Horrid Horror Movie Review: Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies

A lot of people may not know this, but I have a weakness for surprisingly good horror movies. The first one that caught me pleasantly off guard was the first Wishmaster movie. An evil genie (a Djinn) that grants wishes in twisted ways? The way Andrew Divoff portrayed the Djinn as a mix of charming and psychotic was nearly perfectly balanced. Throw in Angus Scrimm, Tony Todd, and Robert Englund in actually good parts, and you have a classic. It was a good start to a series castwise, and storywise, it had its fair share of cheap scare tactics, but was still written interestingly enough to keep your attention.

Needless to say, sequels were spawned. I know full well that sequels usually aren't as good as the first, but what could one expect from this? How bad could it possibly be? It's not like the kills can get so bizarre that they're bafflingly bad. Right? Right...? Well, let's find out as we tear into Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies.

We start the movie with two art thieves stealing six badly done paintings. One of them sees a diamond in a glass case, and breaks the case, setting off the alarm. Ten seconds into the movie, and all ready our main character proves to be a massive moron. The security guard comes out and immediately starts shooting at the thieves (without any provocation), and accidently hits the statue of Ahura Mazda. By the way, the statue is broken into pieces and rebuilt like a broken vase, despite the first movie ending in which the final wish is that the statue never broke in the first place, thus the Djinn could have never been released. With that in mind, 1: How is the world even in existence figuring that the Djinn would've taken it over? And 2: Figuring a guy found the Opal in the statue and stole it, how the hell is it still in the statue? Did the writers ever stop to think of the first movie aside from casting Andrew Divoff as the Djinn?

Apparently not, but we'll get into that shortly. A thief takes the Opal, and runs. While running, both of the thieves gets shot, and the second one shoots the guard, killing him. She takes off her mask and says that the Opal stopped the bullet. Apparently, its teflon now. It starts to burn her hand, and she drops it, breaking it in half. It can take a bullet, but the floor breaks it... physics much? The first thief tells her to run (by the way, her name is Morgana) because he's going to die. She takes the paintings and runs while the broken Opal sprouts out tentacles and creates a hole in the wall. The Djinn emerges from the organic hole and... what the fuck is that thing? That's not the Djinn! The Djinn is supposed to look like a giant zombie fetus, not a half-assed Boglin. I mean, come on, did the special effects team even watch the original?

The Djinn sees the thief dying, and tells him he can end his suffering. He doesn't respond, so the Djinn offers eternal life, and finally the thief says he wish he was never born. You know, because that would be great for his fellow thief girlfriend. This guy is a selfish twatwaffle. The Djinn grants his wish, turning him from man to fetus to nothing. Thankfully, they skipped the sperm and egg stage. This causes the Djinn to become his adult form, and then his human form, stealing the thief's clothes. The cops come in, and one finds the Djinn and tells him to freeze. Of course, the Djinn freezes him... even though it wasn't a wish. *facepalm* Anyway, it doesn't matter as the Djinn gives himself up to the next cop who arrives. Maybe its because he was tired of watching the frozen cop move despite the fact he's supposed to be frozen and dead.

The news reports that Nathan Demerst, the Djinn, confessed to the robbery and murder, causing Morgana to throw a fit in her apartment filled with pictures of naked women. Keep this in mind for later. The detective interrogates Demerst, but to no avail. This is mainly because Demerst confessed, and the detective doesn't believe Demerst stole the paintings or shot the guard because the paintings and the gun were never found. Wait... didn't both thieves have guns? Anyway, the Djinn is taken out of the room as the detective says that he has the creeps, and does the robot. The Djinn is sent to prison.

Now, lets stop and talk about Andrew Divoff's Djinn in this movie. In the first movie, Djinn was psychotic yet charming. In this movie, though, the same Djinn is portrayed as creepy as shit. He walks around with a psychotic grin, mainly because he has it one constantly, and he's slouching constantly as well. Even worse, he has the same cadence in speech that Isaiah Mustafa uses for the Old Spice commercials. Seriously, for the past few days, I've been joking around, imitating the Djinn doing the "I'm on a horse commercial." This is only exacerbated by something that'll happen later in this movie.

Morgana goes to church and tells her ex-boyfriend, who is now a priest, that she feels guilty for her boyfriend's death, and doesn't understand why Demerst took credit for the robbery. We then see a defining moment in cinema history. Demerst, grinning like a fucking psycho, overhears two men talking. One is upset because his sister called rape on him. Of course, this guy claims that his sister slept with him consensually. And, no, I don't think this is prison slang, mainly because most people don't call a woman their sleeping with their "sister!" Anyway, the other says he's their because the police did an illegal search, and his lawyer didn't catch it. He says he wants his lawyer to go "fuck him self." The Djinn overhears this, talks to the guy, and says he can make it happen. The guy says that he better be playing for real, to which the Djinn retorts, "I only play... 'for real.'" He's not on a horse. As the guards take the guy to see his lawyer, a buff guy and his clones of Bruce Lee twins threaten the Djinn to no avail.

The guy talks to his lawyer, saying that he's going for an appeal because he now knows the search was illegal. While he talks, though, he starts to feel a sudden pain. This causes him to get up, lean on the desk, and make his legs turn backwards as his pants tear. He then, somehow, literally starts to fuck himself in the ass. The inmate asks the lawyer about his case nonetheless. Morgana panics because she can see this.

Father Gregory goes to Morgana's house because his boss said that she was their looking for him. Well... yeah. You just talked to her! Anyway, she tells Gregory that she killed the guard and stole the paintings. Gregory is surprised, but comforts her as she starts talking about the visions she's having. Notice, he's not deterred by the photos of naked women behind her. She decides to see Demerst who tells her he's a Djinn, and he will escape to grant three wishes so he can take over the world. Morgana then goes to the internet to look up Djinns to find out what they do. This is the part where I want to grab her by the neck and kill her. Why? Because, she's just too stupid to breathe! The Djinn told her what he's after. Why's she looking it up? Needless to say, she tells Gregory about this, and he goes to visit the Djinn. Convinced that the Djinn is evil (mainly for hinting that the priest is lusting after Morgana, who looks like the ugly version of Abby from NCIS.

Before this, though, the Djinn makes a deal with a Russian guy that, when the time is right, they'll both escape. This gets him into a fight with the big guy, who wants drugs from the Djinn. He wishes to "get tore up from the floor up," in the whitest voice possible, meaning that the Bruce Lee clones kick his ass. For this, the Djinn gets sent to solitary for a week. When he goes to talk to the priest, he grins like a psycho... still. After the conversation, the Djinn meets with the Russian guy again, only to get in a fight with a guard. The guard wishes to fight the Djinn, causing... well, the Djinn to kill him, takes his body, and leaves with Russian Man.

After finding out that only a pure soul can kill the Djinn, Morgana cuts off her finger. How in the name of Wes Craven does that even work? How did she come to the conclusion that that works? I mean, she even reads that she needs to get the Opal and say some words... my head hurts.

Anyway, after all ready having a wish granted, Russian Man wants another: to be head of the Russian Mob. Instead, the Djinn is tricked into granting the bosses wish for the head of his enemy, Mustafa, thus making Russian Man the head of the mob. The Djinn, only having 200 souls for the 1000 he needs tries to leave for Vegas, but Morgana shoots him. This obviously doesn't work as she has been told how to kill the Djinn, and no where does getting the Opal mean "shoot the Djinn with a revolver." The Djinn leaves, Russian Man says where he's going, and Morgana proceeds to have sex with Father Gregory. Way to commit to that staying pure thing. Hell, way to commit to being a priest.

At Vegas, the Djinn is hired to run a casino instantly. Upon hearing that the Casino wishes everyone the best, the Djinn makes everyone win. He then sits in his office, holding the opal like an oyster with tickets to that thing you love has just turned into it. He's still not on a horse. Morgana and Father Gregory burst in, and Gregory, choosing his words wisely, says "I wish thee back to hell." The Djinn, with Morgana, are now in his realm, and he shows her that Gregory is crucified on a cross. Movie, leave the blasphemy to people who can pull it off. Morgana wishes for Gregory to be set free. Realizing that hell isn't a good place to think, the Djinn takes her back to the casino, and tricks the manager into wishing that the nightmare of a night was over. This causes the casino to go crazy, including cards cutting people into pieces, and a woman defecating quarters because she "crapped out."

The Djinn gets Morgana's second wish, that she missed the guard. Her soul now pure, she reaches out, grabs the Opal in his hand, and says the magic words. He is then sucked into the Opal, never to be seen again.

This movie pisses on the legacy of the first. The acting is awful, the writing is cheesy, and our main character is a complete nimrod who deserves this happening to her.

This is the Window Keeper signing off to-- wait! Did they really have a lawyer fuck himself in the ass?