Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Woodyanders Master magician Montag the Magnificent (the divine Crispin Glover in peak lively'n'loopy form) performs ghoulish stage tricks on female audience members that go awry when said participants start turning up dead for real. Underground reporter Edmund Bigelow (a fine and compelling performance by Kip Pardue) finds himself in considerable jeopardy after he decides to dig deeper into what's going on. Ably directed with stylish and nourish cinematic panache by Jeremy Kasten, with a crafty and perfectly lurid script by Zach Chassler, a snappy pace, a handy helping of tasty distaff nudity, a supremely sleazy and sinister carnival atmosphere, and oodles of juicy graphic gore, this inspired remake improves on the enjoyable, yet ramshackle original with a more capable cast, slicker production values, a more complex plot, and much better and more convincing splatter effects. This film further benefits from excellent contributions by Bijou Phillips as Bigelow's spunky girlfriend Maggie, Brad Dourif as seedy quack physician Dr. Chong, Joshua Miller as sarcastic coroner Jinky, and Jeffrey Combs as a grotesque and disgusting geek. Christopher Duddy's striking cinematography makes nifty use of Dutch camera angles and garish lighting. Steven Porcaro's ominous score hits the moody spot. The meaty overriding themes concerning illusion, perception, and the manipulation of reality and people's minds gives this picture extra provocative substance. A really cool and clever flick.

Rodrigo Amaro "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

Paul Andrews 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. Taking 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.

Mr_Censored Kip Pardue, Bijou Phillips, Crispin Glover, Brad Dourif and The Suicide Girls (!) star in the 2007 remake of "The Wizard Of Gore" as directed by Jeremy Kasten. While the box-art seems enticing – an intense Glover beckons you to join him amidst scantily clad females – the movie itself is rather flat and self-indulgent. Glover plays Motag The Magnificent, a bizarre magician who is fond of dismembering and torturing his volunteers to horrified audiences on a nightly basis. It's all fun and games in the crowd's eye, as each would-be victim emerges unharmed. However, when a young reporter by the name of Edmund Bigelow (Pardue) catches onto some crazy coincidences – namely, the participants turning up dead the next day in a fashion similar to their staged fate – the line between his reality and Montag's stage-show is blurred. Is Bigelow somehow responsible for their fates? Is Montag playing a game with him that he doesn't know about? Or is it all just a side-effect of some mind-expanding drugs?Kasten (whose previous credits are as thin as the movie's plot itself) tries to juice up a weak story with a bit of visual flare, but unfortunately wacky camera angles and color filters can't hide the lack of substance. The film is almost redeemed by its strong cast, though. Brad Dourif plays a creep well, and it serves his role appropriately. Following up "Hostel II," Bijou Phillips turns in one of her more likable roles, but it is Glover who truly steals the show. With his hilariously over-sized codpiece and Conan O'Brien-from-Hell hairstyle, it's hard to imagine he didn't know he was involved in a train-wreck, but he makes the best of things, hamming it up and his scenes are the best the film gets. Genre fans will appreciate some of the creative death scenes, although, the way they are presented (with some truly obvious and offensive CGI) kills any effectiveness whatsoever. The biggest problem, though, is the air of self-importance this film carries, especially considering how weak the story is. The bad attempt at mind-games – especially in the final act – kills any sense of enjoyment and strips the movie of at least earning the label of "enjoyable B-movie." Too pretentious for its own good and too nonsensical for what it attempts, "The Wizard Of Gore" is a messy failure, at best.At one point – somewhere in the final act – my wife turned to me and asked me if I "get this movie." The answer was "I think so," but the real question should have been "Are you enjoying it?" to which I would have answered a solid "no." "The Wizard Of Gore" doesn't have much to offer. It may confuse you into thinking it is actually a smart movie, but nothing could be further from the truth. The film is too amateurish to be convincing (think late-night HBO/Cinemax fare) and too pretentious to be enjoyed on the most basic level. I personally can't comment on how it compares to the original movie as I've never seen it, but that is irrelevant, since the movie – on its own merits – is one sorry piece of work.