Cheap Lord of Illusions (DVD) (Kevin J. O'Connor, Scott Bakula) (Clive Barker) Price

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Customer Reviews of Lord of Illusions

Underrated noir thriller/horror
Based on his short story 'The Last Illusion' and blending hard-boiled detective action with a supernatural thriller, Clive Barker serves up an interesting allegory on the nature of magic versus illusion, and ultimately, good versus evil. The film is a hybrid of sorts between a noir thriller and straight up horror. And it was this blend that doomed the film at the box office. United Artists simply did not know how to market Lord of Illusions. However, it has slowly built up a decent cult following. With the B-Movie performances, graphic horror and a totally sinister villian in the form of a cult leader named Nix (Daniel von Bargen), it's not difficult to understand why. Thankfully, Illusions has been given a director's preferred cut release on a great looking DVD, where people can finally see this underrated genre film.

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"I was born to murder the world..."
Based on his short story "The Last Illusion", Clive Barker helmed this adaption entitled Lord of Illusions, and offers up a good amount of shocks, scares, gore, and a near excellent plot; a combination that made one of Barker's previous films, the original and classic Hellraiser, such a great horror film. Scott Bakula (TV's Quantum Leap, now he's famous for TV's Enterprise) stars as private detective Harry D'amour, and he gets involved with a bizarre case involving a magician (Kevin J. O'Connor) who years before had killed prophet and mentor Nix (played to perfection by Daniel Von Bargen). However, Nix has seemingly been resurrected, and he and his followers have plans on the destruction of the world. Just about everything about Lord of Illusions is great: the visual effects and Barker's direction and storytelling are great, but there are some plot holes and now and then some crummy acting (courtesy of the beautiful Famke Janssen), but for the most part Lord of Illusions is a great horror film from one of the great masters of horror. The film has gained quite a cult following over the years, and MGM realized this and packed the DVD with some great extras including a commentary by Barker, an isolated music score (most of the music is absolutely creepy and sets a perfect tone), and some never before seen scenes as well.

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Disjointed and senseless
OK. "I was born to murder the world."

Why? Are we expected to simply accept that statement? Of course it comes at the very end of the movie, so we're left wondering just who the heck this Nix character is, and what his nature is through the entire film. The problem is, if that was supposed to create dramatic tension, it didn't.

Ambitious? Sure. Did it succeed? No. There was unquestionably a story here, but telling the story mainly through the eyes of a private detective wasn't the right way to go about it. This is a problem, sometimes, with writers. They find a story, but then can't find the vessel. I think that's what happened here.