Lord of Illusions Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Lord of Illusions Blu-ray Movie Review

Trick or treat?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 15, 2014

There’s a certain school of occultism that seeks to differentiate between stage illusionists like David Blaine or David Copperfield (or even Criss Angel, who once riffed on a trick shown in this film) and so-called “real” magicians by spelling that transformative art with a final k— magick, instead of magic. (It’s probably only mere irony that one of the chief proponents of that orthography was Aleister Crowley, whose supposedly divinely delivered Book of the Law states “spelling is defunct,” though in that case the reference is probably to the art of casting spells.) Clive Barker seeks to provide much the same differentiation in Lord of Illusions with an opening text crawl informing viewers that the very difference between lowly “illusionists” and actual magicians is at the core of his story. Barker defends that informative gambit in the commentary attending his Director’s Cut on this new Blu-ray set, even though he admits that his preferred version of the film makes it clearer than the truncated theatrical iteration did anyway. Even with that brief introductory text, there’s an intended amount of confusion in Lord of Illusions’ opening sequence, as Barker throws a bunch of unintroduced characters at each other in a ferocious showdown that is the very definition of joining a story in media res. A nefarious guy named Nix (Daniel von Bargen) has evidently taken a young girl hostage and has some horrifying plan for the lass, though even that is not overtly spelled out. Suddenly a posse of sorts shows up, led by Philip Swann (Kevin J. O’Connor) with the announced intent of rescuing the girl and taking down Swann. And that’s when Lord of Illusions starts to reveal its magical (and/or magickal) bones. Nix performs a spell (evidently not defunct after all) on Swann, making him see his allies as hideous monsters. Fortunately the little girl is not the wilting wallflower she initially appears to be, and with her help and a sort of gruesome faceplate that Swann bolts onto Nix’s head, the threat is apparently negated.

The bulk of Lord of Illusions actually takes place several years after this initial sequence, when a private detective named Harry D’Amour (Scott Bakula) is investigating a seemingly unrelated, and frankly relatively mundane, case involving fraud. D’Amour has his own interest in magic (and/or magick) and when his investigations lead him to a showdown with a perhaps magically powered assailant, things begin to veer away from the fraud case into something decidedly more sinister. D’Amour is warned about the imminent return of someone (or something) called The Puritan, which may in fact presage the Apocalypse.

That warning includes a rather fierce battle which ends in the death of a character named Quaid (Joseph Latimore), but which focuses D’Amour on Swann, who is now living the high life as one of those supposedly derided “mere” stage magicians. Swann is convinced that Nix’s acolytes, who have already been shown to be devoted to him in a kind of quasi-Manson Family sort of way, are behind Quaid’s death. Swann’s attractive wife Dorothea (Famke Janssen) argues that D’Amour should be hired to investigate the connection, but there may be something more “personal” on Dorothea’s mind with regard to the (perhaps appropriately named) D’Amour.

From here Lord of Illusions goes off on a number of interrelated tangents, as Harry becomes embroiled in not just the Quaid murder, but very soon another horrifying death of a major character. It all seems to hinge on the “Nix Family” and an attempt to bring Nix back from the dead, though (as with any good magic trick) there's a fair amount of misdirection going on. The film tends to become increasingly repetitive, with a number of showdowns that cover much the same territory, albeit often with slightly different combatants.

The fact that there’s a private detective working a case that involves a supernatural element may remind some of Angel Heart, a film that preceded Lord of Illusions by almost a decade and which sought to combine a noir ambience with more traditional Gothic horror tropes. While Barker may have had the same ambitions, the noir feeling here is somewhat lackluster, while the Gothic horror elements are typically hyperbolic in a traditionally Barkerian way. Lord of Illusions, at least in its longer director’s cut version, is filled with disturbing imagery of body impalements, vivisections and other bloody, gruesome visions.

Barker’s films often suffer from an excess of ideas and a deficit of cogent storytelling, at least some of which can be attributed to hamhanded edits that various studios imposed on the writer-director. There’s a bit more development and expository information (as well as quite a bit more gore, albeit in sometimes rather short increments) in the director’s cut included on this Blu-ray, but Lord of Illusions still suffers from a rather sloppy narrative that is by turns too obvious and, ironically, too opaque. The film has an undeniably creepy ambience which is only partially undercut by some less than convincing early CGI. Christopher Nolan helped (re)define the three elements of the stage magician’s art in The Prestige, with the titular element being the third and most important part of any successful trick. Ironically, it refers to bringing something back (from a disappearance or some other calamity). Nix may indeed have a bit of a resurrection, but a lot of Lord of Illusions ends up playing as a minor parlor trick.

Lord of Illusions Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Lord of Illusions is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Both the theatrical version and director's cut version appear to have been sourced from identical (or nearly identical) elements for the scenes they share. (Screenshots 1-10 are from the theatrical version, while screenshots 11-18 are from the director's cut.) While both versions are a bit on the soft side, and each has minimal issues with flecks, dust and transitory damage, the look of both versions is appealingly organic, with a natural looking (and at times fairly heavy) grain field in evidence and no signs of artificial sharpening or denoising interfering with the image harvest. Contrast is slightly anemic at times, with some interior scenes looking a bit murky and suffering from low levels of shadow detail. Colors are very nicely saturated and accurate looking. The CGI (which was in its infancy) in the film is occasionally problematic, looking rather flat and unconvincing at times.

Lord of Illusions Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both versions of Lord of Illusions included on this Blu-ray set offer both DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 options. The surround tracks significantly open up Simon Boswell's moody score, as well as provide occasional discrete placement of effects, but are otherwise a bit reserved in surround activity, concentrating dialogue front and center. Dialogue is very cleanly presented in all the audio options, with excellent prioritization. Fidelity is fine and dynamic range is nicely wide, especially in the film's more over the top sequences. There are no issues of any kind to report on any of the audio tracks.

Lord of Illusions Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One contains the Theatrical Cut (1:48:53) of the film. Disc Two contains the Director's Cut (2:01:33) of the film. In addition, there is the following bonus content on each of the discs.

Disc One:

• Theatrical Trailer (480p; 2:39)

Disc Two:

• Commentary by Director Clive Barker. Barker almost always provides really interesting commentaries on his films, and Lord of Illusions is no exception. He seems to have an almost picayune memory of the shoot and goes into sometimes minute detail on various scenes.


• "A Gathering of Magic" Featurette (480i; 17:52) has some good behind the scenes footage, including application of make-up, as well as some decent interviews.


• Original Behind the Scenes Footage (1080p; 1:01:57) has a lot of material, with several good interview segments.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 3:21) feature commentary by Barker.


• New Interview with Storyboard Artist Martin Mercer - "Drawing Boards" (1080p; 11:55) provides some really interesting information about this often underappreciated aspect of filmmaking.


• Photo Gallery (1080p; 15:53)


• A Note from Clive Barker (1080p; 1:56) provides a brief text introduction to Harry D'Amour and the film. This is labeled as being from 1995.

Lord of Illusions Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Like a lot of Clive Barker films, Lord of Illusions offers an almost palpable feeling of dread and menace, but within a somewhat messy and undisciplined storytelling manner. The director's cut helps to flesh out (no pun intended) both characters and the context of various strata of magic, but even the additional ten or so minutes can't completely overcome some of the inadequacies of the basic plot. Barker fans will nonetheless be generally pleased with this handsome package from Scream, which presents both versions of the film along with the typically excellent assortment of supplements that Scream regularly appends to its Blu-ray releases. Recommended.