If You Give a Girl a Rock…

I don’t think anyone is going to argue that any of the Wishmaster films are good. They started awful with the first film, 1997’s Wishmaster, and steadily got worse. The fact that the first one did well enough to warrant three sequels, let alone even just one, is astounding in and of itself. Sure it had an amusing conceit, with an evil Djinn essentially granting monkey paw-style wishes to anyone that asked, but as the sequels quickly proved, there were really only so many directions you could take that idea before you ran out of steam. One movie just about used up all their good ideas.

A big part of the issue, which I alluded to in my review of Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (which neither featured the gates of Hell, nor had characters going past them) was that the originating plotline of the films put a hard limit on what the villain wanted and needed to do. The Djinn (originally played by Andrew Divoff before Jon Novak took over the role for the third and fourth films) is focused on finding someone that will ask for three wi\shes. If they do wish all three of their wishes (without finding some loophole or other way to contain the Djinn’s power) that would allow the Djinn to unleash its full power, ripping apart the veil between this world and the Djinn dimension, allowing all the djinns to take over Earth. It’s a great concept for one film, but, as the sequels proved, there was nowhere to go with that idea.

Each film in the series had the same setup: some cute woman (usually blond) would find the stone that contained the Djinn within it, and then they’d rub the stone, unleashing the Djinn. It would take a few minutes for the Djinn to arrive, and in that time the woman would wander off, back to her life, not realizing what she’d done. The Djinn would then go in search of the woman, granting anyone they came across one wish which would, in turn, lead to that person’s death. Eventually they’d find the woman and make them wish their wishes, but the woman would find a way to turn the tables on the Djinn, and the evil being would get sent back to their gem. Over and over. It was the formula and after three films it wore pretty damn thin.

So color me surprised, then, that the fourth film of the series, Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled, actually found a way to finally break the formula. Yes, it still has a pretty, blond woman, played by Tara Spencer-Nairn, getting the gem randomly. She doesn’t realize what the gem is, and discards it without thinking. The Djinn arrives, looking for the one that released him so he can get her to wish three wishes and unleash the Djinn dimension. All of that plays out like normal… except then the film has her wish her three wishes early in the film, and suddenly we’re in for something else. It performs a nice twist on the formula, along with giving us just enough gore to help the film feel somewhat lively. If it had been made on a real budget, and not cast to the crypts of direct-to-video hell, it might almost have been a watchable movie.

Lisa (Spencer-Nairn) and Sam (Jason Thompson) are in love. They’ve just bought a house, and go around it having wild, passionate sex, all before heading back to their old place so they can pack. But unfortunately on the drive back, on Sam’s motorcycle, they get into a wreck and Sam (but not Lisa) is horribly injured, stuck (seemingly permanently) in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. This naturally puts strain on their relationship and, three years later, the two have grown far enough apart that Lisa has to wonder if this is really the life she wants. Still, she’s cared for Sam all this time, and they have a lawsuit against the person that caused the wreck, so she doesn’t want to leave Sam and what they could have had.

Steven (Michael Trucco), their lawyer and close friend, thinks he can win their case and get a good settlement for the two of them. But Steven is also really into Lisa, which he makes clear in a very awkward conversation. Unfortunately for Steven he also gives Lisa a special box which, unbeknownst to him, holds the Djinn gem within it. She opens the box, finds the gem, and unleashes the Djinn who, a few hours later, kills Steven and steals his body. Preying on her insecurity over her relationship to Sam, Djinn-Steven starts working away at her, trying to get her to make wishes to improve her life, and she does. She wishes for the case to come to a close, she wishes Sam could walk again, and then she wishes that she could love Steven for who he really was. Three wishes, that’s the ball game. Except the third wish is something the Djinn can’t easily grant with magic. Instead he’ll actually have to try and woo her and make her love him if he wants to unleash Hell on Earth once and for all.

I do want to credit the creators of this film, director Chris Angel and writer John Benjamin Martin, because they at least found a twist for this film that made it feel even a little different from what we saw before. Each film before was doing the same thing, going through the same motions, and it felt like the creative teams were getting more and more bored with the whole concept. Hell, Chris Angel was the director on the previous film as well, and he at least managed to find slightly more to do this time around than in the previous film, so that’s something.

That doesn’t absolve Angel, of course, because while this film is better directed than the third movie, it’s not that much better. The acting isn’t fantastic, and it feels like many of the characters are directionless in their scenes. But worse, the whole thing still has a sloppy, thrown together feel that makes the movie feel less like a professional production and more like a student film thrown together on a couple of sets. Some of that is down to budget, sure, and this film didn’t have much of one, but a good director can do a lot with a little and, clearly, Angel is not a very good director. Not here, anyway.

Still, there are a few little things that are improved over the previous movie. The story is one, with the film having that mid-story twist that changes everything and gives this film a different vibe. But this fourth movie also has better kills that actually are in line with the Djinn’s motivations and powers. When someone wishes for something, they should actually get what they want while having it also lead to a death. We get a good one fairly early when the Djinn, acting as Steven, calls up the lawyer for the other party and while forcing him magically to sign the contract and settle the case for a huge amount he also tortures the man and forces him to take his own life. It’s fun, and/ gory, and feels like everything the third film was missing when it came to kills.

To be clear, not all the kills in the film are as good. One woman gets kissed to death, and we don’t even see it happen on screen. Another woman orgasms herself to death, and we barely see anything from that kill either, just her orgasm face (of pain) which lacks any real gore or scariness about it. Some kills are great, some aren’t, and the film is very uneven about it. Still, that is better than the third film where none of the kills were gory or interesting and they all failed to take the Djinn’s powers into consideration. It’s an improvement, even if only a small one.

And that really summarizes how I feel about this film: it’s an improvement, but a small one. It’s certainly better than either of the previous sequels, Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies or Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell, but we’re basically saying that this fourth movie could step over a bar that was already on the ground to begin with. Sure, it did it, but that doesn’t actually make it a good movie. Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled is passable at best, not a great movie but certainly not the worst slasher film I’ve watched to date. It’s not a film I’d recommend, but then I doubt I’d even recommend the very first Wishmaster as they’re all terrible movies. If you have to watch one, watch the first. Only come to the fourth if, for some reason, you’re a real masochist and just can’t help yourself. The series at least ends on a slightly better note, but it’s hardly worth the effort to get there.