The Wizard of Gore – Director’s Cut (2008)
Review by Dana R. Davidson
As with most remakes, I expected very little going into The Wizard of Gore. Hello, Texas Chain Saw Massacre remake, terrible in my opinion, a travesty. To my happy surprise Jeremy Kasten’s version of Wizard had me at hello.
As with anything in life, say, pleasing oneself and others, or say filmmaking, stimulation, a sense of timing to result in a climax, require a commitment to the outcome, foresight, and the artistic vision to see it through. To be effective one must be detail oriented and experienced in the ways of the subject. With The Wizard of Gore Jeremy Kasten has proven that he is, in this case, the subject is filmmaking.
From the opening sequence to the ending titles the technique, heart, artistry, love of both the horror and noir genre, and attention to detail that the director was striving for, fighting for, in this Director’s Cut version was readily apparent. Complete with smart writing, good editing, interesting digital effects, cool set design, camera use, color scheme, costuming, audio, and for the most part, an enjoyable cast. I especially enjoyed Crispin Glover’s off-the-wall, zany performance as Montag the Magnificent. Also worth noting, to my delighted surprise, the Suicide Girls fit well as the brutally murdered victims.
Story. We begin near the end. Downtown Los Angeles. Edmund Bigelow, played by Kip Pardue, is a journalist trust fund baby with bloody hands. He goes to visit Dr. Chong, played by Brad Dourif. Dr. Chong uses leaches to bleed out a toxin. Cut to one week earlier. Ed and his girlfriend Maggie, played by Bijou Phillips, are at a crazy urban party where they meet a crazy bum looking dude, The Geek, played by Jeffrey Combs. The Geek invites them to see a magic show thus propelling them into a new world full of crazy drugs, sex, violence, redemption, empowerment, and secrets. Montag The Magnificent’s magic trick is to brutally kill naked women on stage but not before he monologues about life. One of my favorite lines that Montag delivers is after a kill. He says to his horrified audience, “Did you feel something? Anything?” Brilliant. Pay attention, this is a smart movie.
Do I have any criticisms? Well sadly I have a few, but only a few, which in movie review speak means that this movie is worth owning. In the highly effective opening sequence Edmund Bigelow has a voice over where his line delivery is so dead, dry, it’s a bit distracting, it pulled me out of the movie for a moment, does it ruin the movie, no, and, thankfully his performance gets better. Everything else in the beginning of the movie is immediately catching.
My only other complaint is that the stage kills (there are six) although bloody, gory, and rad start to drag a bit because when you add the repetition of place, monologues from Montag, the discussion from the audience, even though the variation on editing, audience, and kills breaks it up a bit, it can start to feel a bit long. That being said the film making techniques are very effective and visually stimulating.
Is it perfect, no, but what movie is. When even the sex and gore scenes are artistic how can one go wrong? Unless that is, you don’t like movies that are smartly written, require some sort of attention span, that showcase beautiful naked women being savagely murdered in the most gorriffic of ways, while at the same time done in such beauty and taste that you can’t take your eyes off it. If you don’t like things that are cool in the sense that it has style, that is has an open mind, then of course you wouldn’t like this movie.
Bottom line is that Director Jeremy Kasten took creative license in the remaking of this movie, which was at great risk knowing the kind of fan following that the original Wizard of Gore has. That to me shows he has some brass balls, which is a great attribute for a director to have. Not only did he dare to do something different, he pulled it off. If director Jeremy Kasten pays as much attention to detail to his lovers as he does to his movies they must be very satisfied ladies. I look forward to his future projects.
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