PopHorror Let's Get Scared
“Are you ready for my wisdom?” ~Nix
Welcome back to The Black Box Chronicles as we take a look at a movie I DIDN’T see back when it first came out. As mentioned before, back in 1995 the pay-per-view movie channels would show trailers of not only the movie you were about to see but other movies out at the time. One of the trailers I saw but didn’t see the movie itself was the 1995 horror flick LORD OF ILLUSIONS.
Back in 1984, English author Clive Barker published a collection of short stories called Books of Blood. One of the stories was called The Last Illusion which featured a recurring character in Barker media called Harry D’Amour. Basically the paranormal Spenser For Hire or Jack Reacher. He would appear in stories over the years while Barker jumped into the horror limelight with his 1987 horror movie Hellraiser. He wanted to turn The Last Illusion into a movie and began a screenplay in 1991. He ended up changing a LOT of the elements when Hollywood gave the go-ahead, the big one came while actually filming the movie! What exactly did he change? More on that later, but first, here’s LORD OF ILLUSIONS.
The Plot
The story begins in the ass end of the Mojave Desert in 1982 at some dilapidated house with a bunch of strange, Waco Texas like cult just milling around. The cult leader Nix (Daniel Von Bargen – Super Troopers 2001) is informed by his henchman Butterfield (Barry Del Sherman – American Beauty 1999) that “Swann” is here. Out of a truck pops four individuals: Pimm (Susan Traylor – Heat 1995), Quaid (Joseph Latimore – Little Big League 1994), Jennifer (Sheila Tousey – Ravenous 1999) and the leader Swann (Kevin J O’Connor – The Mummy 1999). These are Nix’ ex-cultists that are here to stop the madness since Nix plans to sacrifice a teenaged girl.
Swann and his crew manage to kill Nix and save the girl, but Butterfield gets away. 13 years later, private eye Harry D’Amour (Scott Bakula – NCIS New Orleans) is having a rough time after a recent exorcism gone wrong and is sent to Los Angeles to spy on a man who’s committing insurance fraud. While spying, the man named Tapert (Johnny Venkokur – Savage Streets 1984) starts running away screaming with his arms flailing over his head. While investigating, Harry finds Butterfield and his buddy Miller (Jordan Marder – American History X 1998) torturing and killing Quaid.
Harry fends off the attackers and is unable to save Quaid, but not before Quaid says Harry “walks the line between heaven and hell” and “The Puritan is coming.” Harry’s investigation leads him to Swann, his wife Dorothea (Famke Janssen – Deep Rising 1998) and their butler Valentin (Joel Swetow – 3 Ninjas 1992). Swann knows that they’re coming for him and to resurrect Nix but wants to put on one last illusion. In front of a live crowd, Swann is killed by an errant trick and its up to Harry to stop Nix and protect Dorothea.
Will he do it? Watch the movie and find out.
The Players
The acting in this was a motley mix of over the top to downright hilarious. In an interview, Clive Barker admitted he personally wanted Bakula to play Harry D’Armour. Scott himself said it was tough trying to find the right way to do it, but film noir was what Clive wanted. Clive also cast Famke Janssen simply by seeing a photo of her and saying “Oh yeah, that’s Dorothea.” Famke showed some range as she was later portraying the badass Xenia Onatopp in the James Bond film Goldeneye. The “damsel in distress” worked here for sure.
Kevin J O’Connor would later play the loveable Joey in Deep Rising (with Famke Jannsen) and the hilarious villain Benni in The Mummy. This was definitely a good range job as he didn’t play a fink for once. Even the minor roles did a good job as Vincent Schiavelli (Ghost 1989) was in two scenes but he was hilarious in them. Joseph Latimore played the loveable Lonnie Ritter in Little Big League but he was the ill-fated Quaid in this one. Real life magician Billy McComb had a minor role as a mentor to Harry D’Armour while Vincent Schiavelli plays an angry magician very well.
The show stealers were Barry Del Sherman as Butterfield and Daniel Von Bargen as Nix. The latter has some of the best lines in the movie including the main quote from the beginning of this editorial.
As with most horror movies, expecting Shakespeare acting would be foolish, but if you want a bunch of weirdos then you’ve come to the right place with LORD OF ILLUSIONS. The extras in the movie as the deranged cultists were frightening because in the back of your head, you’re thinking “This magic stuff is definitely made for TV but between Jonestown and Waco, THIS could actually happen.” Them cutting off their hair and making sexual gyrations is totally disturbing, perfect for a creepy movie.
The Film vs. The BookNow for the obligatory horror categories. Is LORD OF ILLUSIONS gory? Oh yes it is. We got people burning, we got people melting into the earth, lots of stabbings and impalements, gunfire and magic use. It was made by the same man who did Hellraiser, so expect more of the same. We also get a useless sex scene between Famke and Scott Bakula so there’s a little bit of T & A as well. I won’t spoil the ending but lets see it does get a bit graphic in the end. Its a horror movie and Barker delivers the goods.
So how did it do in the box office? Not great. The budget for LORD OF ILLUSIONS was only 11 million dollars and it grossed just 13. Still a profit is a profit. Which leads me to the nitpicking portion of it. What was there to complain about? As with most movies from 1995 that utilized it, the CGI was AWFUL. One of the scenes had a brutally rendered box thing chase around Bakula and Jannsen that looked ridiculous in 1995, let alone now. The story was also almost totally changed from the book. A good example of this would be the Stephen King novel The Running Man. The Governor Arnold movie was almost NOTHING like the book.
The Last Illusion‘s conflict is between Harry, Swann and Butterfield. Butterfield and Valentine were actually demons in disguise. In LORD OF ILLUSIONS, they’re human servants. Want to know why Nix became top heel out of thin air? Clive Barker was reading about the Swiss death cult The Order of the Solar Temple and combining that with The Manson Family, David Koresh and Reverend Jim Jones, he wanted that cult leader character to take center stage. So if you wanted a close to the book adaptation, you’d be tearing your hair out.
Then there’s Scott Bakula. Bakula had an unfair reputation for being “the kiss of death” in his career. He was in Major League 3 and there was never another Major League. Star Trek had a link of shows from The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager but after Bakula was in Enterprise, that was it for live shows for a while. Harry D’Amour was supposed to be the next big on screen detective but since LORD OF ILLUSIONS disappointed, there’s not been another on-screen Harry D’Armour appearance. None of that is Scott Bakula’s fault, and he finally shed the image with NCIS New Orleans which was definitely a successful spin off of NCIS.
All in all, the movie is for serious thinkers and a lot of horror movies are for the mindless. That’s why From Dusk Till Dawn became a smash and LORD OF ILLUSIONS faltered.
The Legacy
How about the legacy? Like mentioned previously, LORD OF ILLUSIONS was the last on-screen appearance for Harry D’Armour but the character continued on in comic books and Clive Barker novels. There was actually a Hellraiser comic with actor Thomas Jane as Harry D’Armour on the cover. Scott Bakula went on to star in movies and film to this day, Famke Jannsen was about to strike gold with Goldeneye then later the X-Men series. Kevin J O’Connor starred in The Mummy and Deep Rising while Vincent Schiavelli continued to play minor roles until his death in 2005. Daniel Von Bargen ended up becoming a hilarious guest star on Malcolm In The Middle and had a good role in Super Troopers in 2001, unfortunately passing away in 2015.
Final Thought
All in all LORD OF ILLUSIONS, isn’t for the mindless. Its not about hacking, slashing, shooting and killing. Its supposed to be the horror version of Jack Reacher where you search for clues and put together a strong story with a strong climax. The American public may not have gotten it in 1995, but its still a great watch. If you can look past the crappy CGI, get ready to meet the LORD OF ILLUSIONS.
