Meet today's most excellent mad scientist. He's calling himself a wizard, he's played by Crispin Glover (yes!) and he specializes in wowing audiences of young hipsters with his gore-soaked sideshow. In his act, the Wizard makes it appear that he's eviscerated lovely volunteers from the crowd, though in the end they seem unharmed. Or are they? After all, they show up eviscerated later, with huge doses of a weird drug in their systems. Yes, my friends, it's the remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis' classic 1970 exploitation flick Wizard of Gore, out this week on DVD. And holy crap it looks good. Check out the trailer, below, and find out more about this demented horror movie classic.
There comes a moment in every teenage horror nerd's life when she discovers the work of Herschell Gordon Lewis, and spends several consecutive weekends watching freaky shit like 2,000 Maniacs, Wizard of Gore, The Gore Gore Girls, and many other amazing freakouts featuring vaguely subversive plots and lots of animal entrails. At least, there came that moment in my life of horror nerd-dom, and maybe that's why I'm so excited about this remake of the Lewis gorefest featuring nubile ladies and sheep guts. I think what appeals most is that this is one of those rare remakes that does justice to the original by updating it both in terms of plot but also production values. This new Wizard of Gore is just as much a Z-grade movie as the original, and just as much pure brilliance shines through as a result. After all, indie, low-budget productions get wild in ways that Hollywood blockbusters, with their massive staffs and bottom-line values, never can. Honestly, if ever there was a man worthy to inherit Herschell Gordon Lewis' mantle, it's Crispin Glover. DVDs This Week [Quiet Earth] Interview with the director of Wizard of Gore [Esplatter]