This is one movie that doesn’t hold back any red stuff or screw around with distractions. It’s just one sadistic magician fucking girls up beyond belief and other people trying to figure out how he does it. In the first scene, Montag (played by a chilling, heavily-made-up Ray Sager. He’s still working today as a producer, even producing all three lame-ass Prom Night sequels.) cuts off his own head ala Alice Cooper and saws a hot redhead in half with an chainsaw, all while delivering a raving monologue about the complex nature of reality. Ladies and gentlemen, opening scenes wish they could grow up like this one. In fact, in the excellent book “A Taste of Blood”, author Christopher Wayne Curry claims the chainsaw murder was the first of its kind in movie history. Montag fucks her up good, but like magic, the girl gets up in perfect condition and returns to her seat without so much as a drop of blood lost. The show appears to be over, but long after leaving the show, the girl falls to pieces in a bar.

Montag’s badass routine catches the attention of Sherry Carson, a TV talk show host who wants Montag to come on her show and explain his tricks. Montag refuses an interview at first, instead agreeing to perform a trick on her show. Meanwhile, at Montag’s second show, he straps a hot blonde to an inverted table, pounds a metal spike into her temple and proceeds to rip her brains and eyes out, all in classic Lewis style. Then, like before, he puts her back together and she appears fine. But later we find out that she too fell to pieces hours later. Sherry’s reporter fiancé, Jack, first assumes that Montag’s vicious routine is inciting a copycat killer to perform his tricks for real.

The third killing in this mince-and-repeat cycle is the most awesome one yet. Montag straps a blond to a punch press and grinds her thorax to a fine frappe. Gore scenes don’t get anymore awesome than this one. Later, of course, the poor girl’s dude finds her in bed with her insides on the outside. The next night, Montag ties up two women and puts an excellent and gruesome twist on the old sword swallowing trick. Like the others, it doesn’t disappoint. It’s clear that Lewis knew just what people wanted to see and he delivers in a major way. Dare I say that it set the bar when it was made in 1968 and released two years later? But beyond the sheer joy of human destruction, the feel of the Montag scenes stand out as completely unique to the Lewis cannon. They’re gritty, sadistic and brutal, and at times, stop being goofy and fun and start being truly scary by blurring the line between performance and reality. Of course, it’s just a movie. But sometimes movies, like The Devil’s Rejects or Last House on the Left, find a way to stop being just movies. At times, The Wizard of Gore crosses that line. But before you can start taking it too seriously, Lewis brings us back from the edge with some inane dialogue or a cut to a bad model.

After the two girls are killed with swords, the authorities get involved by following them after the show to see if anyone attacks them. Predictably, the bodies are found mutilated, but nobody appears to be responsible. Eventually, Jack figures out what’s going on, but not before Montag, appearing on Sherry’s TV show, hypnotizes everyone watching and prepares to lead them all like rats into a roaring fire. Before he can do so, our intrepid hero pushes him into the fire in an exceedingly goofy climax. Montag the Magnificent chars to a cinder, and our heroes wrap up the story Scooby Doo style before … duh duh duh, a sublime twist allows Montag to return for one unbelievably awesome ending that leaves you completely baffled as to just what the hell was supposed to be going on for the last 90 minutes. Crab People endings don’t get any sweeter. It cries for a sequel, but sadly, one never came to be.

If I was ever looking for a movie to reignite my love of cinema, I was just disemboweled by it. The Wizard of Gore is definitely some of Lewis’ finest work, though not quite as bloody as Blood Feast and not quite as goofy as Gore Gore Girls. It perfectly straddles the line between horror and hilarity. It’s an absolute must-see for fans of the genre, and it cannot be recommended enough. By the way, has anybody heard anything about a remake of this movie? I read somewhere that it was supposed to be finished sometime last year and will be out this year. According to IMDB, it’s directed by the guy that did The Attic Expeditions and has Jeffrey Combs, Brad Dourif and stars Cripin Glover as Montag the Magnificent! You know I hate remakes with full fervor, and as far as I can tell, Lewis didn’t have anything to do with this one, but is it wrong for me to be intrigued by this? In capable hands, this could rock hard, though probably not as awesome as the first. It’s just too bad that Lewis didn’t return to helm this one, the way he did the Blood Feast sequel. Oh well, you can’t have everything.