Horror Movie Review – Wishmaster 3: Devil Stone (2001)

Wishmaster 3: Beyond The Gates Of Hell otherwise known as Wishmaster 3: Devil Stone in the United Kingdom is the second sequel to the film Wishmaster. The first two had their faults but overall I thought they were decent, thoroughly entertaining horror movies with the highlight being Andrew Divoff’s performance as the Djinn. He brought real personality to the evil wish granter and managed to strike a perfect balance with being highly amusing and charismatic in some scenes while being intimidating and even scary in others. This is the main reason why I’ve put off reviewing the 3rd and 4th movies this long; Andrew Divoff does not play the Djinn in either film. For me, he is the Djinn in the same way Robert Englund is Freddy or Doug Bradley is Pinhead; some people you just can’t replace. Regardless, they did replace him so let’s have a look at Wishmaster III and see how it went.
We’re rather quickly introduced to Diana, a university student who has nightmares surrounding the deaths of her parents for which she feels responsible. She agrees to meet her British history/archaeology professor after hours to gain some extra credit, much to the disdain of her boyfriend Greg. You see, Diana has intimacy issues and is yet to say the big L to Greg which makes him sad and pretty damn annoying.

Anyway, she goes to her late night meet up with Professor Barash but for whatever reason he doesn’t turn up for ages. Diana notices a strange box on a table and manages to open it without much trouble, inside of the box lays the familiar red gemstone.

She rubs the gem and awakens the Djinn, Barash finally turns up but Diana decides to leave after having a strange vision. After gaining his freedom, the Djinn is asked by Professor Barash to let him be the one who makes the wishes. The professor wishes for two of the world’s loveliest ladies to be with him, in love. However, as soon as the Djinn grants this wish, the women (who were dressed in very revealing belly-dancer outfits and being seductive) kill the professor; the Djinn takes the face off of the dead professor and is able to steal his identity.

Thus begins one of the biggest problems with this movie, The Djinn doesn’t even seem to follow its own rules. Why did the women even kill Barash, he asked for them to be in love with him and they tear him apart? It makes no sense. He then kills a secretary by her wishing for “files to burn up” but instead of the files, she burns, along with his needing the student file of Diana as an effort to find her and force her to fulfil her three wishes.

After a whole lot of cat and mouse chasing between Diana and The Djinn as well as some genuinely pointless scenes, they finally encounter each other. Diana hides in a Church thinking it was safe, the Djinn is there instead of the priest where apparently her friend Ann is now the “professor’s Teaching Assistant” and made the wish of “wanting to lose a little weight” to which she pukes up her guts in pain. Diana uses her first wish for her to stop having pain, but of course that to the Djinn means to kill Ann. Diana noting that she is in a St. Michael church, uses another wish to summon the archangel Michael who possesses the body of her boyfriend, Greg (it was about to be her body, but Greg pushed her away as the spirit went into him).

A slight fight ensues with the Djinn actually somewhat winning, but Michael and Diana escape into a stage theatre. Meanwhile as the Djinn tries to follow them, he goes a different way and encounters a female student named Helen who puts the moves on him, and then wishes for him to “break her heart”, in which he literally does resulting in her death. Next, the Djinn goes into the room of Diana where her friend Billy is, Billy tells the Djinn to “blow him” in which he does blow his body into a wooded head of a bull in which the horns pierce into the body of Billy in which the bleeding kills him.

Everything starts to get really absurd and ridiculous at this point. There is further cat and mouse chasing between the Djinn, Diana and Michael as well as a hilarious scene in which the Djinn attempts to car surf upon their fleeing vehicle.

In the end, Diana attempts to commit suicide by jumping off a building which would defeat the Djinn (but then the Djinn saves her) and yet this actually gives her the ability to wield Michael’s sword and she kills the Djinn with it, but is fatally injured when they both fall in the process. Michael heals her wounds before returning to Heaven, and Diana is finally able to admit she loves her boyfriend, who has returned to normal, though injured.

One thing I wanna know, why the hell was Michael so damn useless and why didn’t Diana just wish that she had gone to another university of that she had never opened the box that contained the gemstone or well a million and one better wishes than the ones she picked.

So then, that’s Wishmaster 3 and unfortunately my initial trepidation was realised. Where to start oh where to start…. I’ve seen worse acting but that isn’t really saying much to be honest. Diana is really bland, her boyfriend is annoying when he’s Greg and he’s useless when he’s Michael; don’t get me started on her friends.

The blood and gore is plentiful but it’s pretty unconvincing to look at, blood isn’t that watery. Even though I know that the Djinn is a guy in a rubber suit, they should at least try and do a better job of not making it so obvious.

As for John Novak playing the Djinn well, it just sucked compared to Andrew Divoff. He’s more laughable than scary or intimidating but it would seem that’s what they were going for. Sex scenes are never a good substitute for story or character development; it seemed as if a horny teenager had directed the film at times. As I mentioned above, the system in which the Djinn grants wishes has become beyond stupid. I’m pretty sure he grants a wish to someone who simply says “I’d give my soul for blah blah blah” but that’s not how it works, they have to say I wish. It really felt to me as if the director just hadn’t bothered to watch either of the first two films. When someone wishes that they “had a place to hide” the djinn pushes their head in a wire mesh cage with lab rats? In what sense is that “hiding”? The first movie was clever enough to set up situations where the djinn actually fulfilled the wishes…but with unforeseen consequences. The invocation of the Archangel Michael and his flaming sword is really idiotic and leads nowhere anyway. Jason Connery wasn’t terrible as Professor Barash but he’s no Andrew Divoff that’s for sure.

I guess as long as you go into watching it not expecting much then there is a small amount of entertainment to be had for B movie fans, it’s corny and will have you laughing but for all the wrong reasons.