The Wizard of Gore (2007)

Montag the Magnificent (Glover) is a master illusionist who performs at underground venues, selecting female volunteers from his rave-like audiences. To their hysteria, it appears he's ... See full summary »

Director:

Jeremy Kasten

Writer:

Zach Chassler

Stars:

Kip Pardue, Bijou Phillips, Crispin Glover

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kip Pardue	...	Edmund Bigelow
Bijou Phillips	...	Maggie
Crispin Glover	...	Montag the Magnificent
Jeffrey Combs	...	The Geek
Brad Dourif	...	Dr. Chong
Joshua John Miller	...	Jinky (as Joshua Miller)
Garz Chan	...	Annie
Tim Chiou	...	Chinese Mickey
Evan Seinfeld	...	Frank
Flux Suicide	...	Dell
Amina Munster	...	Cecelia
Cricket Suicide	...	Cayenne (as Cricket DeManuel)
Nixon Suicide	...	Rexina
Kenneth Moskow	...	Detective Packard
Shannon Hart Cleary	...	News Reporter (as Shannon Egem)

Storyline

Montag the Magnificent (Glover) is a master illusionist who performs at underground venues, selecting female volunteers from his rave-like audiences. To their hysteria, it appears he's dismembered their bodies, but his sleigh of hand has fooled them. However, female bodies show up dead from the same wounds performed on stage. Investigators are baffled, and the chase to find the killer begins.

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Plot Keywords:

stage | disembowelment | remake | neo noir | blood | 

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Taglines:

What are you afraid of?

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for bloody violence, sexuality/nudity and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 June 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

Ilusões Mortais

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Open Sky Entertainment, Sick-A-Scope

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Edmund Bigelow: Now I live backstage. From my spot here, I can make people dance to whatever tune I want them to.When they come to my house, I hold their lives in my hands. They don't have to see me, and I don't have to parade. I know what's inside me, and whenever I want, I can see everything that's inside of them, if you catch my drift. You wonder how in the hell I got to this place. You should be asking, what took me so long.

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Crazy Credits

The closing credits roll sideways; from the right of the screen to the left.

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Connections

Remake of The Wizard of Gore (1970)

User Reviews

Interesting experience but not much scary

"The Wizard of Gore" is a horror film with something like a film noir style but it has many gallons of fake blood, gore, violent scenes and a strange mystery.

Here Kip Pardue plays Edmund Bigelow, a underground journalist thrilled for freaky and horrific things. One day he goes to the show of a strange and sinister magician called Montag the Magnificent (played by Crispin Glover). On stage performing to people of similar tastes like Edmund he presents the most frightening tricks ever played by a magician by selecting strippers to appear in disgusting, freaky and deadly numbers such as being sliced in parts, or being "cooked" in a strange stove and things like that. The audience is surprised with that, shocked but in the end Montag reveals that everything was a illusion. The show is a success but later Edmund discovers that all those girls were really killed with similar injuries to those performed in the illusionary show and here it starts his investigation on all those deaths and to find out who Montag really is.

Since I've never heard that this was a remake of a film of the 1970's I think that it was a original plot, very surprising and thrilling most of the times. The mix between horror and film noir was interesting. Some of the investigation parts was confusing in some points much because the director wanted to recreate something closer to what films noir were (notice the look of the journalist, his voice over and of course the plot twist) but it was mixed with some strange visual effects (Pardue's delusional scenes). In terms of horror it was okay, incredible makeup effects but despite the blood and all the gore I didn't find it a scary movie (perhaps I'm too insensible or I didn't care much for the characters). Nothing was so shocking but for some viewers some of the things performed by Montag will be very haunting and disgusting.

Crispin Glover was magnificent (no jokes with his character here), Pardue was okay and the movie delivers the good performances of Brad Dourif ("Child's Play"), Jeffrey Combs ("Re-Animator") and Bijou Phillips. Horror die-hard fans might find it boring or find nothing special about it but for those who enjoy different propositions and something more original in terms of story it's a great film to see. 8/10