Main cast: John Novak (The Djinn), Tara Spencer-Nairn (Lisa Burnley), Michael Trucco (Steven Verdel), Jason Thompson (Sam), Victor Webster (The Hunter), John Benjamin Martin (Douglas Hollister), and Kimberly Huie (Tracy)
Director: Chris Angel
Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled is an unusual straight-to-video B-grade T&A horror flick in that it is actually more of a one-sided love story rather than an outright horror flick. I haven’t actually followed the Wishmaster franchise and I certainly haven’t seen the second and third movies (this movie is the fourth in the franchise). While I won’t be dashing to get the movies I’ve missed, I have an enjoyable time watching this delightful little guilty pleasure.
In this movie, djinns are evil creatures that are trapped in some in-between plane between our world and the heaven or hell planes. If the Djinn gets to fulfil three wishes to a mortal, he is free to bring in his buddies and take over the world. He gets his chance to do so here when lawyer Steven Verdel gifts Lisa Burnley a cheap-looking “look what the flea market seller begged me to take for free” trinket containing a gem which the Djinn resides in.
Lisa is married to Sam – the introductory shag scene in the first five minutes of the movie will drive home that fact into the audience’s skull, provided they can take their eyes off Tara Spencer-Nairn’s bared breasts, that is – but soon after they are married, Sam is involved in an accident that leaves his entire lower body paralyzed. Sam is so whiny and difficult to be with that Lisa is becoming more estranged from him. Steven is the lawyer trying to get the bike manufacturer responsible to pay up (Steve’s accident was due to a defect in his bike), and he also hopes to win Lisa’s affections from Sam.
Alas for Steven, the Djinn soon kills him and takes over his identity so that he can get closer to Lisa. Unfortunately for him, Lisa’s third wish is for her to love Steven for the real he. This is one wish that the Djinn cannot grant – Lisa must fully love him for who he really is and so he must now pursue her with the zeal of a psychotic stalker who isn’t above using murder and mayhem to get his way. Even worse, he starts falling for Lisa. Meanwhile, the Hunter, a heavenly crusader, is sent to kill Lisa before the Djinn can use her to wreck havoc on earth. It is amusing that the script has the Hunter coming after Lisa only after she has made her third wish. Wouldn’t he be too late by then to save the world?
What really makes this movie enjoyable is the interplay between Ms Spencer-Nairn and Michael Trucco. Lisa may bare her kittens like a typical B-grade bimbo but she escapes the fate of other B-grade females that go nude – she doesn’t die and she certainly doesn’t run into dark lanes or up to the attic, for example. But it is Michael Trucco’s Steven that is truly the most enjoyable to watch. He exudes pure animal magnetism even when he’s at his most evil, and I don’t think there are many villains that make stalking as romantic as he. There’s something very attractive in how he will kill and generally do anything his evil mind can think of to win Lisa’s affections. I must be really twisted because the part where he casually smiles mischievously at Lisa as he directs the person at the other end of the phone to mutilate himself before shooting himself in the head? That scene is so freaking hot. It’s just too bad that the real appearance of the Djinn, played most amusingly by John Novak, is like some badly-made up weirdo that will make even the worst made-up monsters on Buffy the Vampire Slayer cry, which ruins the whole sexy evil Djinn thing a little.
Other secondary cast members are mostly useless. Sam is too one-dimensional to care for, although Jason Thompson gives some nice shirtless scenes of course. Tracy, Lisa’s buddy, is amusing if only because she makes a big mistake of wishing for “killer sex”. Victor Webster’s role as the Hunter is strictly a “what on earth?” moment. But on the whole, there is a very low body count in this movie for a B-grade horror flick, with the emphasis instead on the Djinn’s increasingly psychotic courtship of Lisa being the main focus of the story.
Fans expecting a typical gore-T&A-death B-grade horror flick may be disappointed with Wishmaster: The Prophecy Fulfilled, but other people looking for some fun campy movie with bad plot, awful cosmetics, beautiful people, and a truly delicious villain to spend away an hour or two may be pleasantly delighted with it. I know I am!
