What a waste of my time!!!

Sorry, this movie sucks

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Hammy magician "Montag the Magnificent" speechifies, then brutally kills and mutilates women on stage. The women magically recover but are later found dead bearing the same wounds as they did during the act. Magic, hypnotism, or copy-cat serial killer? The plot, such as it is, is simply a set up for gore-auteur Herschell Gordon Lewis to stage graphic splatter scenes using animal cadavers for the close-ups. The scenes where Montag rummages around entrails as though he's looking for pearls are more silly than shocking. Some of the sword swallowing scenes are cleverly done, but beyond that, this film doesn't have much to offer beyond a check mark in gore-fans' life lists. If you are looking to introduce yourself to HGL's canon of bloody schlock, watch "Two Thousand Maniacs!" instead.

Although I have read countless accolades for many of the gore films of Hershell Gordon Lewis, I found the "gore" in this film to be incredibly stupid. Sure, there was a lot of fake blood--but the gore?! It often consisted of obviously fake mannequin heads and cow guts that just looked nothing like people guts. Perhaps in 1970 people thought this was realistic, but today with improved technology and an increase in the level of gore in films, this and other gore films of Lewis just seem dumb (despite their receiving a plug in the recent film, JUNO). This isn't to say every one of his films was bad...just all but 2 or perhaps 3. 'Genius' is a word way too casually used for Hershell Gordon Lewis. I prefer to use words like 'schlock-meister' or 'wizard of crap'.In this film, a stage magician specializes in gory tricks. He saws women in half or drives spikes in their heads--and yet they are just fine after the trick is complete. Oddly, hours later, they collapse--dead with injuries sustained from the tricks--as the injuries re-appear. The problem for me is that the guts are just stupid looking and the guy starring as the magician (Ray Sager) is a truly awful actor. Sager yells his lines and annunciates in a strange manner--and sports hair that looks like it was colored white using White-Out! This act comes to the attention of a local TV personality and her reporter boyfriend. She wants to book the magician on her show and later he wants to investigate him because all of his stage volunteers keep coming up dead hours later. It all culminates in a TV appearance where he tries to use his evil psychic powers on everyone in the studio AND at home! And, when it ends, the movie actually isn't quite complete. There are lots of mistakes made due to the little-known fact that Lewis is a lemur--this would explain the sloppy direction. Here are a few examples: the woman who collapses dead at a restaurant is still clearly breathing, the newspaper that you see at the 43 minute mark looks nothing like a real paper (the font and style are all wrong) and you can see the different cut and pasted portions peeling off if you pay attention.There is a tiny germ of a good story here but because the entire production is so sloppy and stupid, I can't recommend it to anyone except bad movie fans or those who actually believe that Lewis could direct. I could also see that many see this movie just as misogynistic as it's a film showing contempt for women as you see them hacked to pieces. But, considering how bad and stupid and poorly acted it all is, most who MIGHT be offended might just instead see the whole thing as a waste of time as opposed to something patently offensive.

Wizard of Gore, The (1970) * (out of 4) A news personality gets drawn to a magic show where Montag The Magnificent act out various forms of torture. The magician will make it appear that he is brutally slaughtering women on the stage but the women eventually walk off but hours later they are found really slaughtered. The newswoman's boyfriend starts to get suspicious so he starts to investigate. Clocking in at a torturous 96-minutes, this here is clearly the worst of Lewis' gore films. I normally enjoy all of his gore films but this one here was just torture to sit through and I found it deadly boring before the first murder had even taken place. Most of his gore films have very little plot but at least they have something in them. This film has absolutely nothing and it's no wonder this thing sat on a shelf for nearly two years before finally getting released. The first murder sequence is downright boring and sadly they don't get any better but in fact they continue to get worse. The explanation behind what the magician is doing and how he's doing it is just downright stupid and you can't help but roll your eyes throughout the film. Even worse are the gore effects, which have to be the worst of the director's career because of how fake they look. Countless times you see the women breathing even though they're suppose to be dead and there's one scene where the knife being used starts leaking blood before the actual murder. This movie is a complete disaster from start to finish and all the blame must go towards the director. Each scene is done is such a slow, drown out pace that I was just sitting there wondering what the heck Lewis was thinking by doing this. I'm certainly not trying to suggest that his other movies were masterpieces of cinema but at least they were entertaining. This one here just worthless.

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.