Culture

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis, Starring: Ray Sager, Judy Cler, Wayne Ratay.

I first came across The Wizard of Gore when it was mentioned in the movie Juno and I decided I needed to know more. Could this be the goriest movie ever? I intended to find out. The premise is pretty straightforward; magician Montag the Magnificent runs a magic show with a bit of a difference. His specialty is mutilation, or what would appear to be mutilation. Like in any magic show, a lovely volunteer is selected from the audience to come and partake in an “illusion”, but Montag’s girls are not volunteers; he hypnotises them and then in a trance-like state they offer themselves up to the magician.
 
Throughout the course of the movie Montag’s selection of girls are chain-sawed in half, stabbed with a punch press, hammered in the head with a metal spike and have their throats sliced and diced in a double sword swallowing act. In the middle of the butchery Montag forages through the blood, entrails and brains, revelling in his handywork. Then with a wave of his hands all order is restored, the volunteer toddles on back to the audience, everyone claps and the girl is sent on her merry way.
 
A fun night out for all, until after the show when the volunteers suffer horrific injuries, exactly the same as those inflicted on them during the show. How mysterious. Local TV talkshow host Sherry and her boyfriend Jack attempt to get to the bottom of the killings. Sherry thinks it’ll be a top idea to get Montag on her show to do some tricks for her television audience. But how will she cope when Montag tries to hypnotise her entire viewing audience into killing themselves? Realism isn’t a strong point of this film; even though real sheep’s guts are used for the “action” sequences, it is quite clear they are coming out of a mannequin and not a person. But if you can suspend your disbelief then you’ll cope with that. You probably won’t cope with the terrible script/plot/acting but it’s all worth it for the “twist” ending. Jokes; the ending is shit and confusing.