Three wishes, first one: AVOID THIS MOVIE

WISHMASTER (1997)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1999)

There is one great shot in the hopelessly overwrought "Wishmaster." It is a quick shot but definitely a keeper. The heroine of the film, Alex (Tammy Lauren), visits the well-kept house of a curator (Robert Englund). The curator shows her various historic, priceless statues, including one of Pazuzu! Yes, the very same one from "The Exorcist," though perhaps smaller. It is a great shot, and one of mystery, allure and introspection, all the things the rest of "Wishmaster" is not.

The titled character is an evil genie, also known as the Djinn (Andrew Divoff, who played the anonymous biker villain in "Another 48 HRS."), who is ready to wreck havoc on the world by granting people their innermost wishes and desires. The trouble is that he takes their simple wishes and exploits them in an evil manner. For example, he grants a wish to a homeless man who wishes the rude pharmacy manager would contract cancer and die. The Djinn grants the wish and the manager grows pale and dies within a few minutes after the wish is granted. Surely the homeless man did not mean to do that!

Alex, the jewel expert, (Tammy Lauren) inadvertently unleashes this evil spirit from a fire opal and, in a nod to "Nightmare on Elm Street 4," she can feel pain each time a victim falls prey to the genie. She has to grant him three wishes and in return, he gets to destroy the world or rule it or whatever he plans to do with it.

"Wishmaster" could have been an enjoyable, highly moralistic little horror film if done with some imagination and taste. Instead it feeds on buckets of gore to make its exclamatory points about why you should think about the wishes you make before making them. The film quickly grows ponderous and silly, particularly with the Wishmaster's tired one-liners (do genies truly utter four-letter words? Haven't they been around long enough to make more snappy remarks?) Divoff is convincingly menacing as the Djinn but he even he grows tiresome. Only Lauren rises above this mess with some measure of dignity, if only because it shows a woman can defeat evil genies. Here's a wish: I wish Wes Craven would direct the films he produces.

P.S. Buck Flower plays the toothless homeless man in "Wishmaster," a similar role to his Bread character in the "Back to the Future" movies where he also played a homeless man. Alluding once again to the "Exorcist," Flower has a similar line to the homeless man in that film: "Hey, can you help an old altar boy? I am Catholic." Sacrilege!