The story centers around an occult led by nix, a petty demon-like man with some real powers, but little ambition. After he kidnaps a 12 yr old girl, his best learner, Swan, and a small band of followers who see the error of there ways mount a rescue, they seal Nix in an iron mask and bury him in the dessert.

Years latter...

Swan is married to the girl, Dorthea, now a woman, but Nix's followers are ready for the resurrection. Fearing for her safety Swan fakes his own death hoping that when nix returns he'd leave Dorthea alone.

Harry D'Amour, a Brooklyn PI is brought in to determine the possibility of Nix's return and protect Dorthea. Of course D'Amour and Dorthea have heat as she admits nearly immediately that she loved Swan but was not in-love with him. The not-really-dead Swan complicates his own plans by trying to scare Harry off.

Eventually everything falls apart for Swan, his woman is in Harry's arms, his enemies are after him, and Nix is after his soul.

The showdown ensues and is much more satisfying than Hellraiser's non-conclusion.

There's some nifty visuals and enough gore in the superior directors cut. Mostly there's a real feel for fans of the horror-fantasy novels, Weaveworld, Great and Secret Show, Galilee, that Barker is so favored for. This is the only film that feels like his books and feels like it's own world, complete and fully realized.

The film is a bit overly stylized and Barker's stagnant camera and unimaginative set-ups do little to invite the eye in. A better 5.1 mix would have helped sell this as well and the DVD lacks a HD transfer so the contrast and details are a bit grainy.

Over all a solid film that could have benefited from better editing, camera work and a better DVD presentation.


Guilty pleasure   March 2, 2004
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Oh what can I say? I know this doesn't work, but I do enjoy it anyway, if only to try and pick through it to see how it could be salvaged.
I think the main problem is in the structure, Barker weirdly opens with a long flashback, giving away a good few twists up front and then has his hero trying to work out what happened, something we already know. Snipping out most of this - cutting straight to D'Amour, perhaps - maybe adding it in later on in some form or other, would have made the mystery aspect much stronger.
Still, it's good to see a film try and do something a bit different, and as Barker puts it, it's nice to see a horror movie more interested in the good guys than the iconic one-liner spitting baddies. This one does have a decent plot in there somewhere amidst the naff effects and hesitant performances, and is definately worth a watch, just to catch a glimpse of what it could have been.


More like the Lord of Baloney!   February 20, 2004
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I remember watching the trailer for a horror-murder-mystery movie a few years back, and it looked so exciting. The special effects looked impressive and the production design was smooth. A very 'noir'ish thriller indeed.

Well obviously, I must have been mistaken because Lord of Illusions is defintely not it!

The film is an absoloute mess and proves along with Nighbreed (1990) that he cannot direct (but he made an awesome debut with Hellraiser... (1987). I can't reveal the whole plot but it involves a cult surrounding a man called Nix (Daniel Von Bargen - Commandant Spangler from Malcolm In The Middle) (Nix IS a rubbish name ;-) with incredble powers (you know, levitation, throwing people across the room, etc).

Anyway, Philip Swann, a former 'disciple' of Nix (Kevin J'O Conner from The Mummy (1999) arrives with a team to catch him and stop him but they fail, and in fact Nix transfers some of his powers to Philip promising even more power if he follows him. But Nix is beaten by Philip's 'good magic' and is "buried" and the story moves on.

Cue present day: Harry D'Amour, (Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap and Star Trek Enterprise) who is following a case comes across black magic imagery, which leads him to Philip Swann who is now an incredble famous magician, with a gorgeous girlfriend (Famke Janssen from X-Men 1 and 2).

His shows are sold out night after night, he uses strong visual effects and he makes tricks that look like they would kill most people but he always gets out alive. Except one night things go 'wrong' and he 'dies'. After this there's double-crosses, lies, lots of blood, more (suprisingly poor) special effects, bad dialogue, plot holes and it culminates in a ridiculous finale full of SHOUTING (?) and more blood (and torture).

Now I bought this film based on the 'special' effects (Scott Bakula's character being chased by 'flames') but as a whole the film makes no sense. Certain events are not explained (like why does Scott Bakula's character have a large intricate tattoo on his back? Was it his destiny to be involved with Nix and Philip Swann?)

Don't waste your money on this. Clive Barker only directed one great movie... Hellraiser 1 (after #2 the rest are trash).


Illusion is about the only thing holding this movie together   February 22, 2003
 3 out of 4 found this review helpful

Clive Barker is a genius, but Lord of Illusions just doesn't work for me. You have this guy Nix who calls himself The Prophet; he can do all kinds of real magic, yet he seems to be content in assembling a handful of incompetent cultists in the middle of nowhere, kidnapping a young girl, and juggling fire. He walks around in a T-shirt woefully incapable of covering his huge beer-belly, so it's hard to take him that seriously. Just as we're getting to know the guy, his former disciple Swann and three other escaped cultists swoop in and manage to bind him, after which they bury him deep in the ground so no one will ever find him. Now we jump ahead thirteen years. The kidnapped girl is married to Swann, and both begin to worry when a member of the Nix vanquishing party is killed, sensing that someone is trying to bring The Prophet back. Here's where private detective Harry D'Amour steps in, stumbling his way around the major events (and deaths) that have to do with Nix's "death" and imminent return. His detective skills and the magical abilities of Swann aren't enough to keep The Prophet in his grave, and the movie ends up coming full circle back to its beginning, featuring a final showdown between Swann and Nix.

Personally, I think Scott Bakula was a bad choice to play D'Amour; he is just not the hard-nosed private detective type, and his character's lack of any real identity or personality makes him seem an illusion of sorts himself (despite the fact he is supposed to be the protagonist). The romantic link that develops between D'Amour and Dorothea Swann (Famke Janssen) is simply lifeless. The clues he finds along the way basically fall into his lap, and I am hard pressed to explain how he figured out where to go and whom to talk to about a subject he knew very little about early on. This serves to highlight the fact that the script just isn't very good, even though Clive Barker himself wrote it. There is very little character development, several discoveries and arbitrary actions are presented without explanation, and there are plot holes each step along the way. You would think that a movie called Lord of Illusions would actually feature some impressive illusions-you'd think so, but you would be wrong. This is most unfortunate because I think the concluding special effects were meant to offset the weakness of the plot. Many of the special effects were patently fake and highly disappointing. It's hard for a movie to succeed with a combination of bad casting, bad plot, and bad effects. At the end, you may well be asking yourself what this movie was really about.


Not a bad movie   December 14, 2001
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

This is a nice Clive Barker movie but certainly not his best. Hellraiser is still his best movie followed by Nightbreed. The image and sound quality in the DVD version isn't perfect but is OK.