6/7/14 (Part Two): Crashing and Burning

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A.J. Cook, bad films, Chris Angel, cinema, djinn, djinns, end of the world, film reviews, films, horror film, horror franchises, Jason Connery, Jason Thompson, John Novak, Michael Trucco, Movies, Professor Barash, sequels, shoddy special effects, stupid films, Tara Spencer-Nairn, terrible films, Tobias Mehler, Victor Webster, wishes, Wishmaster, Wishmaster 3, Wishmaster 4, worst films ever

     

There are plenty of bad horror movie sequels out there but there are few (that I’ve seen, at least) that are quite as useless as the final two films in the Wishmaster series. Whereas the first film was a minor cult classic and the second film was a flawed but still entertaining followup, the third and fourth films have got to be two of the shoddiest, stupidest and most pointless films in genre that offers plenty of competition. Unlike similarly poor sequels (anything post-second film, in many franchises), the two Wishmaster sequels aren’t even entertaining, more “so bad they’re wretched” than “so bad they’re good.” I’ve grouped them both together since, for all intents and purposes, they’re the same film, distinguished only by their different casts and slightly different storylines (Part 3 is the ultra-stupid Archangel one, while Part 4 is the deathly dull romance). They were both directed by the same person, feature similar production styles, have the same “djinn” (John Novak, who makes a rather poor substitute for Andrew Divoff), equally terrible scripts and, as mentioned above, very little value. They’re the Awesome Blossoms of Awful: let’s peel back some layers.

Part 3 (Beyond the Gates of Hell, if that actually matters) concerns the misadventures of young Diana (A.J. Cook), a college student who works in a museum with the lecherous Professor Barash (Jason Connery). Diana’s boyfriend, Greg (Tobias Mehler), thinks there’s something going on between her and Barash and if it were up to the skeezy prof, there would be. The point becomes moot, however, when Diana inadvertently frees the Djinn (the aforementioned John Novak) and Barash ends up as his first victim. The Djinn takes Barash’s face, in order to continue his evil plans, and seeks to get Diana to make the required three wishes. Luckily for her, Diana uses one of her wishes to have the spirit of the angel Michael help her against the Djinn. Next thing you know, Greg is infused by the spirit of Michael and he’s engaging in some good old-fashioned wrasslin’ with the buffed-out Djinn. More stupidity follows and good triumphs over evil blah blah blah.

Part 4 (The Prophecy Fulfilled, because I’m sure you’re curious) takes the brave move of transporting the Wishmaster world into a boring, made-for-TV drama about a husband and wife dealing with the fallout from the husband’s motorcycle accident. The husband is Sam (Jason Thompson) and he’s a real shithead: mean, pouty, prone to temper tantrums and going to strip clubs rather than paying attention to his doting wife, Lisa (Tara Spencer-Nairn). Someone is paying attention to Lisa, however, and that someone is Sam’s smitten lawyer, Steven (Michael Trucco). Steven secretly loves Lisa and gets her a token of his affection: the Djinn’s jewel. Before you can say “Yawn,” the Djinn has killed Steven and stolen his face. He gets her to use her first two wishes pretty easily (she wishes for Sam’s case to be settled and for him to be able to walk again) but the third wish is a real corker: Lisa wishes that she could love Steven for who he “really is.” Mind blown, the Djinn must now deal with the one aspect of humanity he (and you) never thought he would: true love. If this sounds unbelievably stupid…it’s at least twice as stupid as that. With his fellow Djinn brethren breathing down his neck, the Djinn must make a decision: fulfill the prophecy and doom the woman he kinda/sorta/maybe loves or deny his heritage and embrace true love. But don’t rule out Sam just yet: he may be a complete asshole who expressed no interest in Lisa whatsoever but he’ll be damned if any ol’ Djinn who looks like his lawyer is gonna get with his wife. All of this shockingly inert forces drift toward a conclusion that can best be described as “not soon enough.”

As I’ve probably already beaten into the ground: Wishmaster 3 and 4 are absolutely terrible films with no redeeming values. There are no good performances, no good deaths (they’re even worse than the already anemic ones in Part 2), no good effects and no clever one-liners. The films look like the worst stereotypes of direct-to-video movies: they’re flatly lit, poorly edited messes. While each film is filled with its own outrageous moments, they’re more memorable for being so damn awful. Let’s look at a few:

— In Part 3, Prof. Barash wishes that “the two women he finds most beautiful in the whole world would be there, with him, and would be totally into him.” Cue two of the skeeziest looking strippers in recent memory, who proceed to grind on the prof while the Djinn looks on, licking his lips and making “honka honka” motions with his hands. Let me repeat that: while two sleazy-looking strippers grind on Professor Barash, we get a close-up of the Djinn licking his lips and making “honka honka” gestures with his hands.

— In Part 3, Diana and her friend, Katie (Louisette Geiss), run in a scene that appears to be an ultra-cheap ripoff of Run Lola Run (1998), complete with techno music on the soundtrack.

— In Part 3, when Greg becomes “Michael,” he engages in a WWE-style wrestling match with the Djinn. Even better, however, he engages in zippy, sexually charged banter with Diana…as an angel, mind you.

— In Part 4, a waitress in a restaurant sees a couple kissing romantically and tells the Djinn that she wishes “someone would kiss her like that.” The Djinn grants her wish, making everyone in the restaurant, male and female, come up and kiss her. Seriously. That’s really what happens: a bunch of people come up and kiss her on the lips, one by one. This, apparently, is supposed to be scary.

— In Part 4, a bartender in a strip club wishes that he were a pimple on a stripper’s ass. Since he promptly disappears, we have to assume his wish was granted.

— In Part 4, the scene where Lisa runs down the hallway as rubbery Djinn arms grab at her from the walls is like a Juggalo version of Polanski’s Repulsion (1965).

While I’d like to say that the various scenes above are reasons to check out the respective films, they really aren’t: they simply represent some of the more “interesting” awful moments in the films. The scenes happen to be surrounded by equally astounding moments of ineptitude and stupidity, mind you, they just happen to be stupefyingly boring and inane. As someone who watches bad films on a pretty regular basis, I’ve certainly seen my share of stinkers. On the whole, however, I’ve rarely encountered anything as soulless, obnoxious and devoid of value as Wishmaster 3 and 4. If you’re a fan of the original film, do yourself a favor and stop at Part 2. If we all ignore the follow-ups and wish them away, perhaps they’ll cease to exist. If there’s any justice in the world, that’s one wish that the Djinn will see fit to grant.

6/7/14 (Part One): More of the Same

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Andrew Divoff, Bokeem Woodbine, casino, Chris Weber, cinema, djinn, djinns, end of the world, film reviews, films, Holly Fields, horror, horror films, horror franchises, inmates, Jack Sholder, maximum-security prison, Morgana, Movies, Nightmare on Elm Street, Paul Johannson, Prisoners, Robert LaSardo, sequel, sequels, special-effects extravaganza, Tiny Lister, Vyto Ruginis, Wes Craven, wishes, Wishmaster, Wishmaster 2, writer-director

The original Wishmaster (1997) was a gory, cheesy but irrepressibly fun B-movie that served as a showcase for special-effects/makeup wizard Robert Kurtzman. In many ways, the film was similar to executive producer Wes Craven’s iconic Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): both films were special effects extravaganzas that featured charismatic, talkative maniacs who killed their victims in fantastic way and both films blurred the line between fantasy and reality. It wasn’t much of a surprise, then, when Wishmaster proved successful enough to warrant a sequel, albeit a direct-to-video one. Would this upstart series go on to achieve the same kind of cultural resonance as the Nightmare on Elm Street films? We’ll take about the truly dire follow-ups in an upcoming post but let’s see how this ever-important sophomore effort fared.

There are many ways to do a sequel: immediately continue the previous storyline, put the previous characters into new situations, put new characters into the same situation or just re-do everything from the first film with a fresh coat of paint. Of these various scenarios, I’m obviously happiest with those that continue to expand on and flesh out the characters/villains: after all, what’s the point of just watching the same thing over and over? While I’ll always enjoy the Friday the 13th series, it will never have the same resonance for me as the Nightmare on Elm Street series, mostly because of the sheer variety offered in the latter. Nevertheless, either tact is valid, as far as I’m concerned.

Jack Sholder’s Wishmaster 2 (1999) opts to take a slightly different, more dangerous path: it simply remakes the original film in a slightly different, much less successful fashion. While this tactic worked exceptionally well for Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead 2 (1987), Sholder is no Raimi. Whereas Raimi was able to come at his “remake” of Evil Dead from a different angle, playing up the more darkly comic moments, Sholder simply replays all of the beats from the first film with different locations, lesser actors (with the exception of returning Andrew Divoff) and much less interesting setpieces. Let’s be honest: no one is going to Wishmaster for the detailed, intricate storyline: they’re going for the eye-popping, crazy, wishing scenes. When the death scenes are lackluster, it just makes the audience focus on the rest of the film which, unfortunately, is kinda shabby.

We begin in a familiar place, with the Djinn (Andrew Divoff) trapped inside the jewel, which is trapped inside the stone statue of Ahura Mazda. This time around, a pair of bumbling thieves end up breaking the statue during a shoot-out with the museum’s security. During the shootout, Eric (Chris Weber) is gut-shot but his girlfriend, Morgana (Holly Fields) manages to kill the guard and get away. Eric ends up releasing the Djinn and wishes he were never born, due to the pain he’s in: the Djinn makes Eric regress back to an infant before blinking out of existence. The Djinn is now free and has his eyes set on Morgana (the first person to touch the jewel). From this point on, the film follows almost the same path as the first film: the Djinn pursues Morgana, trying to get her to make three wishes so that he can take over the world. Morgana resists and everyone around her slowly succumbs to the Djinn: this all leads to a big setpiece where the Djinn unleashes his powers on a large group of victims (the first film had two such scenes, both occurring at fancy parties) before being ultimately foiled and sent back to his jewel-prison. As in the first film, banishing the Djinn ends up undoing all of the deaths he caused, giving the first two Wishmaster films both very high and very low body counts. Cue the Djinn looking pissed and…prepare the next sequel.

Let me make one thing clear: compared to the abominations that would follow, Wishmaster 2 is a completely worthy follow-up to the original film. Divoff turns in another stellar performance as the Djinn, although his delivery here is a little jokier and more Freddy-esque. The rest of the cast is broad but serviceable, although Holly Fields makes an awful protagonist (she’s so whiny and obnoxious) and Paul Johansson’s Father Gregory is one of the most ludicrous creations in the history of bad films. We also get what has to be the single worst performance from Tiny Lister ever, as a ‘roid-ragin’ prison guard, but I’m not so sure that he wasn’t told to play to the cheap seats, since many of the actors are way over the top.

The biggest issue with the film is how completely lackluster it is. When the Djinn is sentenced to prison (don’t ask), I had high hopes that we were going to get a Wishmaster film set entirely within a prison: talk about a captive audience! To be honest, this is a pretty great idea and might have made for a really interesting film. Instead of following through with this, however, we get a few lame deaths in the prison (although the one where the Djinn grants a prisoner’s wish that his lawyer “go fuck himself” certainly wins some points for creativity) before the Djinn escapes. This ends up leading to the actual “setpiece” of the film which takes place at a generic casino and is, essentially, a really watered-down version of the party scene that closed the original film.

None of the deaths in Wishmaster 2 are anywhere close to the ones in the original, whether in terms of effects execution or creativity. A cop tells the Djinn to “Freeze!,” so the Djinn freezes him. Yawn. Tiny wishes that he could get some time alone with the Djinn, to beat the crap out of him: the Djinn wishes him into a small room where he reveals his true form and kicks the crap out of Tiny. Yawn. In one of the most head-scratching moments, another inmate threatens the Djinn, saying that he wants a cut of his action: he wants all his “drugs” so that he can get “wasted.” In response, the Djinn makes the guy’s henchmen start karate-kicking him: the expression on my face was probably more amusing than any one-liner in the entire film.

There’s also an exceptionally odd and intrusive religious angle that plays throughout the film, similar to what some of the terrible Hellraiser sequels have done. Morgana’s ex-boyfriend-turned-priest Gregory is always trying to get her to convert and it’s stated again and again that she needs to be pure in order to fight the Djinn. In a truly odd scene, Morgana removes all of her piercings, makeup and jewelry, chops off her pinkie finger (for atonement?), dresses conservatively and returns all of the artwork that she stole. Apparently, she’s now pure. It’s an odd, nonsensical moment that manages to feel completely at home with the rest of the film.

Ultimately, Sholder’s film is pretty anemic, even if it’s still noticeably a Wishmaster film (wait’ll we get to those final two installments…). This is kind of strange, considering that Sholder was responsible for two of the most batshit films of the ’80s: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 (1985) and The Hidden (1987). While NOES 2 is a train wreck and The Hidden is a pretty decent sci-fi/horror curiosity, neither film could be accused of being boring or conventional. Perhaps Wishmaster 2’s greatest sin is that it’s so middle-of-the-road: too well-made to be completely risible, too generic to stand out in a crowd. If you’ve got a rainy day to kill, set yourself up a double-bill of Wishmaster 1 and 2: while the sequel wasn’t the best way to put the series to pasture, it was sure as hell a more respectable way than the two follow-ups.

 

3/25/14: If Wishes Were Horses, They’d Eat Your Face

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Andrew Divoff, Angus Scrimm, cinema, djinn, djinns, film reviews, films, gory films, Greg Nicotero, Harry Manfredini, horror, horror films, horror franchises, horror-fantasy, Kane Hodder, Movies, Nightmare on Elm St., practical effects, Robert Englund, Robert Kurtzman, SFX, special effects, special-effects extravaganza, Stan Winston, Tammy Lauren, Ted Raimi, Tom Savini, Tony Todd, violent, Wes Craven, wishes, Wishmaster

In some ways, I like to equate watching films with eating. Sometimes, I’m really in the mood for a complex, sprawling, four-course meal: at those times, nothing less than the twistiest, most difficult foreign film will do. Other times, I want a good, hearty steak and look towards any of the numerous “classics” that I’ve re-watched enough to memorize the dialogue. There are times when I want a little lighter fare: those are always good opportunities for a music documentary, a slapstick comedy or an old musical. At certain times, however, there’s really nothing that will hit the spot better than junk food: gimme the cinematic equivalent of a Ho-Ho, from time to time, and I’m a happy boy. On those occasions when I want to turn my brain off, kick my feet up and satisfy my horror jones, there really isn’t much finer than the first Wishmaster, a snack-pack of goodness that I’ve been enjoying for nearly 20 years.

Right off the bat, it helps to know one very important thing about Wishmaster: the film series began as the labor of love of Robert Kurtzman, one of the premiere special effects/make-up guys in the industry. Along with Greg Nicotero (any horror fan worth his salt should recognize this name immediately) and Howard Berger, he formed KNB EFX Group in the late ’80s. Naming all of Kurtzman’s projects would require its own separate blog entry but we’ll list a few that folks might recognize: Evil Dead 2, Phantasm 2, From Beyond, Predator, Tremors, Cabin Fever, Misery, Army of Darkness, Pulp Fiction, From Dusk Til Dawn, Scream, Boogie Nights, The Green Mile, Hulk…basically, if it was released in the past 28 years, Kurtzman probably had a hand in the makeup, effects work or both.

As with other directorial efforts by special-effects experts, specifically Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead and Tom Savini’s remake of Night of the Living Dead, the focus in Wishmaster is squarely on the astoundingly gory, over-the-top special effects, most of which are jaw-dropping…sometimes literally. The nifty hat trick here is that Kurtzman has taken an entirely serviceable idea for a B-horror film and tricked it out with an immaculate, shiny coat of candy-apple-red primer. As mentioned earlier, this is pretty much the epitome of junk food: delicious but nearly devoid of any actual nutrients. Wishmaster is like an amusement-park thrill ride: a blast to sit through but essentially incapable of changing your overall world view.

As far as a story goes, Wishmaster is pretty lean and mean: an opening inter-title explains that there were once men, angels and djinn. The djinn didn’t want to play nice, despite their ability to grant wishes, and were banished to the furthest regions to prevent their complete destruction of humankind, an event which they can bring about simply by granting the same person three separate wishes. Cut to Persia in the 1400s and we see all hell (quite literally) bust loose as a djinn grants a king’s second wish. Before the djinn can grant the king’s third wish and damn humanity to an eternity of servitude, a court magician imprisons the djinn in a gemstone. Cut to the present and a drunken accident at a dock has led to the discovery of the gem: the gem changes hands until it ends up with Alexandra (Tammy Lauren), our spunky heroine. As can be expected, the djinn is eventually released and goes on a wish-granting rampage, all the while trying to get back to Alex: if he can grant her three wishes, mankind can kiss its collected asses goodbye. Will Alex be able to save the world? Will she be forced to use her third wish? Will the djinn help them throw the craziest party in 600 years? As if you had to ask!

Let’s get one thing absolutely clear: Wishmaster will never win any awards for acting or its script but that’s not really why we’re here: we’re here because this thing is a party in a can. Decades before audiences thrilled to “in-on-the-joke” junk like Snakes On a Plane and Sharknado, we all had to make do with good, old-fashioned B-movies, films that took themselves at least seriously enough to avoid winking into oblivion. Wishmaster is a film with plenty of heart (all over the damn place, pretty much) and isn’t so terribly removed from the effects extravaganzas that Harryhausen created back in the day…just with a lot more viscera and exploded rib-cages, of course.

Although the film is jam-packed with eye-popping moments, it’s book-ended by its two biggest, most extravagant set-pieces: the opening Persian bloodbath and Beaumont’s (Robert Englund) climatic cocktail party. Both scenes are chock-full of the kind of explosive effects that would be the centerpiece of any other film: someone turns to crystal and shatters, spraying deadly shrapnel around the room; a skeleton rips itself from a man’s body and stands for a moment, pondering the chaos, before running off to cause some more; a collection of bronze and stone statues depicting warriors from various countries and eras comes to shuddering life, in a scene that directly references Harryhausen’s classic films, and massacres a group of armed mercenaries; someone is cut to pieces by living, levitating piano wires, etc etc…In truth, the two aforementioned scenes actually pack in more amazing special effects moments than at least four lesser horror films combined. Even better, the effects are almost all practical, lending the film yet another point of reference to classic films like Clash of the Titans and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

I’ve gone on and on about Wishmaster’s effects but what about the rest of the film? While it’s certainly not An Officer and a Gentleman, Wishmaster ends up being a pretty sturdily constructed affair. The film looks great, with a vibrant color palette that really lets the gore pop off the screen. In a nod to old-school horror fans, Friday the 13th’s Harry Manfredini handles the score and it’s a typically good one, even featuring a few pieces that directly recall the “adventurous” music from the aforementioned Harryhausen films. Wes Craven produced the film and, in many ways, it’s pretty comparable to the latter-day Nightmare on Elm Street films, particularly films like Parts 4 and 5, which tended to be more special-effects showcases than the earlier entries. The djinn even gets a massively ooky regeneration scene that manages to give both NOES and Hellraiser a run for their collective money.

The acting, as can be expected from B-movies, is rather hit or miss. Andrew Divoff is a complete revelation as the djinn, playing the villain with just the proper amount of smarmy charm, deadpan sarcasm and dead-eyed seriousness. His quipping never really gets old (although it will get more tedious over the next few films in the series) and I’m constantly surprised that he never became a more prominent face in the horror world, similar to co-star Robert Englund. Englund is quite good as the slimy Raymond Beaumont and it’s also nice to get cameos from a couple other familiar faces: Candyman’s Tony Todd and original Jason Kane Hodder make appearances as a bouncer and security guard, respectively. They don’t get to do much but it’s still nice to see them.

More problematic, unfortunately, is Tammy Lauren. As the lead, we get to spend an awful lot of time with Lauren and her progressively hysterical performance makes this a bit unpleasant, after a while. She’s alright for the first half of the film or so but she sets the controls for the heart of the sun after that and her overacting even begins to compete with the special effects, after a while. A lesser, but still noteworthy, issue is the rather lackluster ending: while necessary to paint the film out of its corner, it comes across as a real head-smacker and more than a little uneventful.

If you can look past the film’s small handful of problems, however, I can see absolutely no reason why any horror fan wouldn’t love this movie. Here, at the very beginning, we saw the groundwork being laid for a franchise that had the potential to rival Elm Street for prime real estate on the horror map. If the series ended up dropping the ball and limping off the sidelines way too soon (Part 2 is merely okay, whereas Parts 3 and 4 are completely execrable), that does nothing to take away from the achievement of this first edition.

Sometimes, I just want to kick back with an old friend and kill 90 minutes: whenever Wishmaster comes knocking at the door, I’m always ready to party.