Wishmaster (1997)
A malevolent djinn of Persian ancestry escapes the confines of a magic gem and stalks around a nameless city, granting "monkey's paw" wishes to anyone dumb enough to sit through his long speeches and turn of phrases and then nod in agreement. That right there is what sinks WISHMASTER, other than the sheer fact that it absolutely sucks; many of the victims don't really say "I wish..." or truly have an actual wish, instead often being guided to a macabre twist through the cold reading, John Edward-like skills of the titled villain. Plus, many of the "wishes" are highly questionable or make zero sense. For example, a security guard (played by Kane "Jason" Hodder) jokingly says that he would like to see the formerly intruding djinn try to get pass him; the creature snaps his fingers at this extremely loose definition of a wish and boom, the guard turns into a stained glass body (?!), which the djinn somehow can walk through (?!!), and then the glass guard explodes (?!!!). A lot of this nonsensical crap happens throughout the picture, sharing equal space with the dreadful acting and the other major faults of Peter Atkins' plot. Truthfully, this is nothing more than an feature-length demo reel for director/SFX auteur Alex Kurtzman and his crew. Unsurprisingly, the gore and creature effects are amazing, though the early CGI work is hard to watch nowadays and the true form djinn costume looks like a giant cockroach with two floppy dick horns. It's wisely suitable for a bad movie night but you seriously should not wish to include this movie into your video collection.
FINAL REVIEW: 1 / 5
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