
Hello again, ghosts and ghouls!
Let me ask you something: if you were to come across a magical stone, you unleashed a genie that looks like a Twi’lek meets Freddy Krueger meets the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and he asked you to make wishes for absolutely anything you wanted, would you? Oh, right, but there’s a catch (isn’t there always?)…somehow, every time you make a wish, this genie manages to twist your words so someone (or you) dies. I mean, no big deal though. You can still wish for whatever you want.
For those of you that know exactly what I’m talking about, welcome to my review! For those of you that think I’ve totally lost my mind, I’m talking about Wishmaster, one of the beauties to come from 90s horror. Today, we’re not only reviewing the first film…we’re going through the entire series. Yes, all four of them. -insert evil laughter here-
Wishmaster (1997)
Storyline: A drunken crane operator drops the statue of Ahura Mazda (yeah, like the car), which contains the stone of secret fire in which a Djinn (Andrew Divoff -swoon-) is trapped. Robert Englund (YES FREDDY KRUEGER!!!!), plays the assistant to a museum owner and oversees the safety of the statue, which obviously isn’t going very well.
The stone is found by an excited construction worker and brought to Alexandra (Tammy Lauren) for an evaluation, where she accidentally awakens the Djinn. Oops!
She finds out that once she makes three wishes, the doorway to hell will open and all of the Djinns will be released to feed off of the souls of earth for all of eternity!
The Review: Based on actual folklore, Wishmaster pays tribute to stories of The Djinn in a beautifully strange and cheesy whirlwind of death, bad acting, and an awesome villain. Wishmaster is everything you could ever want in a laughable horror film.
The deaths are incredibly creative (my personal favorite but also the cheesiest in the film has to be the Djinn facing off with a security guard and he melts him into the glass door and then breaks it), and aside from some cheesy VFX, they look pretty good. The gore is great, and none is spared to any extent. This film gets BLOODY.
While Alexandra is by far one of the worst characters I’ve ever seen (the acting is so brutal), Andrew Divoff gives an exceptional and slightly terrifying performance as the Wishmaster/Djinn and Robert Englund leaves little to be desired because how could he be anything less than perfect?
If I had to rate this one out of 10, I’d give it a 7. Story’s great, characters are great, deaths are fun. If you want to rate it any less than a 7 it’s because you have no sense of humor…sorry not sorry.
Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001)
Storyline: For some reason, the Djinn is harassing students at a college. I blocked this one out of my memory. He’s released from his tomb by a student and in order to find her, he just kills everyone in his way, and it’s not even Andrew Divoff so what’s the point? The voice is one of the most alluring things about the character, and now it’s some lame guy so I remember watching this one and being really depressed.
The Review: This movie’s bad. It’s just…no. This was clearly just a reason to keep the franchise going even though it should have ended after the second one, but they had a big budget and said “LOL guys let’s get drunk and make a movie”. I know, I should tell you guys how I really feel.
I rate this one a 3 out of 10. They tried, but didn’t succeed. At all. It was kind of funny sometimes though…
Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002)
Storyline: Lisa is a boutique owner living with her crippled boyfriend (Sam) after a motorcycle accident. Sam’s lawyer is in love with Lisa, conveniently enough for the Djinn, who possesses the lawyer’s body in order to get Lisa to grant her three wishes. If she does, the prophecy is fulfilled (HA! I said it!) and the Djinn can rule the earth. (Haven’t we been talking about that for like 3 movies…?)
The Review: I didn’t hate this one nearly as much as I thought I was going to. Was it good? By no means. But after the let-down that was “Beyond the Gates of Hell”, I really didn’t think it could get much worse, so I was pleasantly surprised when, well, this one wasn’t worse. The concept was kind of fun, but the actor who played the Djinn was just not convincing and incredibly boring. That’s typically how it goes, though, once a series gets a bit too long (cough cough should have ended after the second movie cough).
I rate this one a 4 out of 10. Better than the third film, not nearly as good as the first two.
I hope this helped you decipher your feelings about Wishmaster, for those of you that have watched it! For those of you that haven’t, I hope this gave you some insight as to whether or not you need to mentally prepare yourself in order to watch this series. I promise, the first one is worth it. If you don’t watch any from then on, I can’t say I blame you, but PLEASE give the series a chance! It’s such a fun concept based on real folklore, which is always fun.
Until next time, ghosts and ghouls…
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