THE WIZARD OF GORE/THE GORE GORE GIRLS

Something Weird and Image Entertainment are back with another dose of classic Herschell Gordon Lewis films on blu-ray. Sentences like that one still fill me with delighted disbelief: wow.

Serving as a perfect companion piece to their BLOOD TRILOGY disc (which incorporated BLOOD FEAST, 2000 MANIACS and COLOR ME BLOOD RED), here we get two even grislier entries from the early 1970s.

First up is THE WIZARD OF GORE.

Stage magician Montag the Magnificent (Ray Sager) addresses a surprisingly small audience, challenging their perception of reality. "How do you know," he asks, "that at this second you’re not asleep in your beds dreaming that you are here in this theatre?".

As if to prove his point (although I’m not quite sure how), he then places his neck on a guillotine and performs an old magic standard – only this time, Montag’s head is sliced clean off and falls into a basket as blood gushes from his exposed arteries.

Relax, it’s just an illusion. And Montag has more up his sleeve, as he accepts a female volunteer (Karin Alexana) onto the stage for assistance with his next trick: sawing a lady in half. Not one to do things by halves (no pun intended …), Montag uses a chain saw for the task in hand – and tears the woman’s stomach wide open.

Again, the woman is seen moments later to be perfectly well, and the audience leave baffled as to how Montag achieves such slight of hand.

However, later that evening, couples dining in a nearby bar are horrified to witness the aforementioned woman fall from her chair, her intestines spilling out of her open stomach and onto the floor.

In the meantime, Montag continues with his curious shows. By this time they have attracted the attention of the comely Sherry (Judy Cler) and her reporter boyfriend Jack (Wayne Ratnay). Despite Jack’s reticence, he attends the shows because Sherry has become infatuated with them. Spikes hammered into skulls, punch-presses forced through abdomens, sword-swallowing of a particularly gory variety … what’s for her not to like?

A pattern emerges as each female volunteer from the audience leaves the show alive and well, only to be found hours later, dead from the wounds Montag ‘inflicted’ onto them on stage.

Finding himself up against the usual indifference from the local cops, Wayne takes it upon himself to investigate the matter …

Gory and goofy in equal measures, THE WIZARD OF GORE saw Lewis herald in the 1970s with even more grue than he offered in his 60s films. The FX work is unconvincing but definitely lurid, with overly red blood and butcher’s meat for guts which lend a satisfying theatricality to the action.

The ropy gore, along with Sager’s hilariously inept performance (like Harry Reems in fake pensioner make-up), ensure the stage set-pieces are consistently entertaining. The bits in-between, the so-called detective drama that unfolds, are comparatively slow and flat. Consequently the film has an uneven pace and schizophrenic tone which stop it from being as endearing as BLOOD FEAST.

Still, the cheap stage sets and macabre humour make it all worthwhile, as do the surreal red-hued scenes of Montag dragging victims to their coffins and a twist ending that has to be seen to be disbelieved.

Proof positive that horror films really shouldn’t be remade, no matter how primitive the originals may seem, Lewis’ WIZARD remains infinitely more charming and memorable than Jeremy Kasten’s ‘better made’ 2007 remake.

THE GORE GORE GIRLS opens to the striking image of a pretty girl in a bra, preening herself in front of a mirror. Within seconds, a black-gloved killer has appeared behind her, grabbing her by the hair and smashing her face repeatedly into the glass. That has to hurt.

The murders continue, the most inspired moment coming during the next slaughter scene, when a bubblegum-blowing cutie’s bubble is filled with blood following a hammer blow to the back of her head.

A local newspaper soon cottons on to the fact that the murder victims are all go-go dancers at the same local strippers’ club. They swiftly assign their top journalist Abraham (Frank Kress) to the story and, with the help of his rather dim girlfriend Nancy (Amy Farrell), he sets about trying to unveil the killer’s identity. In-between flirting with scantily clad female dancers, of course.

But … who is the murderer? The shady nightclub boss (Henry Youngman)? The feminist group who oppose the club’s existence? Or someone completely different?

THE GORE GORE GIRLS has a sadistic streak to its violence that is at loggerheads with the gore in other Lewis films. The minor nudity peppered throughout (topless go-go dancers) adds a slightly sleazy quality to the overall tone, marking this as an odd footnote to Lewis’ 1970s gore output (there followed a hiatus in the man’s directorial profile not broken until the 21st Century, with BLOOD FEAST 2: ALL U CAN EAT).

Still, any unsavoury flavour is successfully diluted by Lewis’ trademark humour – read: terrible, but strangely endearing – and the film’s lack of technical merit. Direction is static and pedestrian, the jazzy score is irritating and ill-fitting, FX are predictably crap and the cast deliver their hammy dialogue with all the expertise of porn stars.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even matter that the story is, in essence, rather boring or that the film feels about 15 minutes too long. Because the atrocious acting is funnier than Lewis’ gags, that grating jazz score starts to work on some subliminal level and the not-so-special effects contribute towards some unforgettable set-piece scenes of excitable ultra-violence (a face mashed to pieces by a cleaver; death by dousing in boiling deep-fat fryer grease; most infamously, the scissor-slicing of nipples – one spurting blood and milk, the other spurting … chocolate?!).

Both films are presented in 1080p HD transfers on this 50GB blu-ray disc.

While the two transfers are both scratchy at times, WIZARD is definitely the cleaner of the two. In fact, it looks very healthy for the most part. There’s some damage and vertical lines evident in a couple of later scenes, but by and large it’s fared well over the last four decades. GIRLS, presented here under its alternative title of BLOOD ORGY, is scratchier and grainier to begin with, but still looks good in terms of detail and vivid colours. In fact, that soon cleans up considerably too – and at times, such as during the aforementioned cleaver attack, the clarity is revelatory. With very little problems in the way of DNR or compression, both films come off very well here and make for significant upgrades over their DVD counterparts.

It’s worth noting that each film is presented in anamorphic 1.78:1, as opposed to the open matte full-frame presentations we’ve been used to in the past. This was the case with the films on the BLOOD TRILOGY blu-ray too, and is apparently the way Lewis intended the films to be shown at drive-in theatres. It doesn’t stop GIRLS looking severely cropped at times. Then again, Lewis’ films are so badly shot that it’s hard to tell where the fault of any poor framing may lie.

Both films come with English mono audio tracks, offering clean and consistent playback throughout.

A static split-screen main menu page gives access to chapter menus (12 chapters per film) and an extras page covering both films.

Extras begin with audio commentaries for the films. On both, Lewis is moderated by Something Weird’s Mike Vraney. Jimmy Maslin is also present for the GIRLS track. Lewis is amazingly fluent and well-served by memory throughout, as well as being extremely witty and self-effacing. His attention to detail and respect for all those who worked with him are admirable (though he stretches it by calling Sager a "good actor"). These tracks are filled with interesting, relevant facts, as well as throwaway quips such as "this … movie, I guess you’d call it" (THE GORE GORE GIRLS) and as a consequence are excellent listens – we even learn at one point how to combat the stench of having a dead body in your car. Of course, anyone who’s owned the US DVDs of these films will no doubt know this already.

A generous gallery of exploitation art related to Lewis’ career follows.

Finally, we get trailers for several films: BLOOD FEAST, 2000 MANIACS, COLOR ME BLOOD RED, THE GODFATHER OF GORE, THE ALLEY TRAMP, GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BARES, THE GRUESOME TWOSOME, SHE-DEVILS ON WHEELS, SOMETHING WEIRD and THE WIZARD OF GORE.

Unfortunately, the disc is region A encoded. Unlike BLOOD TRILOGY and Something Weird/Image’s other phenomenal blu-ray release BASKET CASE, the region coding CANNOT be overruled by pressing your remote control’s ‘Top Menu’ button. At least, not on the two Panasonic blu-ray players I checked it on.

Still, the disc is dirt cheap and so are multi-region players if you strike at the right time.

I’ve never seen these films look anywhere near as good as this, and I doubt they’ll ever look better. Recommended.

Review by Stuart Willis