THE WIZARD OF GORE

Lewis s-gores again

After a few years making fairly mainstream genre pictures, Herschell Gordon Lewis returned to his first love: blood. This time he brought along a new partner. Though executive producer Fred M. Sandy could never contribute the help and inspiration that the legendary fearless young showman Dave Friedman could provide, at least he knew how to let Lewis do the grue that he do so well. After all, Lewis knew how to put together any kind of movie - he even filmed a couple of kiddie flicks (bad ones). But Blood was in his blood, and he couldn't help but dive back into the carnel house for a couple more pictures.

For his penultimate gore movie, Lewis drew inspiration from a Grand Guignol theater he ran for some time in Chicago's counter-culture Old Town area. In the "Blood Shed", he would show an old horror movie, spicing things up between reels with actors performing gruesome murders on each other on stage.

The film opens with magician Montag the Magnificent (Ray Sager), master of deadly illusions, taking the stage. He looks as hokey as any other stage magician, but he soon displays a great and terrible difference. To demonstrate that difference, Montag cuts off his own head with a guillotine. Helpfully, he reaches around to dump his head out of the basket so we can see it better.

For his next trick, Montag uses a chainsaw to cut a woman volunteer in half. We see shots of the saw slicing into the woman's stomach, with splattering blood and Montag pawing through the gory entrails with glee. However, the audience sees quite a different thing: a more traditional scene of stage magic, and certainly not any blood. After the show is over, the hypnotized woman goes to a nearby restaurant - and promptly falls over dead with her guts ripped out.

The police and media are baffled by this apparent murder, including TV talk show hostess Sherry Carson (Judy Cler), who had been in the audience for Montag's performance. She uses her show to rail against Montag's illusions, and even visits Montag to confront him. Montag sticks with the magician's party line and insists on keeping his techniques a secret.

Later, we see a bizarre and enigmatic scene, washed in red. Montag stands in a cemetery, before a fresh grave. Gesturing, he raises the coffin from the earth. The dead woman rises from the casket, and Montag carries her body to a mysterious building, where he pushes the corpse through a small doorway.

Though a connection to Montag is suspected, there is no evidence against him, and so the show goes on. On ensuing nights, Montag pounds a metal spike through a woman's head, rams a sword down the throats of two others, and even grinds through another's midriff with a punch press. After each performance, the volunteer is found dead bearing the wounds Montag has inflicted.

Working with the police, Sherry invites Montag onto her TV show, in an attempt to trap him. Montag takes advantage of the situation by hypnotizing the viewing audience, marking them with blood for more horror to come.

Wizard of Gore predates Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Bloodsucking Freaks, Halloween 3, Phantasm, and many more, all of which were influenced by Lewis' work. Though the effects are primitive, Lewis has a secret weapon that adds an extra layer of shock to his films: a purposeful lack of artistic pretense. Lewis knew his films were too cheaply made to impress anyone with their slick look or fine performances, but he knew how to make a buck with a carnival sideshow attraction. Leatherface could swing a chainsaw all he wanted, but Lewis let his camera dwell on the repulsive carnage, filling the screen with red for a few seconds longer than is comfortable for anyone.

Lewis himself considers this film a disappointment. He'd planned to climax with a show-stopping effect - tearing apart a man's body on camera (using a stand-in goat carcass, of course), but an electrical mishap started a fire that ruined their location shooting. Without the "money shot," he was forced to rewrite a less satisfying ending. Despite this, the film is satisfyingly weird, the disturbing gore scenes further enhanced by their unexplained supernatural nature. Though Sager is too clumsy to be convincing as a real magician - he had to fill in at the last minute when another actor fled the set - he cuts an imposing figure. And since it's unclear just who or what this tall stranger is supposed to be, who cares if he can't do card tricks?

The print looks surprisingly great, especially considering its age and maintenance - just as almost every other Something Weird transfer does. Mike Vraney and Lewis give another terrific commentrak, with a wealth of information and amusing stories - even without the added presence of Friedman (who is nevertheless present during the recording and is heard laughing in the background).

I wait with whetted appetite - and cutlery - for the rest of Lewis' films to be released on DVD

Gore; gouts of blood; chainsaw fu; head rolls; supernatural hoodoo p-fave Lewis.

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The Movie Madness section and its contents are ©2007 Brian Thomas