Montag the Magnificent (Ray Sager) is a stage magician who specializes in gory optical illusion effects. In his act his chops off his own head. He then performs some small regular illusions. The ending of his act culminates in a trick involving a female volunteer from the audience. At one performance he saws a woman in half. As an updated version of the trick, he uses a chainsaw out in the open. During the trick the volunteer’s guts are splattered all over the place. At the end of the trick the woman is fine and steps down from the stage whole. Everyone in the audience applauds. Later the woman goes to a restaurant and is found dead and mutilated just like she had been on stage.
In the audience are Sherry Carson (Judy Cler) and her boyfriend Jack (Wayne Ratay). After the show they learn about the woman who had been in the performance now being dead. They think it is either a coincidence or someone in the audience copied the trick in real life. Sherry visits Montag and tries to convince him to be on her show. He tells her to come back and see the show again that night. He says he will perform a difference trick and if she still wants him on her show, they will discuss it.
That night Sherry and Jack are once again in the audience. This time Montag runs a spike through a woman’s head. Later the audience participant is found dead with the same injuries that were done in the stage illusion. Now Jack suspects that Montag had something to do with the women dying of the same injuries shown in the magician’s allusions. Jack convinces police detectives, Kramer (Don Alexander) and Harlan (John Elliot) that something is wrong. Every time Montag does a new illusion, the volunteer, which is always a woman, ends up dead the same way. In addition, the bodies of the victims end up missing. More women become victims based on Montag’s illusions.
Montag agrees to appear on Sherry's show. This illusion, so he says, will be a very special one.
“The Wizard of Gore” was released in 1970 and was directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It is a low budget horror movie and a splatter film. The film was remade in 2007, this time with Crispin Glover as Montag the Magnificent.
If you have a really low gag reflex, you may want to be careful. As far as special effects are concerned, most of it is just a pile of sheep guts that Sager rummages through with his hands. The carcasses had to last a couple weeks, so they were soaked in Pine-Sol. The chainsaw effect was done using two women, one as the top section and one as the lower body section. A fake midsection was filled with sheep guts, mortician’s wax and condoms filled with fake blood. I suspect the punch press illusion was performed similarly.
Ray Sager, Montag the Magnificent, is probably one of the worst actors I’ve ever seen. He makes Criswell look like a Shakespearian actor. As a matter of fact, all of the acting is bad. There’s a lot of crap going on here, but there was also a mystery involved that kept me watching. I ended up being somewhat disappointed. There are a lot of unanswered questions in the movie, most of them are brought up by Sherry, but they are still never answered. I had hoped that the ending would clear things up, but no, it was just more crap, and a lot of sheep guts.