The Wizard of Gore

Tartan head towards the last round up with the penultimate release in their delicious Herschell Gordon Lewis Collection in the form of the 1970 grue trash classic 'The Wizard of Gore'. Amazingly (and most welcomingly) 'The Wizard of Gore' has been passed uncut by the British Film Censors making it's UK DVD debut even more of a bloody treat!

The film opens at a performance of the magician Montag the Magnificent where after an overlong droning build up by the great man he brings on stage one handily hypnotised female volunteer whom he swiftly slices open with a chainsaw and delights in fondling her bloody intestines. With one wave of his magical hands her wounds disappear and the young woman steps offstage to great applause by the awe struck audience but all is not what it seems. Later that evening the same young woman sits down in a restaurant only to collapse dead when her stomach opens up again spilling out her guts as though she had never recovered from the sinister magicians deeds!

Watching the show earlier was newspaper sports reporter Jack and his girlfriend daytime TV/exploitation movie reviewer Sherry (well there's a lot of exploitation reviewers on daytime TV these days eh? I wish!) Sherry is fascinated by Montag's bizarre performance and meets up with the strange old man to try lure him onto her TV show for an interview. Montag isn't that keen on doing press but offers Sherry some complimentary tickets for the next evenings show promising more unusual bloody magical delights will be performed. Curious Sherry is very soon hooked and ends up dragging the less than enthusiastic Jack along not only to the next evenings show but every show afterwards as Montag delights in various differing gory magic shows!

'The Wizard of Gore' whilst a gore laden bucket of bloody fun is perhaps a low point in Lewis's genre movie career. The basic scenario for the films plot is a fun one but following the initial set piece it really feels like it doesn't know where it wants to go and inevitably the whole film looks like purely a vehicle for the excellent gory set pieces when Montag uses different imaginative ways to slice up (or mash) up his poor hapless victims in grand guignol style. The death scenes really do hit the mark in gory fun viewing though perhaps even these at times are poorly edited with great cut shots of Montag dwelling on the bloody mayhem mixed with silent shots of the women intact - sure you'll understand why Lewis does this (to make for the effect of the illusion of not really being killed) but it sits uncomfortably with the finger licking grue!

That said, this is after all a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie so you're expectations shouldn't be high. The film is (with the aid of several beers and joints) a mindless slice of low budget gory fun (and dig that funky music too baby!)

The disc from Tartan is a solid enough welcome package also. As I said, the film is presented fully uncut which is a shock on its own considering what the BBFC have frowned upon over the years but let's just be quietly happy about this current leniency with some of our gore movies eh? The film is presented in its original full screen ratio and the print quality is actually rather good considering both the age and source of the original materials.

Also included on the disc is a five minute (!) Theatrical trailer (or should that be Drive-In Trailer) for the film itself which you may want to avoid until you've watched the film itself. There's also extensive text film notes by Billy Chainsaw which make for interesting reading but somewhat bewilderingly (though will be of curious interest to fans of Lewis's work) is the inclusion of Herschell G Lewis 'Copy Class' - this is not (as some will expect) a guide to low budget gore effects but in fact a extended text article on sales techniques by way of use of English!? There's also an all too short stills gallery (four in all!) and the usual selection of Tartan Terror trailers and the H G Lewis Teaser Trailer reel.

Perhaps not the best in this collection but fans of Lewis's work will definitely want to pick this one up (and hey it's uncut!) Switch your brain off and enjoy the splatter mayhem and delightfully bad acting as Montag struts his stuff. Check it out!

Review by Alan Simpson