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Coming to Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand on August 27th from Magnet, we have an exclusive clip from What You Wish For that you can watch right now! We're also giving away a Blu-ray copy to two Daily Dead readers.

"Ryan is a talented chef with crushing gambling problems. Circumstances being what they are, he leaves town in a hurry for the safe haven of an unnamed Latin American country where his friend Jack, a more prestigious chef with his own unique troubles, welcomes him into his home. Ryan has no idea how Jack is able to afford his extravagant lifestyle, and he doesn’t want to feel envious, but he knows that he wants it for himself. Soon, a grim twist of fate will give that to him. Ryan assumes his friend’s identity. And soon discovers just what Jack’s been doing to maintain the lifestyle he so desperately craved.

What You Wish For has a well-executed, grotesque premise that comments on the nature of the upper class. Nick Stahl and Tamsin Topolski, as well as the rest of the cast, portray incredibly tense group dynamics. What You Wish For is slightly open-ended, leaving some plot holes unanswered.

Nicholas Tomnays What You Wish For is a thriller from which one cannot look away, even if the overall moral of the story falls just short of flawless. The story follows Ryan (Nick Stahl), a down-on-his-luck chef who travels to South America to meet up with his former roommate Jack (Brian Groh) and escape threats due to his gambling debts. Jack, whom Ryan hasnt seen in a decade, has everything Ryan could want. However, things take a dark turn when Jack dies and Ryan assumes Jacks identity, only to discover an ugly truth about Jacks successful career.

What You Wish For (2023)

DirectorNicholas...

Few big new studio wide releases, yes, but Viggo Mortensen’s latest is on 700 screens, plus limited openings for Chris Wilcha’s Flipside, Judd Apatow EP, and Spanish animated, Oscar-nominated Robot Dreams from Neon. Bleecker Street’s family drama Ezra and IFC Films’ arthouse slasher In A Violent Nature are technically wide but both well under 1,500 screens.

Viggo Mortensen directed, wrote and stars in Western The Dead Don’t Hurt presented by Shout! Studios on 730 screens. The story of star-crossed lovers on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s sees Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps), a fiercely independent woman, settle in Nevada with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Mortensen). But the outbreak of the Civil War separates them as Olsen goes to fight with the Union army, leaving Vivienne alone in a town full of corrupt officials. Premiered in Toronto, see Deadline review. It’s Mortensen’s second outing behind the camera since 2020’s Falling.

Who among us hasn’t secretly yearned for someone else’s life? Whether it’s a famous celebrity or just a well-to-do friend, coveting someone else’s seemingly perfect life is commonplace.

The concept takes a dark twist in writer/director Nicholas Tomnay’s feature, What You Wish For. And while the title may eschew the first few words of the well-known saying, the missing words from the warning loom large over the film.

The film begins as protagonist Ryan (Nick Stahl) steps out of the airport in an unnamed South American location. He’s greeted by a professional driver who promptly delivers him to an empty, isolated villa.

It’s luxurious, opulent, and very, very rich feeling. These are all things that are completely unfamiliar to Ryan.

He is a talented, down on his luck chef who is stuck working in an airport hotel kitchen. As several threatening texts confirm,...

What You Wish For heads to VOD and theaters tomorrow, thanks to Magnet Releasing, but we have an exclusive preview you can watch right now!

"Ryan (Nick Stahl) is a talented, down-on-his-luck chef with crushing gambling problems. Circumstances being what they are, he leaves town in a hurry for the safe haven of an unnamed Latin American country where his friend Jack (Brian Groh), a more prestigious chef with his own unique troubles, welcomes him into his home. Ryan has no idea how Jack’s able to afford his extravagant lifestyle cooking for the elite in paradise; he doesn’t want to feel envious, yet he can’t help but want this life for himself as well. Soon, a grim twist of fate will give that to him. Ryan assumes his friend’s identity and soon discovers just what Jack’s been doing to maintain the lifestyle he so desperately craved.

"A bad dish from you and your life will end." Magnolia Pictures has revealed the official trailer for What You Wish For, an indie thriller from filmmaker Nicholas Tomnay, a follow-up to his first film The Perfect Host. This new one premiered at many genre fests: Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, FrightFest, A Night of Horror, Grimmfest, Celluloid Screams, and Screamfest previously before its upcoming release in theaters this May during the start of the summer. A down-on-his-luck chef with gambling problems flees to a Latin American villa, where he assumes the identity of another skilled chef. "A Hitchcockian, edge-of-your-seat descent into escalating moral compromise with generous servings of dark humour, shock, and surprise." The title is an obvious riff on the "be careful what you wish for" idiom, as the full synopsis hints that he "soon discovers just what Jack's been doing to maintain the lifestyle he so desperately craved." Uh oh.

Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures, has acquired North American rights to “What You Wish For,” a new suspense-horror film written and directed by Nicholas Tomnay.

The film stars Nick Stahl (Showtime’s “Let the Right One In”) and had its world premiere at Fantasia Festival. Tamsin Topolski (“Slow Horses”) and Randy Vasquez (“America Has Fallen: Election Day”) also star. Magnet plans to release the film this summer. Tomnay previously co-wrote and directed “The Perfect Host,” which starred David Hyde Pierce.

In “What You Wish For,” Stahl plays Ryan, a talented chef whose crushing gambling problems prompts him to leave town in a hurry for the safe haven of an unnamed Latin American country. There, his friend Jack (Brian Groh), a more prestigious chef with his own unique troubles, welcomes him into his home. Ryan has no idea how Jack’s able to afford his extravagant lifestyle, and...

The monkey's paw delivers in Nicholas Tomnay's "What You Wish For," a culinary chiller with strange and dangerous cravings. It's a Hitchcockian take on one-percenter conspiracies and ravenous appetites that cares more about characters caught hosting a unique dinner party experience. One man's cursed profession is another man's opportunity to start over, as Tomnay keys into how desperation can excuse even the most glaringly not-okay moral dilemmas. "What You Wish For" is a whodunit with sharp teeth and precise knife skills — except you already know who "dun it," and tension exists as the perpetrators try not to get caught.

Nick Stahl stars as hotel chain chef Ryan, who reunites with culinary school roommate Jack (Brian Groh) in the jungles of Latin America before his next assignment. Jack has been traveling the world as a private chef for years, padding his bank account with each high-end, well-paying feast. Ryan has been landlocked in America,...

What You Wish For is a noir-inspired culinary thriller starring Nick Stahl as a down-on-his-luck chef who gets caught up in a dangerous game. The film follows Ryan as he assumes the identity of his successful culinary school friend, Jack, to settle a large gambling debt. What You Wish For premieres at Austin's Fantastic Fest on September 22.

The newly released trailer for director Nicholas Tomnay's highly anticipated follow-up to 2010's The Perfect Host, What You Wish For, finds Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines star Nick Stahl in the noir-inspired culinary thriller. This morality tale follows Ryan (Nick Stahl), a down-on-his-luck chef who gets more than he bargained for when he steps into the life of an old culinary school pal, a private chef for the über-rich. Check out the trailer for What You Wish For below:

You can also check out the official synopsis for What You Wish For...

Stars: Jackson Hurst, Heather McComb, Jay Jay Warren, Hana Hayes, Nick Gomez, Raymond J. Barry, Barbara Crampton, Randy Vasquez, Daz Crawford, Maz Siam, Luis E. Carazo | Written by Gregory Gieras | Directed by Joel Novoa

Made for the Syfy channel Day of Reckoning can be summed up in one easy description: it’s a demonic monster-movie take on The Purge, an old-school disaster movie given a CGI-filled makeover…

Fifteen years ago, the world suffered a horrific global disaster when millions of demon-like creatures ascended from the bowels of the earth, swarming the entire planet, and feasting on mankind for one full day. Now due to a lunar eclipse they have returned for 24 hours to purge the earth’s population. One family will battle against the odds to not only save themselves but to also seal the breach.

See what I mean?

The latest film from writer Gregory Gieras, Day of Reckoning...

Ten years ago Randy Vasquez made a documentary about Maria Guardado, a Salvadoran immigrant and activist who had fled her country after being targeted by the army. Maria’s heart wrenching story of surviving torture and sexual abuse, as told in Testimony: The Maria Guardado Story, won awards at both the Boston and New York Latino film festivals for Best Documentary. It went on to screen at twenty other festivals including the Havana Film Festival and AFI Film Festival. The award-winning doc allowed Maria to share her harrowing journey of survival and overcoming intense trauma--it also gave her a platform to continue her mission of fighting for social change through political activism.

It was November of 1996 in South Central Los Angeles, filmmaker Randy Vasquez walked into what he thought was a Green Party meeting but was something entirely different. A group of activists had formed a coalition called Crack the CIA after investigative journalist Gary Webb uncovered that the Central Intelligence Agency had been selling crack cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles and funneled millions in drug profits to contra guerrillas during the Nicaraguan civil war. The U.S.-backed contras were attempting to overthrow their country’s socialist government, the drug money afforded them access to weapons. At that first meeting, Crack the CIA was planning a national rally to protest the CIA’s involvement and demand accountability for their actions.

It was there that Randy met Maria Guardado. He began regularly attending Crack the CIA meetings and started working on a documentary about the group but was drawn to Maria. “Maria would speak up at practically every meeting and tell her story of being kidnapped, raped and tortured by the Salvadoran death squads who were trained by the CIA,” says Randy. Soon the focus of his documentary switched to Maria.

Randy didn’t speak much Spanish but they became fast friends. Maria recounts, “He spoke a little bit of Spanish and I didn’t speak English but I invited him to my house. Then, we came up with the idea to make the documentary.” As Randy remembers it, Maria was determined to shed light on the horrific actions of her country’s government and the CIA’s involvement in the Salvadoran civil war, “...I think I asked her if she’d like to do a doc about her story or maybe she told me she wanted a documentary done on her! She really wanted to get her message out into the world so I helped her do it.”

Maria is a kind, generous woman who fiercely believes that social change will come through grassroots activism. Her enduring optimism, in light of what she has suffered, is truly remarkable. On a Saturday evening in 1980, Maria was approached by 10 armed men, likely soldiers in the National Army, and was kidnapped. She was blindfolded and beaten, given electric shocks, received blows to the face and then thrown to the floor and raped.

Maria found it tremendously painful to share these memories in the documentary but was able to connect to audiences on a deeply emotional level. Randy tells the story of the first time he watched the film, with Maria at his side. “I watched it with Maria for the first time at my then girlfriend’s house because she had a big screen, just the three of us. Afterwards, my girlfriend broke down in Maria’s arms saying that she was sorry and that she never knew those things happened in El Salvador. Maria offered her such grace and held her in her arms.” When it screened in front of an audience for the first time, it was not easy for Maria but the support she received afterwards uplifted her. “I felt terrible, I felt like I almost had a heart attack. It hurt terribly. I was crying the whole time, everyone was crying, we cried together throughout the movie. Afterwards people hugged me and cried, they wanted to take pictures with me. I felt a great deal of support. It felt good. I was raising consciousness. Most Americans don’t know that their tax dollars are creating all this violence.”

Now on the tenth anniversary of the Testimony: The Maria Guardado Story, Maria reflects on how telling her story has helped heal her emotional scars, “It has helped me overcome my trauma, the kindness and solidarity of others has helped me. I have met so many beautiful people. I never imagined there would be so much solidarity here.” The film also helped fuel her activism, “It has helped me join in solidarity with the struggle of others and made me feel empowered.” Maria continues her work as an activist, working with countless organizations fighting for immigrant rights, union organizing, and against U.S. intervention abroad. She hopes that after watching the film people will walk away feeling that, “When people rise up we can make social change and create a new world...I bring a painful message but it’s so the world will realize that we need to work together to change the world.”

‘Randy’s Documentary’ poem by Maria Guardado

(translated from Spanish)

My duty in exile

has been to shout and shout

it to all and sundry

since brought by Santuario

and although my message

has pierced the people

it is still words and words

gone with the wind

in the obscurity of the forest

But in this second phase

it is about a documentary

made by Randy Vasquez

where I request solidarity to the world

with deep pain

to file a suit

otherwise

the terrorism continues…

Documentary that is added

to the history of the people

in its struggle for changes

to never again immigrate

not to divide the family,

not to die on the border

not to be the system’s scapegoat

at last, we will have peace with justice

without foreign interference

Thank you Randy

Your documentary is at long last,

Carrier Pigeon

Written by Juan Caceres and Vanessa Erazo, LatinoBuzz is a weekly feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow @LatinoBuzz on twitter.

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