Reaction & Review | Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we're taking a look at the third entry in the "Wishmaster" series. It came out in 2001. That movie is "Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell".

Now, if you haven't been following what I've covered last month, let me bring you up to speed. Last month, I reviewed the first two "Wishmaster" movies, and I really enjoyed both of them. The first movie was amazing. And the second film, while kinda flawed, is still really solid. And I liked both films enough to where I could recommend both of them. We're now up to the third film in this series, and I'm a little concerned about the quality for both this movie and the fourth film. But I'm gonna get more into that when I start to cover the fourth movie. For now, I'm just gonna focus on this one.

As for "Wishmaster 3", I don't know anything about the plot, outside the fact that the Djinn returns to cause havoc and fulfill his own prophecy. Now, as I was doing the scant bit of research I did on this movie, I found out something rather interesting. You see, as I made mention in my review of "Wishmaster 2", Andrew Divoff, the guy who played the Djinn from the first two "Wishmaster" movies, does not reprise his role here. However, he WAS suppose to return for this movie, and he had written a completely different script for "Wishmaster 3". Basically, his script involved the events surrounding Y2K, where it would have stuff such as an American warship being attacked by a missile from Asia, and how the UN would be attacked by creatures that appear from out of nowhere. And, I will say that, it does sound very fascinating. However, due to creative differences with the producers of "Wishmaster 3", they turned it down, because they felt like his script was too ambitious and expensive for them to work on. And when Divoff read the official script for "Wishmaster 3", he HATED it. So much so that he left production shortly afterwards. Which is how we ended up with a new actor now playing as the Djinn for both this movie and the fourth one.

Now I don't really know if that's going to be a detriment to this movie, seeing as how Andrew Divoff hated what was in the official script. But I'm gonna consider this a minor issue, because opinions can, and always have been different from person to person. I might find something here in this movie that I'm really going to like. However, I could totally see this thing flying way off the fucking rails and completely sucking. But the only way I'm gonna know if this thing is gonna be any good or not, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell".

19 minutes later

OK...that was kinda funny, in the way that the Djinn uses the voices of both Diana and her teacher to make it sound like they're fucking each other. I wasn't expecting that.

17 minutes later

Guys, I just saw someone die from burning when her files went up in flames. And while it certainly was a decent kill, I've seen these kills done better in the previous two "Wishmaster" movies. I'm certainly hoping that the kills are going to improve as the film goes along. But, so far, I'm kinda unimpressed.

7 minutes later

Wait a second here. So the woman from earlier that was killed by the Djinn's fire was just being confirmed by Diana to her other three friends. Has it not been announced to the other students at this school that someone was killed last night? I understand that it could've been written off as an "accident", because, obviously, the people at the crime scene have no proof that it was the Djinn's wish that killed her. But the very fact that it hasn't been publicly announced yet is rather disturbing.

10 minutes later

I swear to God, guys, these fucking attempts at jump scares are getting worse. I really wish this movie would knock that shit off, because every attempt at these has gotten really stupid. And I kinda hope I don't see any more of them in this movie.

2 minutes later

OK...you know what...that actually is rather nasty. Just seeing this chick vomiting to death after attempting to lose weight is...rather sick. So far, it's the best the kill in the entire movie. It's not great...but it's certainly kinda gruesome.

12 minutes later

Thank Christ, that idiot is dead. I was just waiting for him to die in the most painful way possible. At least my wish kinda came true on that. So hopefully, the movie will actually get better from here.

11 minutes later

Wait a fucking second here. So because Diana's friend has been nearly killed to death by rats, the angel that is possessing her boyfriend's body says it's too late for her. Yet earlier on, he healed Diana's arm after her hand caught fire by trying to touch the Sword of Justice. Why can't he do the same for this other woman? She might still be alive. I think you could, maybe, heal her so she can have her body back! You know, guys, the writing in this thing is starting to hurt my brain and it's beginning to depress me a little bit.

The Review

All right, well, that ending was kinda sappy. Well, guys, that was "Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell". I'm gonna shut the movie off...OK. Wow, um...I gotta say, that was certainly...disappointing.

I need to start with something that I brought up very early on. I talked about how Andrew Divoff was suppose to return for this movie, along with a completely different script he had written for "Wishmaster 3". And when he read the official script after his was turned down, he hated it, and basically left the project. After watching this movie for myself, I think I kinda know why he left. And I have a theory as to why. Now, mind you, this is just a theory, so you have to take it for what it's worth. I believe, part of the reason, why he left was because of how the Djinn was written in this movie. OK sure, he's back granting wishes to anyone with their darkest desires, and he's still trying to fulfill his prophecy of unleashing Hell on Earth by granting the person who awakened him 3 wishes. Which, OK, it's totally cool that we still have that here. But here's where I have to interject here. In this movie, the Djinn is written like a psychotic stalker. And that's not how the Djinn was. OK sure, there were moments in the previous two films where the main characters from those two movies would have visions of the Djinn in where he's about to kill someone, or he's already killed his next victim through one of his many wishes. However, I wouldn't consider that stalking, because the two main characters from the previous movies were the ones that awakened him, thus is the reason why they have visions of him. And while the same applies here with our new main character, Diana, the Djinn kinda takes it up a notch by becoming this fucking stalker who's desperate to try and find her so that he can fulfill her 3 wishes. Which is a stark contrast, when compared to "Wishmaster 2". Because in that movie, the Djinn was patient, partially because he was in prison. He was in no real hurry to grant as many wishes as he could, up until at a certain point when he realizes that he needed to grant around 800 more wishes. Well, from that film to this one, that concept was apparently scrapped, so he just has to grant Diana's 3 wishes and that's it. There's no set amount of wishes that he needs to grant in order to get to the 3 wishes he needs to make for Diana. And he becomes especially demanding when he's trying to get Diana to grant her third wish. And while that was sorta the case from the previous two films, in which he was kinda demanding to grant the main character's third wishes, it was nowhere near to this fucking extreme. Especially at one point, he does something in this movie that I didn't think was possible. At one point, when Diana and her boyfriend, who has been possessed by this angel, they attempt to get away from school campus by car. And somehow, the Djinn is able to catch up to them by running, despite the fact he's a mystical being, and the fact that the car was going pretty damn fast. So how he was able to catch onto them by car on foot still leaves me baffled. But honestly, that's a very minor problem in the long run. But regardless, I can easily say that the Djinn is nowhere near as interesting as he was in the previous two "Wishmaster" movies.

I don't normally ever get to talk about this in my reviews, but I want to talk about consistency. And it mainly has to do with how the Djinn is to be defeated. Now, in the first movie, I talked about a twist towards the end of the film, in which the Djinn is sealed back into it's gem by undoing the entire movie. Now, while I may have given away what happens, I didn't say HOW it happened. That part I'm still going to leave for you guys to watch. But I will say that if you did watch the first "Wishmaster" movie, and you saw how that twist plays out, you could maybe attribute that to just sheer dumb luck that it actually worked. And I could totally see why you would think that. But regardless, it still made some level of sense. At least, to me, it did. In the second movie, the way the Djinn had to sealed back into it's gem was for someone of a pure heart to read off a certain incantation. Which, admittedly, sounds kinda stupid. But to be fair, it was never really established in the first movie on how to truly seal the Djinn away. And again, the reason why he was sealed away in the first movie was out of sheer dumb luck. Well, at least that's what I would go by, if I were looking at it from a different viewpoint. But anyway, the idea of the Djinn being sealed away from an incantation kinda makes sense. Granted, the main character didn't exactly have a pure heart, but, oh well, it still worked, regardless. So with all that in mind, how does the third movie handle this? Well, in this movie, Diana has to use a weapon known as the Sword of Justice. How does she even get this sword? Well, when she's making her second wish, she wishes for an angel of heaven to come by to help her defeat the Djinn. This happens when the angel possesses her boyfriend's body, and uses it to fight off the Djinn. And then this angel tells her that she's not ready to use the Sword of Justice because...reasons, I guess. No seriously, there's not a single explanation as to why she's not able to use this sword to defeat the Djinn. He just tells her that she's not ready to use it because fuck you, that's why. That's literally the only explanation I can come up with is because fuck you, that's why. Also, why does it have to be a sword? Why exactly can't it be an incantation like it was in the previous film? Does that mean, then, that once the Djinn has broken out of it's gem, it has to be sealed back in a different manner? I understand that the people who wrote this movie didn't think that far ahead, but I have a functioning brain, and the people who wrote this movie don't. So I guess consistency is not within this movie's playbook. Plus also, bit of a spoiler, when the Djinn does get killed by the sword, the gem loses it's color and, I guess, disappears. Which begs the question on how the hell he returns in the fourth movie? I don't know. But I'll find that out in a couple of weeks.

Before I get into the characters, there's one other thing about this movie's writing that irritates the shit out of me. And that's the jump scares. You see, guys, one of the things that made the previous two "Wishmaster" movies unique was that it never relied on jump scares. At no point, did it ever play itself up in leaning towards a jump scare. It wanted to tell really fascinating stories, and it never followed the horror movie cliche of having jump scares. This movie, however, goes down that bullshit route that you see in a lot of horror movies. This movie, I swear to God, has about 5 or 6 different jump scares. And guess what? They all failed miserably. Which is not surprising, considering that jump scares are one of the laziest things you could do in horror movies. Now I am not saying that you can't have jump scares in horror movies. You can have them, as long as they're kinda, sorta, clever. This movie doesn't even know what clever means, because each time that they did this, it got progressively worse. And none of it was scary or clever in the slightest. In fact, I haven't seen jump scares done this poorly since I watched "Tourist Trap". The only reason why this movie edges out on it's jump scares was because "Tourist Trap" telegraphed it's jump scares so fucking poorly. Anyways, as for our characters, just about all of them are bland and lifeless. And I'm going to include the main character, Diana. In this movie, Diana is incredibly dull. Like, she really doesn't have much of a personality. The only thing that we know about her background is that when she was younger, her parents died in a car crash. Because, you know, that is in no way a cliche backstory. Other than that, she also has a boyfriend, who, for most of the movie, ends up being possessed by this angel. Speaking of the angel, as I made mentioned earlier, he is the reason why the Sword of Justice exists. So basically, if Diana didn't make the wish to summon this angel, then she would, probably, have no way to defeat the Djinn. Which, I consider this dumb luck more so than anything else, but I digress. Anyway, one thing that bothers me about the angel is how his powers work. And this is probably a minor issue, but I still want to bring it up. So earlier, I mentioned how Diana was unable to use the Sword of Justice because of fuck you, that's why. Maybe the movie was trying to rehash the idea from the second movie, in which Diana had to be of a pure heart to use this sword, but since the movie never mentions that, I'm going to stick with my answer of fuck you, that's why. Anyway, so when Diana tried to touch the Sword of Justice, her arm burned with fire, causing her to have massive burn marks. So the angel heals her by blowing on her arm and getting rid of her burn marks. I bring this up, because later on when one of her friends ends up getting her eyes and lips eaten by rats, she was still moving, if just barely. And rather than healing her because he's an angel, he says that it's too late for her, even though he had NO problem healing Diana's arm with relative ease. Why couldn't he save this woman's life, as well? Unless she was already dead, then he could've maybe saved her life. But on the other hand, she might've been already dead, so maybe I'm just reading too much into that idea.

Anyway, guys, the writing in this thing is a fucking mess. And I could be here for another hour talking about all of the problems I had with this movie's writing, but I've said plenty about it as is, so I'll just leave it with what I said. Now, what about the acting? Well, surprisingly, the acting is actually pretty good. Mind you, it's not great, but it's certainly not terrible. I want to make mention of the new actor who plays the Djinn, which is John Novak. John Novak does a pretty good job here. Granted, he's never going to replace Andrew Divoff, who mastered that role to damn near perfection, but Novak still did a decent job here. I kinda wish the Djinn was written better here, but I'm not going to fault Novak's performance here for that. I just think that if he had gotten a much better script, he could've done wonders. But, oh well, it is what it is. I will say that, at least, I'm not going to dread seeing him play the Djinn again when I get around to watching the fourth movie. But I'm getting off track here. The acting from the rest of the cast is halfway decent. So, even though they didn't really have much here to work with, they still turned in decent enough showings. And that's really the best I could ask for, when given a script that was kinda shit.

Now let's get to special effects. One thing that caught my attention on the back of the DVD case for this movie was that it stated that this film was the goriest installment of the franchise. And while I will say that the gore and blood effects are decent, they really feel like a massive downgrade. And that's saying a lot, coming from a movie was that was suppose to be the goriest installment yet. But you see, I stated it earlier, I've seen these special effects done better in the previous two films. My guess is that this thing was filmed on a slightly lower budget. And that might be the case here. But regardless, I still think everything involving blood, gore, and CG was done better in the other two movies. Now, mind you, none of the effects here are bad. In fact, as I stated, the blood effects are pretty good, the gore is not too bad, and the makeup effects and costuming on the Djinn look really damn good. Unfortunately, though, you barely ever get to see the Djinn in his true form. You see it once in the beginning of the movie, you see it once again halfway through the movie, and you see it one more time after the Djinn "dies" from the sword. And I'm gonna use the term "die" as loosely as possible, what with being a fourth movie and all. So overall, I can say that the special effects are fine. But like I said, I've seen them done better in the previous two "Wishmaster" films.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting here is lit pretty well. Sound-mix here is competent. Music, in both score and soundtrack, is nothing ultimately special. But then again, the music in the first 2 "Wishmaster" movies weren't really memorable either. So, I guess, so far, it's par for the course. But it's still passable, so I can at least give the music a bit of a positive.

Ultimately, guys, am I able to recommend "Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell"? Oh God...I'm trying to think of a way to answer that. Um...if you were a fan of the first two "Wishmaster" movies, then...sure. However, I would find a way to rent this movie first. If it's on Netflix, Hulu, or on any streaming service that you can find it on, or if you can find it airing on TV somewhere, then watch it there. And who knows? Maybe you'll find something more out of this thing than I did. And if you liked it enough, then go ahead and find a copy of it somewhere. But personally, I would say just skip it. This thing is definitely a step back from the previous two films, what with it's messy writing, it's dull and boring characters, and special effects, while decent, were done better in the previous two films. And after watching this movie, I honestly would've loved to have seen what they would've done with Andrew Divoff's script of "Wishmaster 3", had it gone through. Because this movie was incredibly dull, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle watching the fourth movie. But I am going to hold out hope that the fourth film is going to be better. However...considering the information that I do know about that fourth movie, it's kinda doubtful. But again, I'll worry about all of that once I get around to watching that fourth movie. For now, though...I'm gonna go find something better to watch. I think I'll go watch my copy of "Tokyo Gore Police". Because why not? I kinda need to watch something better after dealing with this disappointment.

Anyway, with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.