AniInterview
Sorry, this movie sucks
BoardChiri
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Geraldine
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Scott LeBrun
In a role for which the filmmakers were originally hoping to get Vincent Price, Ray Sager dominates the proceedings for "The Wizard of Gore". A stock company player for gore master Herschell Gordon Lewis, Sager was the last minute choice to play the title role. Montag the Magnificent is an illusionist who hypnotizes pretty female members of his audience into participating in elaborate gags. (Sword swallowing, being punch pressed, chain sawed in half, etc.) They seem to be fine after the performances, but hours later, they suffer horrible and fatal wounds. Inquiring journalist Jack (Wayne Ratay) and his TV host girlfriend Sherry (Judy Cler) decide to investigate the illusionist."The Wizard of Gore" has got to be one of HGLs' all time grisliest exercises in sadism. He really seems to take a perverse delight in having Montag run his hands through the pulpy innards of his volunteers. The gore is pretty tacky, but there's just so damn much of it that it's sure to amuse lovers of cinematic violence. As for the movie itself, there's not really that much going on, but at least HGL and his screenwriter, Allen Kahn, prevent this from being purely ordinary shenanigans by injecting a healthy dose of strangeness and surrealism. They definitely push the whole "what is reality and what is illusion" idea, which is brought home by the denouement.The main drawing card is Sager, who exhibits a welcome theatricality. Judging by his work here, he could have easily had more leading roles, even if only in HGL movies. The rest of the acting is no more than passable, but it doesn't leave one rolling their eyes quite as much as the acting in some of HGLs' other works.If one wants to see Lewis at his gory best, "Blood Feast" and "Two Thousand Maniacs!" are a safer bet. This one is dragged out much too long.Six out of 10.
Dalbert Pringle
You know, if there ever was such a school as The College of Inept Film-Making, then I'd definitely say that the likes of Herschell Lewis (a real bargain-basement director) would certainly be its star pupil.With the exception of but a few priceless moments of unintentional hilarity, The Wizard of Gore was nothing but pure, cinematic ineptitude on all counts.From its laughably cheap gore, to a cast full of incompetent actors, to its completely throw-away story-line - This bottom-of-the-barrel horror movie (from 1970) was a real test of my patience.Like, Hello?... Was I really supposed to take this sh*t that director Lewis was dishing out to me seriously? Was I!?... 'Cause, believe me, with The Wizard of Gore, Lewis came across to me as being such a total buffoon-of-a-director that he made the likes of that bungling film-maker, Ed Wood, appear to be an absolute genius by comparison.
Leofwine_draca
My third H. G. Lewis watch, following on from COLOR ME BLOOD RED and 2000 MANIACS. THE WIZARD OF GORE is easily the worst out of the three, a simply awful, interminable Z-grade movie that features non-existent plotting and a wearying running time. The "plot", although you can't really justify it as such, involves a sinister magician who carries out a series of gruesome illusion murders on women, only for them to die the same way the same night.In reality this is just an excuse for a series of laboured gore effects in which graphic violence is meted out to distressed women. Thankfully the special effects are so poor that this isn't as sleazy or misogynistic as it sounds. Eyes are pulled from papier mache heads, hands are thrust through bright-red guts and swords are thrust down bleeding throats. In order to wring every drop of blood from the premise, Lewis disposes of continuity completely and repeats the same effects over and over, from different angles.Aside from the gore, next to no effort has been made on the script and it really shows; between the effects shots, this is as deathly boring as they come. The actors have been evidently recruited from a local theatre troupe and there's no creativity present in any of the long-winded dialogue scenes. In its own way, THE WIZARD OF GORE is just as tiresome as the many Hollywood blockbusters which rely on CGI effects and CGI effects alone.
VyleKyle
The third H.G. Lewis movie I've seen is the splatter on the cake. I'm a big fan of "Blood Feast", "2000 Maniacs", and "The Wizard Of Gore", and, watching them in their chronological order, the discerning splatter freak might notice that, with each one, Lewis was becoming better and better at what he was doing. Of course, "The Wizard" is still schlocky with some of the cheapest gore and fakest body parts you're likely to see, but there's an elevated sense of "it is what it is" and this movie is like a gruesome sideshow at some demented carnival, with even the flaws amping up its charm to practically amiable levels. Also, Montag (portrayed with a sense of unhinged, sinister fun by the freakin' awesome Ray Sager) is one of my favorite splatter villains, period. His rambling monologue about what we perceive as real or unreal is not only priceless hamminess that I would put right next to some of Vincent Price's best moments, but it's something I actually truly relate to as well. He is your not-so-humble huckster guide through this tour of depravity he revels in, until the end when things get so bizarre, out of control, and insane that even he is at the mercy of the cosmic (and comic) existentialism he espouses with sadistic glee. While the FX are typically not close to top notch, this movie has so much quirky heart and black soul that I cannot help but rate this as one of the truly greatest films of all time, and it comes with my absolute highest level of recommendation.
