Of all the characters that Clive Barker has created, Harry d'Amour is the one I've always been the most interested in who wasn't Pinhead. And it feels like he's in nowhere near enough stuff for my tastes (then again, one only has to look at what the Hellraiser series has become to realise that more appearances isn't always a good thing). So today we're looking at Harry d'Amour's (current) only cinematic outing, Lord of Illusions.
In 1982 a Manson-esque cult leader called Nix is demonstrating some of his magic abilities to his followers. He's also kidnapped a young girl and plans to feed her (or something... I'm choosing not to think too much about the alternatives here) to his pet mandrill; a plan which has caused Nix's former pupil Swann and a few of Nix's former followers to move against him. They manage to take Nix down and bind him using an iron mask that would have been right at home in a medieval witch trial. Thirteen years later, New York private detective and occasional exorcist Harry d'Amour travels to Los Angeles on a case and ends up mixed up in the bizarre murder of a fortune teller - who happened to be one of the group that took down Nix in 1982. From there he finds himself working for Swann's beautiful wife - Swann now being one of the best and most famous illusionists in the world - as Nix's most devoted disciple is working to bring back his master...
Is the Magic Castle really the same as the way it's portrayed in this film? I really hope so - all hokey and cheesy, piping "Magic Moments" throughout the place and having all the illusionists dressed in their stage gear wandering around the place - I love it. Of course, it also serves a plot-related function; it separates the "fake" magic (or "trickery") practised by the illusionists of the Magic Castle from the real magic that Nix and Swann use, without having to go into any great metaphysical or otherwise discussions on the differences, or cheapening the "trickery" in any way. There's also the added bonus of having Vincent Schiavelli doing a cameo in the Magic Castle scenes, which is always welcome.
Lord of Illusions has Clive Barker's fingerprints all over it - unsurprising seeing as he wrote the short story, adapted it for the screen, produced and directed it. It's more than that though - the film contains several of his trademark themes; chief among them the idea that there is a hidden supernatural world hiding just out of view from us that we could possibly find if we just looked a little bit harder. There's also a fair bit of ambiguous sexuality throughout the film, from Nix's disciple Butterfield (although he's less ambiguous than most in those gold lame pants), to hints of a former relationship between Nix and Swann at one point, when Nix complains that he and Swann were to keep each other company after the end of the world. Hell, even some of the film's music has a distinct Hellraiser tone to it.
The movie also has a distinctly 90s feel, especially with some of the special effects which are still on a rather polygonal level or are a bit too obviously green screened, but hey, the film does its best to make that work. The inclusion of a Skinemax-esque sex scene partway through the film actually stands out a little more; it's at least plot-related but it does also feel a little too softcore or at the very least like they draped some gauze over the camera lens. Conversely, one of the best scenes in the film concerns Nix's followers getting the call to come back to their master, and we see them cutting their ties with the suburban lives they had been hiding in in very brutal and final ways, all to the tune of a gospel song.
On the other hand, the casting is superb. Why was Scott Bakula not in more stuff? I grew up watching him in Quantum Leap; others might know him from Star Trek: Enterprise - he seems to have a mainly TV series and TV movies career which is fine, but he really deserves more of a spotlight than he gets. He plays the role of a private eye who's seen much more than he ever wanted to very well, and in fact researched the character of Harry d'Amour and asked for the back tattoo we get to see in the Skinemax scene. There's also Kevin J. O'Connor in the role of Swann - O'Connor is probably better known as Beni from The Mummy or Dr. Mindbender from G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and is usually more of a character actor, but here he manages to give a more quiet and understated performance than he susually does, which works well for the character of Swann.
Lord of Illusions is a very 90s movie and it does have its flaws, but it's still a good and rather underrated movie that deserves a look, especially if you're a fan of Barker's work. I just have one question, however: what the hell happened to that mandrill?
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