The Wizard of Gore poster & wallpaper

Amina Munster, Bijou Phillips, Brad Dourif

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 the...( read more  read more... )ir bodies, but his sleight 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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30% liked it

282 ratings

R, 1 hr. 37 min.

Directed by: Jeremy Kasten

Release Date: May 17, 2007

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Flixster Reviews (165)

  • stopitgoaway
    September 30, 2009
    stopitgoaway
    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. T...( read more)aking 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.
  • BloodyKitten
    January 5, 2009
    BloodyKitten
    At this film's close, I can safely say I have absolutely no idea what it was about (aside from a macabre magic show). The story is a convoluted mess - yet somehow, it works. Like its predecessor, Wizard of Gore '07 likes to play with hallucinations and suggested realities, only...( read more) to a degree the original classic in exploitation camp never reached. Take the final scene of the 1970 film and stretch it out over two hours, and you'll get a feel for the remake. Complimented by vibrant, interesting camera work and set design, strange characters, and great performances by Crispin Glover, Jeffrey Combs -and- Brad Dourif, The Wizard of Gore is a bizarre, inspired remake that horror fans will appreciate.
  • phubbs1
    September 7, 2008
    phubbs1
    Didnt really follow the story and the way it plans out, very surreal and odd. I didnt really enjoy it to be honest, found it dull and dissapointing.
  • thefog1331
    August 26, 2008
    thefog1331
    I've haven't seen the original (yet) but I somehow doubt it's anywhere as convoluted as this turns out to be. Still, lots of blood and boobs, supporting help from genre faves Jeffery Combs and Brad Dourif and Crispen Glover is wisely underused.
  • cacutshaw
    November 20, 2008
    cacutshaw
    Another one I may have liked more because I was sick as a filthy fuckin' animal. This is a weird remake of an equally weird film. Though Glover's Montag is fantastic, nothing can ever top Sager's wonderful performance. But why compare when the movies are so different?
    This fli...( read more)ck has got Glover, Combs and Dourif, so that's 3 and 1/2 stars just for awesome casting, and the dude (Kip Pardue) who's the lead in this one is just a bizarre mix of Weller's William Burroughs and James LeGross.
    Fucked up, gory and entertaining, what more do you need?
  • pincat
    October 31, 2009
    pincat
    not as bad as i was expecting.
  • myloveisrobotic
    August 14, 2009
    myloveisrobotic
    reminded me a bit of cronenberg's naked lunch. very surreal (dont expect to make much sense of the plot) and a great cast, too.
  • LickTheABCs
    August 9, 2009
    LickTheABCs
    This might be the first movie remade for the sole reason that It was mentioned in a really bad Teen flick. Ok, to start. I'm a fan of the following things: Crispin Glover. Brad Dourif. Jeffrey Combs, tits and Gore. Not necessarily in that order, but you catch my drift. What, you ...( read more)don't? Let's just pretend that you do, then. Crispin Glover, who never ages, is OK, but it seems his codpiece has a bigger role than he does. (Seriously, he was trying a little too HARD to impress the Suicide Girls..). Brad Dourif, well, he's good in it.. but Jeffrey Combs. Wow. He has about 4 lines, eats rats and looks like he's the star of the adaptation of "Tales of the Black Freighter". Onto the tits. There's aplenty. That should be the ONLY reason to rent this. Or I dunno, get a girlfriend so you can touch real ones. Which ever floats your boat. Plus, the director (and I say that without disrespect to ACTUAL directors) does this weird thing where EVERY. SHOT. OF. THE. FILM. IS. OFF-KILTER. Straighten the camera, you douche. You're not an auteur. Not recommended.
  • kimmason65
    June 21, 2009
    kimmason65
    inferior remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis' splatterfest classic. Crispin Glover is the title character and it is perhaps his weakest performance. A more interesting performance comes from Kip Pardue as the wannabe journalists raised with a sliver spoon who becomes obsessed with t...( read more)he magician. This movies' rating is most enhanced by the extra features which include interesting behind the scenes explorations and deleted scenes which were often better than anything contained in the film. Suicide Girls were cast as the victims who volunteer for the show, are slaughtered in an illusion and come out unscathed, only to turn up dead hours later in circumstances mimicking what happened on stage. Visually, the film is interesting and offers promise, but the weak script and performances bring it down. It seems the Director had all the ingredients of a new cult classic and failed miserably in the mix.
  • rubysoho2
    February 1, 2009
    rubysoho2
    Having never seen the original, I watched this as a stand-alone movie. I admit, it was grotesque, which isn't my usual brand of horror. However, the bizarreness, and the twists and turns kept me watching. It was kind of like a bad car crash, you may look away, but you can't help ...( read more)peeking between your fingers while covering your face, because you're still curious about what's happening. However, if you watch it for no other reason, I have one word for you: Flux.
    Enough said.

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