Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001)

The Wishmaster series continues its descent into the depths of direct to video hell, as the movies got cheaper and less fun.The premise of this movie is that the Gem containing the Djinn is now found in cheap box instead of a nice statue of Ahura-Mazda. Also lost in the budget cutting was Andrew Divoff, the guy who gave the Wishmaster all his menace in the previous two films.In this one, the Wishmaster is released by yet another troubled hot chick. (Seriously, I guess if a guy ever released the Wishmaster, the movie would be over in ten minutes after he wished for a keg, a million bucks and some hot babes!) While he is killing time, the new Wishmaster clumsily bullies his victims into making foolish wishes. (Again, Divoff's version was much more sinister in his manipulations.) I'm guessing they filmed this on a real college campus, because they have a lot of footage of people running about doing that setting.The plot also involves invoking the Archangel Michael to help defeat the Wishmaster by bringing a sword that can kill it. Or something. Just tricking it with a cleverly worded third wish wasn't going to cut it anymore.

is that the granting of the wishes is so unimaginative. I mean, come on...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. Plus, the djinn was quite limited in what he could do to anyone who didn't make a wish. Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but the writers for this film obviously didn't understand the gimmick.Other than that, the filming is OK, the acting is acceptable, and the FX are fair to middlin'. It's just that this third chapter in the story doesn't play by the rules.

I cannot believe what they have done to one of my favorite horror movies. It is all because of one problem too.... They didn't have Andrew Divoff playing the djinn, I thought it wouldn't be too bad at first but when i saw the djinn and he started talking i thought this movie was a complete joke. He sounded nothing like him, he didn't talk like him, and he also didn't even look like him. If somewhere it was mentioned that he was a different djinn I would have actually sorta liked the movie, but trying to pass this guy off as the original, scary, distinct-voiced djinn is an insult to Wishmaster. If you rent this movie then please brace yourself for a movie that is not worthy of the name Wishmaster. I have rented both 3 and 4 today and i have not seen 4 yet but i expect the worst. The thing that bugged me the most about the entire movie was the voice of the actor who played the djinn, I hoped for someone who could at least act like or sound like Divoff but i guess no one could pull that off so my advice is to stick with 1 and 2. The only reason you may want to watch 3 and 4 is to complete the story.

The film was shaky, the script trite and monotonous, everything seemed quite low-budget, and obviously. But, the actors did their best with what they had to work with, so I give the film credit for that. The Wishmaster series isn't one of my favorite, but I enjoy watching it from time to time, and you just can't get through the whole thing without the third part (not storyline-wise, because then this statement would be a lie, as the Wishmaster series is pretty much a repetition of a story, but with each story somewhat varied from the last). That plus the rather colorful scenes make the movie, in my opinion, a 4. I wouldn't go out and buy it, but it's definitely watch-worthy if it happens to be on SciFi randomly. I like Angel's directing, but the movie was low budget, and a little too obvious.