes. We also have the possibility that someone ELSE is using Montag's show as a cover for HIS murderous urges yes? Yes. Two, you have TWO great murder motifs that you could run with the whole film. Was it Montag or was it not Montag...Is someone else using his tricks as basis for their murder? If so who and if  so why? If it had just been left at that this movie could have been successful. 

  But no. We have to add in strippers, and drugs, and sex, and vietnam (just what?), and how Edmund knows absolutely everyone, and where he met his girlfriends and how he secretly gets off on beating women, and there is the escort service, and all the girls that are killed are apart of this escort service and how Edmund is involved with the murderers, perhaps HE is the murderer Oh my good, gracious father above, let's make him an UNRELIABLE CHARACTER  so we can JUSTIFY this whole movie NOT making sense or fitting together in the end!

  Ok!!! Now that that is out of my system I'll attempt to do and actual review. I know I usually go a bit deeper into story line and characters but honestly I just can't do it for this film. Why? Because I truthfully still do not know what happened at the end. I watched this movie from beginning to end and do not know who the ultimate killer was at the end. Too many would be killers turned into victims and and with a big part of the story being the use of this drug that can make people believe what you want them to believe, the viewers is in for a big disappointment if they expect to get any real closure with this film.

Is Edmund just being a good boyfriend and giving his girlfriend Maggie and message or is he hell bend on snapping her neck in two? I never figured it out. Kip Pardue & Bijou Phillips in The Wizard of Gore.

Characters and Setting- The main character of Edmund is just dull! Boring, uninteresting and poorly POORLY written. Any development that his character supposedly goes through is NOT well written or in that case performed by the incapable Kip Pardue. His character wanders around in 1940's garb living in a world that apparently "HE created" If Edmund really had collected such an interesting group of misfits to fill his surrounding habitat in, I would have liked to see more characters that mimic his 1940's style and attitude. You could have the squeaky blonde dame, the street wise, chain-smoking best friend who works in the morgue, a mysterious and sexy asian lady who works for the enemy. Is she spying is on him? Is she falling in love with him...just so many characters that hold that sleazy 1940's downtown crime style that the movie tries so hard to emulate but only does for ONE character. There is a Halloween scene at the beginning were a couple of characters are sporting some retro grab and I think if they would have carried that theme throughout the WHOLE movie it would have made it visually intriguing as well as add some continuity to the otherwise jumbled mess of odd characters. The downtown L.A. location is great for that old school crime thriller atmosphere and if the director would have chosen to extend this 1940's esque world that Edmund has apparently "surrounded" himself in it would have made much more sense for the character and the intended feel of the film.

OMG. I'm SO retro.

This gate is retro right?

We are not going to talk about Edmunds idiot of a girlfriend Maggie because I don't even want to go there and I don't believe I can without repeatedly swearing and confusing myself and you even more. Brad Dourif, a.k.a Grima Wormtonge to us Lord of the Rings fans, plays a...a doctor/vietnam vet/message therapist/ acupuncture/ drug dealer who we think is maybe, was, sort of not, could be friend of Edmund...I mean he helps him figure things out (because obviously stellar journalist sleuth can't do that on his own) and tells Edmund that he supplies the hallucination drug Treto Detoxin (?) to Montag who dispenses it throughout his audience by greeting each one at the theater door with a hand shake...mmm, slimy! Dourif's character almost makes sense in this film...I mean he's suppose to be a crazed war vet/drug dealer and I'm not going to lie, he plays that part well...gold start to the drug lord! ...who may or may not be the murderer and may or may not know who the killer is and may or may not be controlled by the drugs he distributed...you see how this movie works now?

I'm pretty sure these were the four main facial expressions I made throughout the film.
Sometimes pictures say so much more than words.
"Uh...wha?" "Oh mah Gosh!" "No GROOOSS!" And the end "WTF?"

  Uh...and now for the part that I really don't want to talk about but must...because Crispin Glover is the only reason I'm writing this review. 

  In this film...Crispin Glover is strange...and I don't mean like his regular, cute awkward intriguing strange...I mean like eh this part is so bad I'm just sorry you took this role and I don't want people to judge you for it because it's not your best work although you are the best actor in the movie and I wish you had more screen time and oh my gosh those are really tight white pants they have you in and I like your hair like that but oh my gosh why are you eating that squid intestine baby is that thing from Prometheus and is that the voice you use when you have sex because you basically sound like you're having sex throughout your entire stage performance and I kind of like it but not really because I'm actually quite terrified of you right now but not in a good way please just don't shove that florescent light down your throat again....and ya.

Umm...well I don't remember him actually EATING it in the movie...I though he just rips it out...

Glover's character Montag the Magnificent was written to be the cynical, psychological villain who messes with our minds and seems to justify each killing with an analogy for the lack of emotions humans posses and our desensitization to horror and gore (WHICH COULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT MOTIF FOR A GORE BASED HORROR FILM TO PLAY UPON...but no. We had to have strippers and drugs.) These could have been some great monologs for Glover to deliver except he uses this gasping, sexual voice when he's on stage as the illusionist. The only time we don't get this disturbing delivery is when he chooses the girl who will assist him in his demonstration of gore and debauchery. I believe "SIT DOWN BITCH! You die tonight." are the lines...interesting...I must say that things like screen play are not the actors fault...it's the screenwriters. Zach Chassler (according to IMDB) YOU die tonight. Or just please never write another screen play ever again. 

"Sit down bitch! You die tonight."
Crispin Glover as Montag the Magnificent...just crazy as hell. 

For as uncomfortable as Montag the Magnificent is, I do wish his character would have gotten more screen time. At least he's intriguing, amusing, and actually sensical believe it or not.  

On the plus side, Glover gets to use his Creepy Thin man sword training again! :D

  And that's all the farther I feel like I can go with this one...can't really recommend it for anyone unless you're a huge blood and gore horror fan, which I know there are a ton of people our there who love this movie. I watched solely for Crispin Glover and while I wasn't really disappointed with him, it was just the fact that I'll never get back the two hours I spent watching this movie...and even more tying to figure out who actually DONE it!  Concept I like. Production I hate.

P.S. I KNOW that this movie is based off of a Herschell Gordon Lewis slasher flick from the 70's, but as I said in my review for Willard I'm not a big fan of 70's film so I've left it alone and haven't checked it out. I thought the 2007 version might just be one of those bad remakes of a gory, horror classic but when I look on IMDB their ratings only differ by .3 Original Wizard of gore at 5.3 stars and the 2007 version at 5.0...so I figured the original can't be much better...especially if it was from the 70's. 

If you read the whole review wow and thanks a lots! I know it was kind of an odd one but I can't praise every movie I watch...this review was more of a subconscious train of thought.

  -Cheers!