Breaking Down The Wishmaster Series

The Wishmaster series is a rollercoaster of rule changes and things the audience is asked to forget ever happened.  Of the four films, the first was the only theatrically released one. We meet the Djinn (played by Andrew Divoff), who is banished inside a fire opal and can only be released when someone awakens the Djinn. To awaken it, it seems someone only has to rub it (it’s never specified), however, the “waker” as they are called in the films, is granted three wishes. SURPRISE!...The outcomes of the wishes have morbid effects upon the wishers, and the wisher must make three wishes so the Djinn can unleash his brotherhood upon the Earth. 

There are rules about how the Djinn is allowed to interact with humans in the first film. After the Djinn is awakened, it can grant other people only one wish. The Djinn can also assume their identity in order to persuade the Waker to make their wishes. In Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies, the Djinn collects their souls in exchange for a wish and the Djinn doesn’t have to assume a victim’s identity. He creates his own, which is played by Andrew Divoff.  In parts 3 & 4 he doesn’t need their souls, but as in the first film, he needs either a willing host or a victim to take their identities. Other changes include how the Djinn is defeated. There is no solid method of defeating the Djinn, thus each film develops its own method of resolving the climax. 

 The original film was the only one with Wes Craven’s name with a producer’s credit, and the creator and writer of the first film, Peter Atkins is given writing credit for the rest of the series, but only for creating the characters. The third & fourth films were filmed back-to-back within a weekend break period from one another, both directed by Chris Angel but using different writers.  Jack Sholder wrote and directed the second film; Robert Kurtzman directed the original. 

The first film pays a strong tribute to modern day horror veterans with Tony Todd, Kane Hodder, Robert Englund, and Ted Raimi all having cameos and Angrus Scrimm (the Tall Man from Phantasm) provides a lone voice-over  explaining the origins of the Djinn. 

While none of the four movies are anything amazing, and most people would probably ask for those portions of their lives back, the third is arguably the weakest of them all as the characters and their dialogue are bland. The rest of the films are a slight step above that, but not much. Another shame is that Andrew Divoff portrays the Djinn for only the first two films. His voice work and expressions bring great, distinct characteristics to the creature. John Novak dons the role for the third and fourth films. He’s not a terrible actor, but this isn’t Shakespeare, which he would probably perform with great zest. 

The true stars of all four films are the visual effects crew. The first film used the K.N.B. Effects Crew. The rest of the films used independents, but all of them did a great job with the atmosphere surrounding the Djinn’s prison inside the fire opal as well as the gore and DJinn’s healing wounds. The majority of them were practical studio effects and quite impressive. A personal favorite was from Evil Never Dies when a prisoner wanted to “walk through the bars” of his jail cell.

The Wishmaster series could easily be rebooted/reimagined/refried with all of today’s remake-madness. It could work easily as either an anthology series or something along the lines of Final Destination, for it doesn’t seem the Djinn can be destroyed only contained, thus its evil is eternal.