Horror Movie Review: Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002)

Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy fulfilled is the third sequel to the original Wishmaster and the fourth and final film in the series. Wishmaster 3 was pretty awful, it basically ruined just about everything that made the first two enjoyable, so what else could go wrong? It’s only up from here right? Right!? Apparently there was essentially a weekend between the filming of the third and fourth which indicates to me that Artisan Entertainment were looking to milk any value the Wishmaster name still had to it while there was anything left to milk. Andrew Divoff is absent once again (can you blame him) so we’re stuck with John Novak as the Djinn for a second time.

We all know how this works by now right? An evil Djinn is released from his prison – an ancient jewel – and must grant three wishes to the person who awakens him, in order to release the race of Djinns from hell and allow them to take over the earth.

Painter Sam (Jason Thompson) and his girlfriend Lisa (Tara Spencer-Nairn) have just moved in together when he has a terrible accident that leaves him crippled for life. Determined to help him sue the organization responsible for his accident, Lisa retains a lawyer, Steven (Michael Trucco), who has a crush on her and doesn’t hide it.

Sensing Sam’s growing distance from Lisa, Steven moves in, awkwardly offering as a gift a jewel he found hidden away in an antique desk. The jewel, unknown to Steven, is the Djinn’s cell. Lisa inadvertently awakens the Djinn, which secretly kills Steven and takes his form. The Djinn/Steven begins making advances on Lisa to trick her into making wishes. I will say that I enjoyed Michael Trucco as the Djinn much more than that guy who looked like Simon Pegg’s long lost brother in the third.

Also, he has a much more patient approach with the wishes and manages to get Lisa and others to make wishes in a much smarter way. Unfortunately though, it still suffers from the stupidity of the Djinn granting wishes when people don’t directly say “I wish”, how is that so hard to get right? If someone says “I’d love to have a million dollars” that doesn’t bloody count. I could go on and on complaining about the inconsistencies with the writing but clearly the writers of the film didn’t care so why should I?

Anyway, Lisa inadvertently casts three wishes. The first two he grants (one of which is that Sam can walk again), but the third is the hardest one: Lisa wishes to love Steven as he really is. Aware that his true form will lose her forever, he is unable to grant it right away; he spends much time trying to decipher human love in order to “make” Lisa truly love him, and in the process he develops feelings for her. Meanwhile, his fellow Djinn constantly beg him to grant the third wish and let their race inherit the earth.

Yep, it’s really stupid but what do you even expect at this point? Lisa doesn’t even say her third wish directly to the Djinn, he’s in a completely different room and she just mumbles it and that counts? How about the Djinn just doesn’t grant that wish and gets her to wish for something else, it was seriously easy to get her to make the first two wishes. I’m just convinced that the Djinn doesn’t actually want to free the others even though that’s been his motive the last 4 films.

An angel attempts to kill him and Lisa beforehand to prevent the third wish. However, Steven sends her away and kills the angel after a really random, badly choreographed sword fight takes place.

Due to his previous planning, the Dhjinn has tricked Sam into believing Lisa has now fallen in love with Steven and this leads him to leave. Steven later arrives at Lisa’s house with some flowers in an attempt to calm her down from the angel’s attack and console her, they proceed to have sex. Once Lisa calms down afterward, she realizes she has missed having sex but does not love Steven. At his wit’s end, Steven redresses himself and heads upstairs after her. He reveals his true form to Lisa and offers a choice; take his hand as the second in command when the Djinn race takes over the world, or to be cast down to another dimension of hell. At the climax, Sam returns and tries to save the day with an angel’s sword (wished for by him), but gets stabbed by the Djinn; you suck Sam. While the Djinn is still making attempts to convince Lisa to take his hand, Sam invites Lisa to push the Djinn through the blade which is also in Sam. Lisa does that, and both the Djinn and Sam perish. Lisa makes it out of the house and tries to continue on with her life, the end.

All of the other trapped Djinn must be absolutely pissed that the only Djinn that is free and capable of saving them is a complete idiot. The third wish – Lisa has to love Steven for who he really is which is the Djinn in all his rubber suit glory. Forcing her into an ultimatum and asking her to take your hand DOES NOT mean that she loves you so basically that’s another loophole for beating the Djinn. Lisa will never love the Djinn for who he is so he will never be able to fulfil the prophecy which also means that the title to this movie is a big fat liar. I can think of dozens of wishes Lisa could have made that would have meant she had never come into possession of the gemstone.

Wishmaster 4 is an improvement over the third film, I have no doubt about that but it still fails to capture just about anything that made the first two enjoyable. The acting isn’t too bad and the storyline involving Lisa, Steven and Sam is fairly decent but it just leads to stupidity. It has fun with some scenes and a few of the deaths which is very welcome but it’s accompanied by too many inconsistencies within the whole wish making system and how I thought it worked. It doesn’t feel like the budget to the film was insanely low or anything but some of the makeup effects are to a pretty low standard. Overall, it’s better than the third but I would highly recommend that you stick with the first two, enjoy Andrew Divoff and forget that there ever was two straight to video sequels.