Happy 20th birthday Lord Of Illusions!

 Happy 20th birthday Lord Of Illusions!

It truly makes you feel old when it finally hits you that a person born in 1995 is just one year away from legal drinking age. H-o-l-y s-h-i-t. The early to mid 90's weren't exactly known for being the best time for horror until the Scream series hit in 1996. I on the other hand disagree. I think TONS of great horror movies came out in the 1990's.

Army Of Darkness

Popcorn

Arachophobia

Waxwork II

Warlock 2

Hellraiser III

Amityville 1992 It's About time

Amityville The Next Generation

Jason Goes To Hell The Final Friday

Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Nightbreed

And of course Lord Of Illusions.

Clive Barker truly was a mastermind of his time. Unfortunately, the studios couldn't seem to get over his freshmen effort with 1987's Hellraiser, and both the brilliant Nightbreed and Lord Of Illusions weren't appreciated in their time. In fact both films took years to finally get the respect they deserved. I of course down right adore Nightbreed. It was beyond brilliant, and as strange as it sounds I do love the theatrical cut much better than the original (I can hear Barker fans from all over groan). Lord Of Illusions on the other hand, was seriously a favorite of mine for years. In fact, as a senior in high school I would 100% say this was one of my all time favorite movies. I'm a complete dork and think magic, illusions, and the supernatural all very interesting. Barker's third film took all these wonderful elements and turned it into a strange colorful surreal twisted dark fairy tale. 

The story is pretty simple. Back in the early 1980's, a group of teenagers belonged to a cult run by a very powerful man by the name of Nix. The cult lived out in the desert and practiced dark magic, awaiting the end of times. Finally one day, the group of teenagers rebelled after one of them, a young man by the name of Swann heard that Nix had kidnapped a young girl and was planning on murdering her. The teenagers get together to rescue the young girl, and end up murdering Nix, breaking the cult apart who all swear revenge for their leader and await his return. 

Years later Swann is one of the world's most famous illusionist (via David Copperfield) and is married to Dorothea, the little girl he rescued all those years ago. It isn't long before Nix's people begin coming out of hiding, tracking down the teenagers who turned on their leader, and murdering them one by one. Lucky for them, private investigator Harry D'Amour, a man with a sense for the supernatural is in town on a routine case and stumbles upon the latest murder. 

Sound good? Well guess what? It is. Now, I wouldn't go as far to say it's as amazing as Nightbreed, but you can tell 100% that it's a Clive Barker movie. In fact I find it a down right tragedy that he never continued filmmaking since the three films he did do were pieces of art. 

So happy 20th birthday Lord Of Illusions! I'll be watching my blu-ray tonight!