The Red Rock of Destiny

Wes Craven’s name had a fair bit of clout, especially among the horror movie faithful. Thanks to a few massive hits on his resume (especially the best of the Nightmare on Elm StreetThe brain-child of director Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street was his answer to the glut of Slasher films that were populating the multiplex. His movie featured an immortal character, Freedy, with a powerset like none other, reshaping the expectations for Slasher movies to come. series, as well as most of the ScreamWhat started as a meta-commentary on slasher media became just another slasher series in its own right, the Scream series then reinvented itself as a meta-commentary on meta-commentary. franchise), Craven was a bankable name that horror fans trusted. He was up there with the likes of Cronenberg and Carpenter, delivering his kind of horror film that people could trust would, at the very least, deliver scares as well as, usually, a whole lot more. If his name was on a project, you could assume it would be good.

That is, of course, what the creators of Wishmaster were banking on. With his name prominently attached to the film, the production team expected that this 1997 low-budget theatrical release would make solid bank. And it did, if you compare its final take of $15.7 Mil against its budget of $5 Mil. That’s not huge by Hollywood standards, but for a film created by indie studio Live Entertainment, that was certainly a lot. Getting Craven on board as an executive producer (i.e., he donated money and his name and then was hands off) gave the film a lot of credibility it otherwise didn’t really deserve.

Notably this the only film in the series with his name on the placards and, likely related to that, it was also the only film of the four Wishmaster titles that debuted in theaters (with the rest going direct-to-video). That was likely in part because Craven wasn’t interested in being attached to further, lackluster films. And make no mistake, this is a very lackluster film. It has some creative ideas, and a villain that is, in fact, kind of interesting. But on the whole this is a film that reeks of low-budget desperation, not living up to the slasher pedigree it’s trying to leech off of.

In 1127, a Persian emperor unleashed a Djinn (Andrew Divoff), a powerful but also malevolent being with the power to grant three wishes. Much like the story of the monkey's paw, though, the Djinn has as much latitude as he likes in fulfilling the requirements of the wishes, and usually he turns everything evil and nasty, with a whole lot of death. That’s what happened with the emperor’s wish, with each of them hurting the people of the kingdom until the emperor is ready to use his last wish to try and undo it all. The only problem with that being that if a user wishes all three of their wishes, the Djinn’s power is unlocked and he can create a gateway to the realm between realms, unleashing his Djinn brethren on Earth to rule the world. Thankfully the emperor’s loyal advisor and sorcerer made a fire opal into which he could cast a spell, sealing the Djinn away within the rock.

Centuries later, in the present (read: 1997), a statue of the Persian god Ahura Mazda is dropped during shipping. One of the dock workers aiding in the cleanup of the statue spies the fire opal, which was sealed within the stone work, so he steals it. He takes it to a pawn shop owner, who buys it off of him and then takes it to an auction house, and that’s how the stone ends up in the hands of Alexandra Amberson (Tammy Lauren), appraiser for the auction house, assigned to figure out the gem’s worth. She cleans it, breaths on it, and rubs it, and that, of course, frees the Djinn… eventually. Now she’s locked in a game with the demonic force, trying to figure out what to wish for to make it all end, while the Djinn kills everyone and anyone he can, stealing away their souls to increase his power.

Wishmaster is an interesting movie, not for what it does but for what it wants to be. It’s a film predicated on the very idea of “be careful what you wish for”, and it derives all of its kills from that maxim. The Djinn meets people, usually while they’re just going about their day, they say something that sounds like a request, and then the Djinn gives them exactly what they asked for which, very rarely, is ever what they actually wanted. It’s a simple formula the film uses, again and again, sometimes effectively but other times not at all.

There are some solid kills to be had by the Djinn and his magic. One homeless man wishes that someone he hates should die of all the cancer. Just, like, all of it. This leads to a fun and decently gory scene that works effectively in showing off the Djinn’s power. The opening sequence, with magic running amok in the Persian empire is also great, with plenty of freaky monsters and solid deaths. And there’s once or twice where the Djinn gets rebuffed by someone, with the user refusing to say a request and the Djinn getting annoying that he can’t use his powers (as Djinns, for all their incredible abilities, can only grant wishes) only for the person to say something stupid right at the end, letting our demonic killer have his fun. These moments are great.

At the same time, though, it’s a formula that can only get stretched so far. The film quickly runs out of good ideas for its kills, eventually seemingly getting bored with the very concept altogether. Once we get into the last act, where Alexandra has to find a way out of the mess and cast the Djinn back to the gem (because, come on, it’s not even a spoiler to say that evil Djinn gets put back in his “bottle” is the conclusion of the film since that’s how every story like that always works), the film feels like it can’t even commit to its own rules. The kills get less interesting, and magic of the Djinn feels less powerful, and Alexandra survives way longer, unscathed, than she has any right to.

And, frankly, the ending is pretty weak. Again, because it feels like the creators got bored, or ran out of money, or whatever you want to chalk it up to, the ending feels a little rushed, violating some of its own logic. The Djinn always finds a way to make the wishes turn against the wisher. The only outs the wisher has, so as to prevent the Djinn from fulfilling three wishes, is to either cast the Djinn into his stone or, to ruin the plan, die. If you try to wish your way out, in theory, the Djinn can make it go wrong. And yet, Alexandra makes a wish that, surprise surprise, actually works and saves the day. The film doesn’t even try to present a version of it with a complication or a twist, she just magically wins because the film is over. And the wish, which resets everything back to how it was before the Djinn was released, is easy enough to work around if you think about it for just a few seconds. The whole “be careful what you wish for” aspect only goes until the credits are ready to roll, then the film doesn’t care anymore.

I saw this film on video when it came out at Blockbuster, during my first stint working for that video rental company, and I picked it up solely because it had the Wes Craven name on it. I absolutely hated it at the time because it didn’t live up to what I expected from Craven’s films. I was duped, as I’m sure many others were, and I didn’t bother touching this film (or its sequels) thereafter. Having finally come back to the film I can still see its flaws and I can understand why I, and so many others, would have hated it after watching it at the time. But now, with hindsight and a lot of time, I can at least enjoy the film for what it is.

There is a certain malevolent glee the film has, setting up wishes and then having them go poorly. The gore is often quite good, and there’s some solid makeup effects in play that up the horror and the thrills. From a production design standpoint, especially when it comes to the practical effects, this film works really well. It does have more than a few moments of bad CGI, as the studio had to stretch what budget was available and cover over it with bad effects, and these don’t work well now (hell, they didn’t even work well back in 1997). Still, there’s a lot of little moments of horror that work well in this film and I can’t help but like Wishmaster during these scenes.

It is still an incredibly stupid movie, full of idiotic logic and dumber characters. It has a gleeful ride when it can, but any time it has to slow down and address the plot it completely falls apart. It’s at its best when it’s having the Djinn grant wishes and committing murder, and if that was all the film provided, it would be great. But the movie has to tell a story, it has to be more than just random wishes and people dying, and that’s what brings it all apart. This is a collection of ideas, not a real film, and the movie just can’t be a good enough movie to support itself.