film's gory special effects finale, it was the suspenseful build-up which convinced him to recommend the film. Richard Harrington of The Washington Post, in contrast, found the effects were neither viscerally convincing nor psychologically disturbing. He also added: "Playing the antihero D'Amour, Bakula is appropriately rumpled but seems emotionally uncommitted, and his out-of-the-blue bedding of Dorothea is laughable. More problematic is the villain: Despite some gross burned-skin makeup and nasty-as-he-wants-to-be attitude, Nix is scarry, not scary". He cited Cast a Deadly Spell as a film which much more effectively combined the film noir and horror genres. Joe Leydon of Variety called the film "a much more conventional effort than Barker’s earlier outings", while also finding it "more sophisticated and satisfying than anything the genre has offered since Wes Craven's New Nightmare". Leydon said Bakula's "virile good looks, low-key humor and matter-of-fact authority make him an engaging Everyman, the perfect traveling companion for a journey through Barker’s nightmare world". However, he found Kevin J. O'Connor's performance failed to bring out the strong thematic traits of Swann. In a retrospective review, Karl Williams wrote in AllMovie that Lord of Illusions "starts off strong with an intriguing premise, but then goes quickly nowhere". Contradicting Leydon, he argued that Bakula's everyman demeanor makes him completely inappropriate for the role of D'Amour, and found the script confusing. Like Harrington, he compared the film unfavorably to Cast a Deadly Spell. In a 2015 article on the film in Deadly magazine, Patrick Bromley wrote that twenty years after it was first released, Lord of Illusions remains Barker's least-loved film. He argued that its lukewarm reception was undeserved, praising its plot development and the character of Harry D'Amour. In popular culture Front Line Assembly uses samples from the movie on their album [FLA]vour of the Weak on the tracks "Autoerotic", "Colombian Necktie" and "Life=Leben" as well as on the single "Colombian Necktie" on Colombian Necktie (GOArge Mix). Front Line Assembly side-project, Noise Unit, uses samples from the movie on their album Drill on a number of tracks: "The Drain", "Dominator", "Miracle", "Eye Burner". Underground hip-hop artists Jedi Mind Tricks sample the movie on the track "The Immaculate Conception". Heavy metal group Nevermore uses samples from the movie on their album Dreaming Neon Black, specifically on the intro track "Ophidian". Goregrind group Last Days of Humanity uses a sample from the movie to begin their album The Sound Of