THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508260055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
CLIVE BARKER'S ``Lord of Illusions'' is an all-out effort to reach a mainstream audience larger than his usual blood-and-gore enthusiasts. In some ways, it succeeds. In others, it's merely business as usual, complete with impaled bodies and oozing blood.
You might call this ``Sam Spade Meets the Exorcist.'' Barker prefers to call it ``Chinatown.'' It's somewhere in between.
Private eye Harry D'Amour gets involved with the supernatural when he's hired by a beautiful, and suitably mysterious, wife to protect her husband, famous magician-illusionist Phillip Swann. As a young man, Swann killed a powerful and evil sorcerer named Nix and took his powers. Now, the cultists who once worshiped the Nix are out to get Swann. They want Swann to tell them where the body is hidden so they can return it from the dead.
This sounds like a pretty good yarn, in itself - a yarn that didn't really need all the gore that writer-director Barker added to please his faithful fans while luring new customers. (The horror genre has noticeably, and understandably, been fading a bit at the box office of late.) Barker tries to both spoof the horror genre at the same time he embraces it. He comes pleasingly close to bringing it off.
His best weapon in adding levity is casting TV star Scott Bakula as the private eye. After five years on ``Quantum Leap,'' Bakula suggests an Everyman quality that allows him to represent the audience in the trips to the unknown. He takes off his shirt faster, and more regularly, than any nudist colony denizen.
Famke Janssen, a tall and striking brunette, bears watching as Dorothea, the magician's wife. You'll see her soon as the latest James Bond villainess in ``Goldeneye.'' Here, she seems suitably above it all. The audience howls with laughter when the two finally kiss. The smooch apparently seems out of place in a Barker film (since, in horror outings, sex almost always precludes death).
There is also a laughable insistence on the detective's part to fire his handgun at the demons - never realizing that it does no good. Such spoofery lends an air of fun to the proceedings.
Kevin J. O'Connor is rather pale and nonflamboyant as Swann, the magician. There's a lot of mumbo jumbo talk about illusion vs. real magic.Barker shows some refreshing restraint in not going too far with the magic show. He keeps it looking as if it might be a real show rather than a display of movie special effects.
Interestingly, Swann's magic show is staged in Los Angeles' historic Pantages Theater, where the Academy Awards were once held, back when Oscar actually was a Hollywood event.
Nix, the snarling over-the-top force of evil, has only a few scenes, giving Daniel Von Bargen not enough time to really steal the show.
The only character who is humorous enough to steal scenes is Butterfield, a lowly henchman, who is played by Barry DelSherman in skintight, gold lame trousers.
The film lacks both the perversity and gore of Barker's ``Hellraiser'' series and this will be all to the good, depending on your lust, or lack of lust, for the usual blood. The fans, however, will not be disappointed with the makeup and special effects.
Barker attempts fitfully to reach a more level-headed audience while, at the same time, keeping his own. ``Lord of Illusions'' is his most ambitious film yet. Harry D'Amour (probably again played by Bakula) is likely to show up either in a sequel, or possibly in a TV series. ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW
``Lord of Illusions''
Cast: Scott Bakula, Famke Jannsen, Kevin J. O'Connor, Barry Del
Sherman
Director and Writer: Clive Barker
MPAA rating: R (violence, sadistic supernatural ritual)
Mal's rating: **1/2
Locations: Chesapeake Square, Greenbrier in Chesapeake, Janaf,
Main Gate in Norfolk, Kempsriver Crossing, Lynnhaven, R/C Columbus
in Virginia Beach
by CNB