RevRonster
Let's not pull any punches here, this movie is just absolutely, without a doubt, completely and utterly terrible...but that's why it is fun to watch! Everything about this movie is poorly done. The acting is awful, I'm not entirely sure there's a script, the production doesn't really understand the concept of "irony" and how to use people's wishes against them in a way that actually makes sense and the special effects are an endless source of unintentionally comedy.It's not like this franchise had any dignity but this one takes the series to a new low. But with all the bad going on in this movie it becomes enjoyable to watch...if only to see how bad it can get.
Michael_Elliott
Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001) ** (out of 4) The third film in the series has the evil Djinn (John Novak) taking over the body of a college professor (Jason Connery) hoping that he can force one of his students (A.J. Cook) into making three wishes, which will cause the gates of hell to open up on Earth. It appears that fans of the series really, really hate this movie but since I'm not a fan then perhaps that's why I didn't mind this film too much. With that said, there's no doubt that this isn't a good movie by any stretch of the imagination but I thought it was entertaining enough if you have nothing better to do and want to watch some gory kills. One good thing the film did have going for it is that we got real special effects and not just a bunch of fake looking CGI, which is something that the majority of the horror films from this era had switched over to. The gore effects aren't going to remind anyone of the work of Tom Savini but I thought they were good enough and at least the director knew to deliver the gore in a film like this. We even get a woman being attacked by rats and perhaps the highlight of the film is a scene where a woman wishes that she was skinny so the Djinn basically makes her puke up her insides. This scene isn't nearly as effective as the one in Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD but it's still pretty good on its own. Another thing I liked about the movie was the performance of Cook who I thought was very cute in the role but she also turned in a good performance. Sure, there's nothing Oscar-worthy here and she's not given too much to do but for the third film in a bad horror series I thought she delivered the goods and more. Novak is good as the evil guy and even his look is quite good. WISHMASTER 3 still suffers from going on way too long and there are simply too many spots where there's just nothing interesting happening. Still, as far as horror films goes, there are much worse out there than this one.
innocuous
is that the granting of the wishes is so unimaginative. I mean, come on...when someone wishes that they "had a place to hide" the djinn pushes their head in a wire mesh cage with lab rats? In what sense is that "hiding"? The first movie was clever enough to set up situations where the djinn actually fulfilled the wishes...but with unforeseen consequences. Plus, the djinn was quite limited in what he could do to anyone who didn't make a wish. Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but the writers for this film obviously didn't understand the gimmick.Other than that, the filming is OK, the acting is acceptable, and the FX are fair to middlin'. It's just that this third chapter in the story doesn't play by the rules.
jobesjo
I cannot believe what they have done to one of my favorite horror movies. It is all because of one problem too.... They didn't have Andrew Divoff playing the djinn, I thought it wouldn't be too bad at first but when i saw the djinn and he started talking i thought this movie was a complete joke. He sounded nothing like him, he didn't talk like him, and he also didn't even look like him. If somewhere it was mentioned that he was a different djinn I would have actually sorta liked the movie, but trying to pass this guy off as the original, scary, distinct-voiced djinn is an insult to Wishmaster. If you rent this movie then please brace yourself for a movie that is not worthy of the name Wishmaster. I have rented both 3 and 4 today and i have not seen 4 yet but i expect the worst. The thing that bugged me the most about the entire movie was the voice of the actor who played the djinn, I hoped for someone who could at least act like or sound like Divoff but i guess no one could pull that off so my advice is to stick with 1 and 2. The only reason you may want to watch 3 and 4 is to complete the story.
AD
