Review: The Wizard of Gore (1970)

Directed by: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Starring: Ray Sager, Judy Cler, Wayne Ratay
Written by: Allen Kahn
Music by: Larry Wellington
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray (Arrow), DVD (Something Weird)
IMDb

Often cited as one of the great works of Herschell Gordon Lewis, aka the “Godfather of Gore,” The Wizard of Gore follows Montag the Magnificent as he performs ultra-gory optical illusions during his stage show that later manifest for real as his stage volunteers are gruesomely killed. Lewis earns his moniker: beautiful woman are sawed in half, punctured by a punch press, gouged through the throat with knives, etc. This is certainly gory, though it isn’t exactly distressing: blood is bright, bright, unnaturally bright and opaque red; entry/exit wounds aren’t articulated; victims squeal in cartoonish tones as they expire; and Montag plays with the animal innards that stand in for human viscera with a prolonged joyfulness. This film really excels at constructing a veneer of reality that’s kind of on yet obviously off, bumping your senses askew with a shifting color palette, an anachronistic selection of music, the bombastically amateur but undeniably hypnotic showmanship of Ray Sager, some eerie dream visuals, and, of course, the candy-colored gore. The film plays with chronology via circuitous and choppy edits and the story goes straight off a cliff during a loony finale that I appreciated the hell out of. Things do get bogged down by repetition — you watch nearly the same stage introduction play out three times leading up to a different on-stage death — and plenty of lengthy conversations that don’t go anywhere in particular, though the latter sort of adds to this thing’s idiosyncratic charms. All of the stuff I just praised easily could be attributed to a cast and crew that are horrible at their jobs; with H.G. Lewis, it’s pretty impossible to tell if this is mad genius or maddeningly inept and I suppose it doesn’t matter much in the end. The final product is so fascinating if not appreciably “good.”

Overall rating: 8 out of 10