Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell

I'm going to be frank. When I first saw Wishmaster back in 1997, I was greatly impressed. Here was a brave little film that: a) Stayed away from the teen horror genre (hiring hip teens to be butchered left and right) and hired unknowns. b) Was an homage to the splatterfests that haunted the screens from the late 70s to the early 90s (including the Freddy, Jason, and Pinhead films) c) Had some interesting cameos by some of the biggest horror stars, including Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees), and Tony Todd (Candyman). All you needed was Doug Bradley (Pinhead) and Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface) and you would have a full house! d) Introduced us to a frightening screen villain that joined the ranks of the classics: the Djinn.

What made the Djinn so eerie was his cruel wish-making and, of course, the voice and presence of Andrew Divoff.

When I first heard that they made Wishmaster 3 and Wishmaster 4 together and with a new actor as the Djinn, I was a bit disappointed. How could they replace the best actor to play the Djinn? It's like replacing Doug Bradley and Robert Englund and having Pinhead and Freddy played by Ewan McGregor and Seann William Scott. And when I finally saw Wishmaster 3, my worst fear had come true. I thought that Wishmaster 2 was pretty bad enough, especially with the Djinn design change, but when I saw this one, I was so insulted by it, I started thinking that Wishmaster 2 was a masterpiece.

I had a few main problems with the film.

A) The lame wishes. If the wish was grotesque, it was ridiculous. The exploding heart, grotesque. The professor being ravaged by the demon women, ridiculous.

B) The acting. The actors are talented people, but they acted like they didn't even WANT to be in the movie. A.J. Cook (talented, but bad material), Tobias Mehler (good actor, bad projects (especially that Godforsaken Carrie remake!!!), and Jason Connery (who doesn't seem to have as great an acting capability as his father) just never seem to be believable.

C) The Djinn himself. With Andrew Divoff, even in the most ridiculous scenes imaginable, he always found a way to make the Djinn dark and scary. With John Novak filling his shoes, he's degenerated the Djinn into a second-class jokester (think of Freddy in the later sequels).

D) St. Michael being the Djinn's nemesis? Does this even need to be talked about?

If you want to rent a good horror film, rent either Jeepers Creepers, the original Wishmaster, or Jason X (not 100% horror, but it's much more entertaining), or go to the theaters and see The Ring, Final Destination 2, or Darkness Falls. Just avoid Wishmaster 3: The Sword of Justice (or Beyond the Gates of Hell, whetever the Hell they decide to call it this week) like the plague!

Once again The Wishmaster returns but this time Andrew Divoff does not . Instead he is replace by John Novak who is just terrible in the role . He comes across as a fat idiot in make up . The Djin's human form is played by Jason Connery who isn't bad but he lacks the charm and wickedness of Andrew Divoff.

The Special effects are a notch better than those found in part 2 but they are nowhere near as good as those of the first movie .

Another problem with this film is the writting . The dialogue is just terrible .

All things considered this is a rather poor sequel . Not recommended !

Diana Collins (A.J.Cook – ‘Final Destination 2') unwittingly awakes the malicious Djinn (John Novak) who quickly assumes the identity of college professor Joel Barash (Jason Connery). The Djinn then enters a cat and mouse game with Diana in a bid to persuade her to make three wishes and thus condemning the world to an eternity of suffering.

This second sequel is the first movie in the series not to feature Andrew Divoff in the role of the Djinn. Instead, two people play the role, Connery plays the Djinn in human form and Novak assumes the character of the Djinn in demon form. Connery, to his credit, was not as bad a choice as I had first suspected. He managed to portray the Djinn with almost the right air of malevolence. However, Connery's near-powerful performance was let down by the performances of the rest of the cast. Even A.J. Cook, who put in a fairly good performance two years later in ‘Final Destination 2', really failed to impress as she came off as dry, unenthusiastic and generally monotonous.

The movie itself started off reasonably well enough but eventually degenerated into a tedious and overly dragging example of bad horror filmmaking. The plot became very predictable and the screenplay just did not flow well and left the film with continuous moments of pointless, and forced, dialogue. On top of this the script seemed to show little tangency with the previous instalments and, as with ‘Wishmaster 2', the `rules' of how the Djinn can interact with humans was changed. Also added were some unnecessary and (in many cases) ludicrous plot twists that made ‘Wishmaster 3' all that more difficult to watch. There was however some impressive (and plentiful) gore effects, though these were overshadowed by the overuse of cheap looking and unnecessary CGI. Chris Angel's direction was also of a very low standard as it showed little inspiration or creativity. In fact, the scenes stolen from the previous two instalments were robbed of any darkness that was evident in the other movies.

Overall this is a very poor movie and only just on the same level as the previous instalment. Up to now I have not been a fan of the ‘Wishmaster' franchise, and this movie has done nothing to change my mind. Fans of the original might enjoy this more than I did, though many may not be very accepting of the new Djinn. This movie is not one I would recommend and probably only worth watching if nothing else is on TV. Uninspired, poorly directed and generally dull. My rating for ‘Wishmaster 3: Devil Stone' – 3.5/10.

this movie is a disgrace to the Wishmaster series it falls into the new age teen thrillers unlike the first two that were purely and simplely horror without even bothering with teen relationships. Andrew Divoff will always be the Wishmaster to me.

Now after seeing the first 2 'Wishmaster' movies, I had high expectations for this movie. Apparently, they were too high...what hurts this movie, is that it's a total 360 turn from the first 2 movies. What this movie tries to be is a 'Scream' & a "I Know What You Did Last Summer" movie...which isn't saying too much, since they were mere silly movies, than horror movies. Too many just average actors & no pazzazz to it. Jason Connery as the human form of the Djinn isn't convincing. Andrew Divoff, who played the first Djinn character, was great. Such evilness to him. If you're a fan of the first movies, go see it, but don't expect a horror movie.