The Wizard of Gore

Lewis's most conceptually ambitious film, which is a low bar he clears with room to spare. A stage magician named Montag performs illusions in which he appears to mutilate volunteers, who then die the same way later for real, and the film blurs performance and reality in a way that anticipates far better movies.

It is technically shoddy but strange, with a reality-bending structure Lewis was not equipped to pull off and reached for anyway. The ideas outrun the execution by a mile.

Fascinating as an ambitious failure, and later remade by people who understood it.