The Worst Film Ever

So much average

A different way of telling a story

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

When I ordered this movie from Amazon it was with some anticipation as it has Jeffrey Combs, Crispin Glover and Brad Dourif on the cast list. And the DVD cover brandished 'a new version of the horror classic' and 'one of the year's most anticipated releases'. Yeah, well, lets just say that I was sorely disappointed.Well, with a result as abysmal as this movie was, I don't even want to delve into the original 1970 version.The story in this movie didn't appeal to me in any way, as it was too forced and didn't ever manage to capture my interest. And truth be told, I even dozed off for about ten minutes. The entire movie was just trying to be a bit too much extraordinary for my liking.What kept this movie semi-afloat was aforementioned actors; Jeffrey Combs, Crispin Glover and Brad Dourif. But they could only do so much in order to salvage this train-wreck of a movie given the limitations of the screenplay and the directorial hand of Jeremy Kasten. Oh, well and the gore in the movie was good as well, and that counts for something, if you enjoy that kind of macabre entertainment.I am sure that there is an audience for this movie, I just wasn't part of that audience, that much is for sure.

Remake of the 1970 Herschel Gordon Lewis Film follows an underground reporter named Edmund Bigelow (Pardue) to a master illusionist known as Montag The Magnificent (Glover). Montag picks a person from the crowd and butchers them on stage in one form or another. Once the audience is gasping in terror and fright he brings the victim out alive to face the shocked crowd. Problem is the stage victim is turning up dead for real with the wounds inflected on stage. This movie moves into psychedelic areas where it all may be happening in the crazy mind of the main character Bigelow. What it really is, is an excuse for tons of bloody gore and bizarre hallucinogenic moments that may or may not make sense. This could be entertaining to the right Horror film fan but it failed to scare me at all. Crispin Glover has some inspired crazy moments as Montag and Brad Dourif finally got a small role that had some meat on it for him. Well made by Jeremy Kasten, but the movie just doesn't seem to have a point and in the end is just a bloody head scratcher that leaves you feeling filthy when it's over.

I find horror remakes absolutely fascinating; and it's usually the case that when it comes to the splatter fest horrors, the remakes are usually just a lot more blood, that looks less like ketchup. The Wizard of Gore, I thought focused more on the story and less on the gore. In a way, as a film by itself, it was fairly interesting. But when you call a film 'Wizard of Gore' and don't have a lot of gore in there, its kind of a let down. I find it hard to comment on my 'liking' of this film, but I found almost every aspect of it absolutely interesting. It created a vibe for itself, that I appreciated. The acting, especially that of Kip Pardue and Cripsin Glover was excellent. As the leads, they both capture the audience's attentions and don't let it waver for a second. As the wizard says in the film, 'The trick is me'. Filled with substance and captivating technique, 'Wizard of Gore' is worth a watch for fans of horror or psychological thrillers. It had a few loop holes, but the feel it creates and the aftertaste it leaves you with, make it an exciting ride.

The idea of remaking the classic 1970 Herschell Gordon Lewis movie "The Wizard of Gore" did have potential. But in its actual execution, this remake fails in just about every way you can think of. True, Crispin Glover does add a little life into his scenes, and the movie does boast some okay gore sequences. Other than those things, I can't think of anything positive to say about the movie. It's terribly shot, looking like it was photographed with a camcorder and with extremely bad lighting. (And just about every shot of the movie has the camera at an odd tilt.) The lead character is annoying and unsympathetic. And the story moves at a crawl, and often doesn't make that much sense. The movie is so bad at times that one could almost swear that the filmmakers were trying to do as bad a job as possible. Like when it comes to most remakes, stick with the original.