Search - The Wizard of Gore on DVD

Chad B. (abrnt1) from CABERY, IL
Reviewed on 4/13/2011...

A remake of the HG Lewis classic that fails badly. This movie had potential, but wastes it. Kip Pardue is the worst actor around. Every time he's onscreen the film drags along.

1 of 1 member(s) found this review helpful.

I hope you enjoy

M. Gillman | Los Angeles, CA | 08/16/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Hi! I'm Maxx Gillman. I actually got to work on this movie. I'm friends with the director, Jeremy Kasten, and committed endless hours to help make this movie (and DVD) as good as I could. It became my (and Jeremy's) passion project.



This unrated cut basically is the "director's cut". Sure it has a bunch of blood and effects that were always meant to be in there...but there's other stuff too. A bunch of the music is different (we actually got original music from Black Heart Procession! and Danny Lohner! And Stanton LaVey! and Eric Powell of 16 Volt! You have no idea how giddy I was as these pieces started coming together). And there's little editing things too. Crispin, Brad and Jeffrey all seem a little bit more evil...or a little bit crazier...something. They're just more fun in this cut.



But enough about the movie. I'm gonna let that speak for itself. I love it.



When the DVD was getting made, I was explaining what i think makes a good DVD. And managed to be given creative control on a bunch of the content. (holy crap!)



There are 8 Deleted Scenes. Good ones. and I remembered on the DVD of Pi, Darren Aronofsky introduced the deleted scenes. I thought about how rad that was and how it was really interesting to understand why a scene didn't make the cut. So I got Jeremy to introduce all the deleted scenes and add some insight to them.



There are 3 Featurettes. I'm sick of DVD extras being like "It was so fun making [say movie name] and working with the other famous people." It's so generic and why bother. So I was really careful while making them to make sure they actually had CONTENT.

-We've got a general "making of" covering everything from casting the actors to production design and costumes (codpiece!) to the spooky haunted elevators (no...really).

-The piece about the effects talks in detail about all the practical and digital effects ranging from an animatronic puppet of Flux Suicide to chopping off Amina Munster's leg to setting fire to a mannequin head in the producer's backyard and using that for a shot. It was low budget and fun and the stuff we managed to get away was awesome.

-The SG piece gets into casting the part of Dell with a bunch of audition footage of SGs trying out for the roll. And also carefully painting all of amina's tattoos onto her fake body. and the blood wrestling. oh the blood wrestling.



I researched the commentary by running off and watching what i heard were some of the better commentaries out there (UHF, Fight Club, Goonies, Seven Samurai, Orgazmo. the list goes on and on) I took notes of what I liked and didn't like and i got to invite the people who really made this movie awesome and had war stories to add to the commentary. No, none of the actors are in it. I think their work shows itself excellently in the movie. But we've got the writer, director, DP, producer and...me. I gave a everyone a speech about how not to say "oh! I like this scene. let's watch it." because i HATE when commentaries do that. We just opened the whiskey and let the stories fly. I hope you enjoy it.



I've just realized how much I've written so i'm gonna stop now. Let me close by saying that I'm not making a dime if you buy this DVD. But there is a lot of my blood and sweat in it. This DVD is made because it's what I want to see in a DVD. And the movie is made by people who really cared and really enjoyed it. And I hope you enjoy it too."

Bloody heads above recent horror re-makes

B. DRIPPS | Pittsburgh, Pa USA | 08/15/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Just caught a screener of this one today, and wow - i was really floored - It's a thoughtful (and surprisingly less explicit!) remake of H.G. Lewis's campy existentialist horror trash-flick clas-sick from 1970 which really delivers... Crispin Glover was great as Montag, the infamous Wizard of Gore, and the story really takes some neat twists the likes of which were only hinted at in the original. Not a perfect horror movie, but compared to the rest of the ones i've seen lately, it was pretty neat. The special effects were well done, and the acting was pretty damn good - especially the un-recognizable and over the top turn by Jeffrey Combs. (See if you can spot him - i had to wait for the end credits.) i liked this movie a lot more than i was expecting to, and i'd highly recommend it to any horror afficianado as both an unexpected surprising thought-provoker, and a remake which actually improves upon the original."

Not much has changed

Sir Jub-Jub | Sir Jub-Jub's Lair, Alaska | 08/21/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The best that can be said about this new version of "The Wizard of Gore" is that it has a bigger budget than the original. This allowed for better looking sets and the ability to hire actual actors. Unfortunately, the overall telling of the story is out of whack. For starters, I am unclear as to why the main character seems to be stuck in the 1930s. Everyone around him is modern, yet he and his immediate surroundings are of the 1930s. The film tries to play off on this, attempting a noirish cinematic style but it is jarring rather than artistic. I kept focusing on all the antique oddities in the main character's home rather than the plot of the film. Keep in mind the guy is not stuck in some weird time warp thing or something, so there is no real explanation for this strange 1930 vibe. Once Crispen Glover gets on the scene, the film picks up a little due primarily to his crazed acting style. The gore set pieces are not very impressive as they are usually CGI obscured, (he puts his intended victims behind a fog covered screen) so as to not really be worth much. As the story progresses it becomes less coherent and eventually just turns into a whole lot of nothing. The film boasts an appearance of the "Suicide Girls" and they spend most of their limited screen time without clothing, so that's another positive I guess. The DVD contains a few making of supplements, a directors commentary track, deleted scenes and outtakes. Most of the supplements are better than the actual film. The director obviously had a good time making the film and hanging out with the suicide girls. One thing I did note is that the DVD master appears to be too dark so you might have to make adjustments to your screen. This film is a rental at best although you could probably find something a lot better."