Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled
DVD
*1/2
Directed by
Chris Angel
Written by
Peter Atkins
John Benjamin Martin
Cast
John Novak .... Djinn
Tara Spencer-Nairn .... Lisa Burnley
Michael Trucco .... Steven Verdel
Jason Thompson .... Sam
Victor Webster .... Hunter
John Benjamin Martin .... Douglas Hollister
Kimberly Huie .... Tracy
Mariam Bernstein .... Jennifer
Well,
here we go, folks...this is the end. The only end, my friend, and
Artisan is taking us along for this particular apocalyptic ride. I'll
tell you this much--you will never, NEVER, be so glad to see a
quadrilogy end.
Okay, so what we've got here is the story of
Djinn. Not genie, either. But DJINN. I know, I know--nitpick much? But
still. Apparently we got part of the mythos right: anyone who manages
to wake a Djinn gets three wishes.
This is, actually, a BAD THING.
"What?" you cry in mystified alarm. "How could such a thing be?"
Well,
first off, these Djinn don't actually LIKE humans very much. Some
ancient grudge or somesuch that I recall as actually being explained in
prior titles, so you'll have to go there if you're truly desperate to
learn just why anything so ugly could have a problem with US.
Should
anyone actually manage to get wish number three over the plate and
socked out of the equally proverbial ball park, all hell breaks loose.
Not
precisely--"the unholy legions of the Djinn" will break loose and be
set on the earth. This is, of course, a really bad thing.
Who's
going to wake up our unholy legions? Why, the overly cutesy couple who
just moved into a big run-down house labeled "fixer-upper" right on the
bloody damn REALTY SIGN. Oh, and the previous occupants kindly left a
bed upstairs so this overly cutesy couple could launch into a sex scene
not three minutes into the movie.
You know, there's pandering, and then there's Pandering. This qualifies as PANDERING.
And
then, in a real twist, the male half of our smarmy couple gets in a
wreck on his motorcycle, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down--a
shattered, bitter, alcohol-chugging wreckage of a human being. The
female half gets her hands on a terribly familiar (if you've seen the
rest of the movies) fire opal. From there, our terribly familiar Djinn
friend shows up and sets out to get three wishes out of the female half
of the smarmy couple so that he can...
...RAISE AN UNHOLY LEGION OF DJINN.
JUST LIKE HE'S TRIED AND FAILED TO DO FOR THE LAST THREE MOVIES.
Wow!
THAT'S not predictable or anything, is it?
Sometimes, you just wanna smack these horror figures upside the head and say:
"HEY!
Dumb schmuck in the hockey mask / clawed glove / plain white mask /
horned carapace / what have you! It's time to stop this huge, insane
plot of yours. It's just not working out, man. Have you ever thought of
getting a day job? Contributing to society? Doing SOMETHING with your
life besides killing teenagers in flagrante delecto? Be somebody's 'Big
Brother' or something!"
But anyway--our born loser of a Djinn
has to carry on as best he can, and the best he can is a real doozy.
He's actually got a PLAN worth speaking of in this one -- he kills a
lawyer early on, poses as said lawyer, acts like sunshine and light to
our smarmy female, and then quietly grants all the wishes she makes in
that offhanded fashion that we've ALL been known to do from time to
time.
Plenty of bloody face disfigurement in this one; faces get cut to bits and removed completely.
Extreme
makeovers aside, Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled is a horrible
flaming mishmash of Christian creation story and children's fairy tale
that manages to offend its viewers on multiple levels. The script is
jam-packed with predictability and only shines in comparison to its
predecessors. It's not hard for a movie this poor to look good when
stacked up against a series of truly awful movies. The acting is poor
at best and anyone who's actually read a Bible story is going to be
able to point at that opening text bloc and scream "Fraud!" without so
much as a blink.
The ending is shoddy and strangely predictable -- no, the Djinn DOESN'T manage to pull it off, even with his fancy new plan.
The
special features aren't too shoddy, actually, with two commentaries,
Spanish subtitles, a trailer, storyboards, and a couple of quirky
little numbers masquerading as featurettes cleverly titled
"Wishmasterpiece Theatre" and "Wishmaster Dating Guide."
All
in all, yipes! Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled is by itself a sad
and shabby title that distinguishes itself only when compared alongside
its truly awful brethren. It is the sexiest troglodyte at last call,
and that's still not saying much.
Tags:
Movies Movie horror human time IT US 
