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The Wishmaster movies have been on a steady downhill slide. The series started out mediocre enough, only to sink to downright terrible by the time the third movie rolled around. My expectations for Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled were rock bottom, especially considering it was shot back-to-back with Part 3 and made by the same team. Imagine my surprise when I found myself actually enjoying this one.
That’s not to say this is a good movie, because it isn’t. It’s a low-budget horror flick designed for the direct-to-video market, and it still suffers from plenty of the same problems that made the third installment so terrible. The soap opera production values, cheap-looking sets, and questionable casting and acting are all still present, and in that department, it fares no better than its predecessor. But it does try something different: the story isn’t simply a rehash of the previous three movies, and it leans more heavily into gratuitous nudity, as the naked woman plastered across the poster and box art makes abundantly clear.
The story starts off much like its predecessors, with an attractive young woman releasing the Djinn from his stone prison. He takes over the body of an unsuspecting man and begins persuading people to make wishes before targeting the woman who can grant him three wishes. The big difference this time, as the subtitle suggests, is that the woman actually makes all three wishes, fulfilling the prophecy and paving the way for the Djinn and his brethren to take over Earth. There’s just one small catch: the woman has to fulfill or realise the final wish herself instead of the Djinn. This means the Djinn must go to extraordinary lengths to make her fall in love with him. Fortunately for him, he’s taken over the body of a man she’s clearly attracted to, so his plan might just work.
But this changes up the formula just enough to feel fresh, and the movie gets plenty of mileage out of the love triangle between its three main characters. The Djinn also finds himself being hounded by his fellow Djinn to fulfill the final wish, creating an entirely new dynamic in the third act. For once, the movie doesn’t end with a cleverly worded wish but with a more physical battle between humans and the Djinn. It’s a refreshing change after three movies that were practically identical in both story and structure.
I watched this franchise about 20 years ago, and I can still remember certain scenes or moments from each movie. My most vivid memory of this one was the opening scene, in which the protagonist couple enters their new home and immediately gets down to business. Yes, the movie kicks off with a sex scene featuring nudity, making it feel more like a late-night skin flick than a horror movie. There was some nudity in the previous installment, but Wishmaster 4 really dials things up a notch. Within the first 15 minutes, lead actress Tara Spencer-Nairn gets naked twice: first during the aforementioned sex scene and then in a gratuitous shower scene. The director clearly appreciates her physique, as there are several more moments where she’s stripped down to her underwear, including a few shots you don’t often see outside of straight-up porn. Throw in several other titillating scenes featuring (almost) nude actresses, and you’ve got the horniest Wishmaster movie of them all.
But enough about the boobs. It’s time to get to the bad parts.
Like its predecessor, Wishmaster 4 still looks and feels like a high school drama TV show, and the acting is about what you’d expect from one. None of the cast members are particularly impressive, but then again, the material they’re working with doesn’t exactly help. The central storyline feels more like a daytime soap opera than a horror movie: a lawyer secretly harbors feelings for Lisa, a woman whose failing relationship with her paraplegic boyfriend, Sam, is already on shaky ground. When the lawyer is killed and replaced by a malevolent Djinn, it exploits the couple’s troubled relationship to manipulate Lisa into granting three wishes. At times, it feels less like Wishmaster and more like The Bold and the Beautiful, only with a demonic wish-granter thrown in to spice up the love triangle.
Tara Spencer-Nairn is decent as Lisa, a woman torn between conflicting feelings, but her boyfriend Sam gets the thankless role of the annoying disabled person we so often see in movies: full of self-pity and constantly lashing out at others. It’s a tired trope, but one the movie needs to make Lisa’s growing feelings for the lawyer somewhat understandable. After all, she needs a reason to consider jumping ship, and apparently, having a paraplegic boyfriend who behaves like a jerk is the best the writers could come up with.
The final main character is Steven Verdel, the lawyer and homewrecker. He comes across as a Christian Bale from Temu. Still, he gets the juiciest role of the bunch, playing both the sincere, caring lawyer before his transformation and the considerably more sinister Djinn afterward. But in both roles his performance is rather camp.
The special effects aren’t particularly special either, thanks to the low budget, but at least they never sink to the depths of Wishmaster 3. The abundance of light and fire effects looks decidedly silly and dated, but they get the job done. Then again, this is clearly the kind of movie best enjoyed during a late-night viewing, when your expectations are low and the occasional cheesy effect is part of the charm.
Wishmaster 4 manages to do something you wouldn’t expect from the fourth installment in a franchise plagued by diminishing returns: it’s actually better than it has any right to be. I kind of like this movie, though that isn’t saying much. It’s still a cheap, straight-to-video horror flick with questionable effects and a welcome amount of nudity. In fact, there’s so much skin on display that it occasionally feels more like a late-night skin flick than a horror movie.
