‘W’ Movie royalty now as we look at the first of this franchise that spawned three sequels, all full of ‘W’ goodness. The no sequels policy remains however, so this is your only chance to have your wish of a great review realised - and dashed.
This popped up as a recommended offering on Netflix - the algorithm clearly has my number as it was exactly the kind of schlocky horror nonsense that I lap up.
We open in 12th century Persia with a voice over, and a day out for the special effects department. There is a lot of waffle about the granting of wishes and the demons that are being set free. Meanwhile someone is crafting a large opal - looks like a ruby to me. After lots of moulding and baking the jewel is revealed - already fully cut. Well it is magic. The carnage going on outside ends as the evil Djinn (basically a Genie) is trapped within the gem stone. There were a few decent kills in this sequence, and I liked the stop motion skeleton pushing its way out of a body the most.
We cut to the present day and Freddie Kruger, in the shape of a rich antiquities buyer, is awaiting the delivery of his new statue down by the docks. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it. The Irish crane operator takes a drink and when a demonic voice gives him a fright he drops the box onto Freddie’s hapless assistant. In the debris the gem stone from the last paragraph spills out and is grabbed by a longshoreman who sells it to a pawnbroker.
Everyone is taken with the stone initially, but less so when it explodes during analysis and frees the evil Wishmaster. Our heroine, Alex, has been researching the stone and catches the attention of the wish offering miscreant. For reasons that are inexplicable, apart from driving the plot, the Wishmaster can offer up single wishes to people to charge up his powers. Once he has enough of these he then needs to have his target, Alex, ask for three wishes and on granting the third he can rule the world or something. No idea who made up these rules.
We get a good half hour of the Wishmaster offering up wishes - but beware! He’s a real bastard. One lady wishes to be beautiful forever and gets turned into a mannequin whilst another asks for a million bucks before it cuts to his mother buying life insurance just before dying in a plane crash. The point is clear - be sure of your wording and don’t get suckered because this guy basically does what he likes under the pretence of granting wishes.
In his human form the Wishmaster tracks Alex to a society party - will she ask the required number of wishes? and how will she turn the tables on the bad guy, as we know she surely will?
This film was a lot of fun and didn’t take itself seriously in the slightest. The effects varied in quality from the Wishmaster’s rubber face to some pretty impressive statues that came to life. The violence was so over the top you’d do well to be scared or shocked, and it was basically played for laughs with the demonic Wishmaster offering zingers at every turn.
Some of the wordplay was well done, with the Wishmaster’s interpretations being somewhat broad - Candyman said he’d like to escape from his job and got stuck in a big tank of water Houdini style - you didn’t ask for that! - get your money back!
Tammy Lauren was a bit wooden in the lead, but to be fair her job was simply to direct us from one special effect to another. The film was produced by Wes Craven and you could see the influence of his ‘Freddie’ films throughout - dark laughs and grisly kills galore.
I doubt I’ll look up the sequels but this one was great fun and well worth a look if you like your wordplay garnished with buckets of gore.
Best Bit : Liven up this party! ‘W’ Rating 18/23
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