The Wizard of Gore
Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Written by Allen Kahn
1970/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They?
Montag the Magnificent: How do you know that at this second you aren’t sleeping in your beds dreaming that you are here sitting in this theater?
Goriest by far of the films I have seen by the Godfather of Gore.
Montag the Magnificent (Ray Sager) is a magician/hypnotist who takes the “saw young woman in half” act to outrageous extremes. He hypnotizes the audience to witnessing a magic trick ending with an intact victim. We see that and him physically sawing, etc his victim then pulling the innards out and running his fingers through them. The women are later found murdered in various locations
His act draws the attention of a local TV anchorwoman and her boyfriend who start some investigative journalism.
The movie ends with the boyfriend doing a kind of plot synopsis and concluding that none of it made any sense. He certainly got that right. I keep watching these things because previously in Lewis’s films the gore is over the top but so obviously fake (bright red paint subbing for blood) that one could handle it and even laugh at it. This one made me turn away from the screen in disgust. I think this ends my exploration of Mr. Lewis’s filmography.
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