The Wizard Of Gore follows a similar plot to that of Bloodsucking Freaks. The Magnificent Montag (who looks a lot like Thomas Moore aka. Enio Girolami) is a famed magician, who performs fantastic illusions onstage. These illusions include sawing female volunteers in half, hammering spikes through their temples, and disembowelling them with heavy factory hole punches. After he performs these gruesome acts, the women return to their seats unharmed. Or do they?
In typical Herschell Gordon Lewis fashion, things play out like a gore soaked episode of Scooby Doo. Just like Scooby Doo , H.G. Lewis always provides us with none too bright amatuer slueths, and delightfully cliche villains. A t.v. personality, and her sports writer boyfriend suspect that Montag is really killing his assistants.
While this lacks that certain something that was heavily present in other Lewis efforts such as Blood Feast and 2000 Maniacs , The Wizard Of Gore still has something to offer the average cult film fan. Even though the gore effects in Lewis' films are always crude, at least they always provoke a response. Whether audiences cringe in disgust, or howl with laughter, a bucket of innards is usually more effective than a million dollar CGI effect.
The factory punch press death scene is particularly well executed (a bad pun, I know). I was a little disappointed, but it was probably due to the fact that I was expecting the movie that inspired Bloodsucking Freaks to be nothing short of a classic. The Wizard Of Gore is no classic, but you should still check it out for Ray Sager's overacting performance, a few effective gore scenes, and good old fashioned drive-in nostalgia. Or you could check out Bloodsucking Freaks instead. |
