Wishcraft

In WISHCRAFT, high school brainiac Brett Bumpers (Michael Weston) pines away for the beautiful cheerleader Samantha Warren (Alexandra Holden). One day, Brett receives a mysterious package containing a mummified bull's -insert favorite penile euphemism-, which grants him 3 wishes.

Upon making his first wish, Brett sets into motion a series of macabre and murderous events.

The story is a novel take on THE MONKEY'S PAW with several unexpected twists and gruesome turns. There's a lot going on, much of which only makes sense in the end. Both Weston and Holden are believable in their roles, making things all the more credible and creepy.

A superb horror-thriller for fans of the supernatural...

In competition at the Brussels Fantasy Film festival 2002.

Here's another teen slasher coming down the screen. Curiously, it is not an inept one. No flashy camera angles, no genre parody nor blink-and-you'll-miss-it effect. Just a good old scary story of teenagers getting killed by a strange and very strong killer. A nerdy guy gets by mail a totem that guarantees him 3 wishes. he doesn't believe in it at all but decides to get one for a try. He wishes to go to the prom with the local beauty queen...and succeeds. For a second one, he wishes her to fall madly in love with him...and she does. But the bodycount starts getting bigger all around the campus and seems closely related to the (fake?) totem.

Having a nerd playing the hero is a pretty good idea (and the film does have very good ideas for itself as the killer really knows how to scare and kill its victims). All the actors (including sexy Huntley Ritter (Voodoo Academy, Bring it On)) are doing a good job though no awards will ever be given them to. Meat Loaf is just another cop with a very few scenes. Fun to see him in here but his acting skills are...hum...well, y'know.

Richard Wenk knows how to scare people from time to time and the storyline, though not revolutionnary, follows a very well known path. The suspense is also well handled as the final twist is unpredictable but really preposterous! Murders scenes are ingenious and originals which in this genre is quite a tour de force.

In conclusion, a very forgettable movie but competent and fun to watch.

Superwonderscope says 6

The reason I rented this movie, was the feel-good plot. The geek gets the girl after being granted three wishes.

The movie is very standard feature, with some interesting blood and gore scenes. The love-story is much better, and there are some humoristic scenes that are worth watching.

If you want an interesting sci-fi movie about getting wishes granted, «Wishmaster» is better.

5/10

A better than average horror movie which has some elements of teen slasher movies, sinister magic practices, and a mystery killer that is stalking a small town.

Some of the conventions of these kind of stories are tossed in as familiar clichés: teacher's pet nerd who likes popular cheerleader, loudmouth idiot jock, smart alek classmates, frustrated science teacher, useless bureaucrats, and other familiar personality types. But the film works somehow in its own weird way. The nerd is sent a magic object (you won't believe what it is), and a note stating he has 3 wishes. He uses the wishes just as you might expect. At the same time, vicious murders of some students commence, and follow the usual teen slasher flick methods.

The movie introduces too few characters to effectively conceal the identity of the killer, and also betrays the identity with too many clues. Random scenes that make no sense, and are obviously to establish the motive for the murders. The acting is actually pretty decent for the leads (nerd & cheerleader, although the nerd's bug eyes were annoying to look at), but acting of supporting roles are at a kindergarten level.

Fair, and OK if you have nothing better to do.

Is there anyone, anywhere, who doesn't already have an answer (most likely with all sorts of sub-clauses and strict definitions) to EXACTLY what they would wish for, given three chances!???

Never mind. For virtually everyone in the movie, the acting and dialogue are brilliant. The entirely natural relationships and deft avoidance of so many easy cliches makes this one of the best 'B' movies I've seen, and a lesson for directors & writers with much bigger budgets.

"Horror" seems a bit strong in describing Wishcraft. It's no worse than Scream, and not even as frightening - although a couple of scenes ('fake knife' & 'unmasked') are really well done. I didn't expect the revelation towards the end either. The end itself (which can ruin a film) is pretty good too.

It's difficult to say more without revealing the movie, and I recommend you see this the same way I did - optimistically, and with a vague hope that it's better than Wishmaster (which it so is).

In fact, if they pumped up the soundtrack and had more famous faces, this film would easily be in the same league as Scream, Swimfan and (dare I say it) an average episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.