WISHMASTER (Live) Starring: Tammy Lauren, Andrew Divoff, Chris Lemmon, Robert Englund. Screenplay: Peter Atkins. Producers: Pierre David, Clark Peterson and Noel A. Zanitsch. Director: Robert Kurtzman. MPAA Rating: (graphic gore and violence, profanity) Running Time: 88 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
I think it happened around 1973, with the release of THE EXORCIST, though some might go back to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD in 1968. Prior to that point, cinematic horror was generally restricted to innocuous creature features and the occasional genuine thriller (PSYCHO, THE HAUNTING) which was more in your head than in your face. The phenomenal success of THE EXORCIST changed all that, giving rise to the notion that the way to shake up an audience was from the stomach out. And so there came TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and Brian DePalma's CARRIE, and John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, and a decade of slasher film wannabes too numerous to count. Special make-up effects became Hollywood's growth field of the 80s, turning experts like Dick Smith, Rick Baker, Rob Bottin and Tom Savini into talent as hot as any star. There was even one teen scream film, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, which trumpeted in its ad campaign that it contained some of "the most bizarre murders you will ever see." The Cult of the Gross-Out had been born, dedicated to the principle that if you came up with new and innovative ways to hack the human body to ribbons, they would come.
WISHMASTER, a limp and generally tedious horror film about an ancient Djinn (Andrew Divoff) accidentally released into modern-day America by a jewelry appraiser (Tammy Lauren), would have no reason to exist if not to show off a gaggle of grotesqueries: skin flayed from flesh, a skeleton tearing loose from its body, eviscerations by the cartload, cancerous pustules erupting on a pharmacist's skin, all manner of creepy-crawlies emerging from the orifices of human hosts, a face indented by an iron mace like something out of a Warner Bros. cartoon, and a few garden-variety shootings for street cred. Director Robert Kurtzman -- a former special-effects man handed a basic premise for a story (an ancient Djinn loose in modern-day America), a budget and an R rating -- occasionally stumbles across an innovative visual idea which doesn't involve exposing anatomical features generally hidden from view. More often, when in doubt, he lets loose with the red Karo syrup.
WISHMASTER also wouldn't exist without a few noteworthy antecedents like "The Man in the Bottle" episode of the original "Twilight Zone" and "The Monkey's Paw." Screenwriter Peter Atkins seems convinced that his notion of a malevolent genie is wildly original, and that the idea of that genie providing literalist renderings of vague wishes is positively ingenious. In fact, the results of the wishes range from fairly uninspired to purely plagiaristic (stop me if you've heard the one about the guy who wishes for a million dollars, then has a family member with an insurance policy die). An original idea isn't necessary when you can take an old one and spice it up with state-of-the-art viscera-spilling.
Like far too many supernatural horror films, about half of WISHMASTER's exposition seems devoted to explaining the detailed rules for how the monster wreaks his havoc, how he can be destroyed, etc. The good news is that that exposition provides a few memorable moments for Jenny O'Hara, sharp and sassy as the occult expert every monster movie needs. The bad news is that the whole business is pointless, a foolish stab at internal logic in a genre where internal logic matters far less than what kind of mayhem a Djinn can inflict when someone wishes for a "wild party." Horror films can work when the people who make them display a sense for the giddy catharsis of a good scare, but there's nothing scary about WISHMASTER unless you count the half-dozen or so times the music cranks up to a decibel level just this side of the Concorde. It's just a humorless display of special-effects prowess, the latest installment in the ongoing game of "Can You Top This?" which all began when zombies noshed on human femurs, or when Linda Blair first returned a can of pea soup whence it came.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 cold Djinns: 2.
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