I remember seeing WISHMASTER in the theater in 1997. More than that I remember cleaning the theater, because I worked there. There weren’t many people going, so there wasn’t much to clean, but I would try to be around at the very end of the credits because I thought it was funny that you hear the Djinn saying “Careful what you weeessshhh for!” in his ludicrous evil voice. That was the main thing I remembered.
It definitely did not impress me back then, and I’m afraid this is not one of those SLEEPWALKERS situations where I just wasn’t ready. But I can at least say that WISHMASTER is pretty good for a laugh when it’s decades after the fact and you’re not hoping for anything genuinely good, let alone an exciting new horror creation from Wes Craven (who “presents” it).
I’m not sure what Craven contributed, if anything, but the director is Robert Kurtzman, who is usually not known as a director. He’s the K in KNB EFX who in his capacity as a makeup FX genius helped create versions of Freddy, the Predator, Leatherface, Darkman, Pumpkinhead and more. As a filmmaker his biggest feat was writing a 24-page vampire treatment and commissioning newcomer Quentin Tarantino to write a script based on it, then after not getting it off the ground letting him give it to Robert Rodriguez.
Not that I wouldn’t love to see Kurtzman’s FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, but he obviously couldn’t have done anything slick like Rodriguez did. He makes true b-movies like THE DEMOLITIONIST, starring Nicole Eggert from Charles in Charge as as a zombie cyborg cop. Even though this here genie movie got a wide theatrical release, it’s coming from the same realm.
The villain of WISHMASTER is a nameless Djinn played by Andrew Divoff (TOY SOLDIERS, EXTREME JUSTICE, AIR FORCE ONE). We’re told by one of the movie’s exposition-providing mythology experts to “Forget Barbara Eden. Forget Robin Williams. To the peoples of ancient Arabia, a Djinn was neither cute nor funny.” Instead they are “creatures condemned to dwell in the void between the worlds.” (read the rest of this shit…)
More like CLEAR AND PRESZZZZzzzzzzz, am I right, guys?
Oh, am I wrong? Maybe I’m wrong. I’m not the best judge, because I’m a heathen when it comes to Jack Ryan. My dad loved Tom Clancy books, my wife and many of my friends consider THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER to be one of the all time greats, many people love this character, I just think that gene skipped me. But here we are most of the way through our revisit of the summer of ’94 and it feels like we’re low on traditional blockbusters, so I was kind of excited to see CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER. There are plenty of things to like about it, especially when discussing it, but unfortunately I found it mostly dull to watch compared to PATRIOT GAMES, which I somewhat enjoyed and respectfully labelled “Adult Contemporary Action.”
This, too, is for the older folks that want some of the fantasy of Exceptional Men Who Get Shit Done but without the classless excess of flying kicks or other cool shit. It begins by massaging the Adult Contemporary Action erogenous zones, showing people in uniforms operating various types of machinery on a submarine and a US Coast Guard vessel. The inciting incident is the Coast Guard boarding a suspicious yacht in the Caribbean and discovering its American businessman owner has been murdered by Colombians. Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford between THE FUGITIVE and SABRINA) is a CIA analyst who looks into it and discovers the American got offed by a cartel because he was laundering money for them and tried to embezzle some. (read the rest of this shit…)
Raimi started work on SPIDER-MAN 2 immediately after the first one, and had it ready to go two summers later. Since it really is about following up on the events of the first film, it starts by running the credits over some of them, as depicted in paintings by Alex Ross. (He’s celebrated for his realistic portraits of comic book super heroes, which are more impressive when they come from his imagination and not photography we’ve already seen, but still, it was cool that they got him). The end of the sequence reminds us that in SPIDER-MAN Peter chose not to be with Mary Jane, who he loves, so that he could be Spider-Man.
Which does not seem to be working out great so far. The painting of Mary Jane dissolves into a closeup of her face on a perfume billboard that Peter has to walk under every day, reminding him of his pain. Though he tries to hide it, it’s clear his world crumbles when she is not near. He’s in college now, and living on his own in a small apartment. Much like part 1’s opening about all the ways Peter can be humiliated on the way to school, this one piles it on real thick about what a shit sandwich life still hands to him every day. (read the rest of this shit…)
“He had an uneventful childhood. He played baseball with the other kids on the block, became fascinated with the antics of what later became his heroes – The Three Stooges, read Spiderman comic books, thought Jerry Lewis was hilarious and the Little Rascals even more so. What influenced Raimi to become the ‘horror meister’ of slash and gore films is not found in his past.”
—Dead Auteur: How a 20-year-old ex-college student carved out his horror niche in Hollywood by Sue Uram, Cinefantastique, August 1992
Immediately following Raimi’s very serious director period, his career changed drastically again. After so many stabs at the mainstream, he finally made the leap to genuine blockbuster filmmaking, bringing one of the most famous characters in the history of American pop culture to the big screen for the first time. This is not the use-Intro-Vision-to-stretch-the-budget-enough-to-try-to-compete-in-summer of DARKMAN and ARMY OF DARKNESS, or the work-with-huge-stars-but-scare-off-boring-people-by-doing-something-different-with-them of THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. I’m talking a super hero event movie with ten times the budget of DARKMAN, working with Sony Digital Imageworks to pioneer effects techniques that nobody was even sure would be possible, and finally sharing his talents with pretty much the widest audience possible for a movie. (read the rest of this shit…)
After his horror breakthrough, his failed comedy, and his knockout horror sequel, Sam Raimi finally made it to the semi-big-time. He’d really wanted to do a movie of Batman or The Shadow, but could never get the rights. Then he came up with the idea for his own dark avenger, one with the ability to change his face. His 40-page treatment The Darkman was greenlit by Universal Studios in 1987.
Raimi brought in NAVY SEALS writer Chuck Pfarrer to flesh out the treatment as a screenplay, which was then rewritten by Raimi and his brother Ivan (under the theory that Ivan, a doctor, could help make the medical sci-fi aspects plausible). The studio brought in the team of Daniel and Joshua Goldin (up-and-comers they also had working on PROBLEM CHILD) to bring the various drafts together before the Raimis went at it again. By the time the movie was made and released at the end of August, 1990, Tim Burton had made his BATMAN movie and all the studios were trying to mimic that success. Surely that was an influence on Raimi’s choice of composer Danny Elfman, and on the minimalist marketing campaign based around a silhouette and the question “Who is Darkman?”
I’m sure at the time I would’ve been interested in this movie anyway, but I was specifically excited when I read that it was the genius behind beloved video favorite EVIL DEAD II taking his first shot at a large scale mainstream movie. Seeing the posters, reading about it in magazines, seeing it on the big screen, I accepted it as a big time summer blockbuster alongside DICK TRACY, BACK TO THE FUTURE III and DIE HARD 2. But Raimi having four times his budget on EVIL DEAD II still meant about a third or a fourth of the budgets of those films. Even Cannon’s DELTA FORCE 2, released the same day as DARKMAN, had a slightly higher budget. I think it’s a testament to Raimi’s exciting directorial style that his many green screen and miniature techniques, which have dated technically more than any of those other movies, still seemed flashy enough to stand toe-to-toe with them. (read the rest of this shit…)
Just when the night crew is closing up at the Walnut Lake Market, cashier Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, THE WRAITH) gets assaulted by crazy ex-boyfriend Craig (David Byrnes, WITCHCRAFT 7 and IX). Most of the staff get in a big brawl with him and he runs off. They think he’s still hiding in the store somewhere, but they’re not sure, and the police come and prove to be incompetent.
That’s a solid slasher movie set up. It has that all important sense of time and place – a limited location with all kinds of possibilities for horror gimmicks and gags, a set of characters doing their duties in different parts of the building where they can be picked off, a reason why other people aren’t around and the cops are no help. The few minutes of searching for Craig near the beginning sets up the geography of the store and all the potential hiding places that will become important locations. Though not necessary, INTRUDER also sets up a mystery, because we have the easy-to-jump-to conclusion that this abusive asshole is the murderer, but not showing his face gives us the unsettling feeling that we’re being tricked. (read the rest of this shit…)
After the massive success of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET in 1984, you’d think Wes Craven would’ve been sitting comfortably atop the horror director pyramid. Yet his directational followups were just the ’85 TV movie CHILLER, the ’86 silly robot movie DEADLY FRIEND, and a couple episodes of the new Twilight Zone. It wasn’t until ’88 that he did something he seemed passionate about, the pretty respected voodoo thriller THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW. By ’89, only five years after the birth of Freddy, he was already at that sad “time to come up with the next Freddy” stage you’d expect him to go through eventually. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
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Dreadguacamole on Eraserhead: “The sound on this film! I have no idea if that’s what my nightmares sound like, but it’s definitely what…” Dec 12, 12:55
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I remember seeing WISHMASTER in the theater in 1997. More than that I remember cleaning the theater, because I worked there. There weren’t many people going, so there wasn’t much to clean, but I would try to be around at the very end of the credits because I thought it was funny that you hear the Djinn saying “Careful what you weeessshhh for!” in his ludicrous evil voice. That was the main thing I remembered.
August 3rd, 1994
Raimi started work on SPIDER-MAN 2 immediately after the first one, and had it ready to go two summers later. Since it really is about following up on the events of the first film, it starts by running the credits over some of them, as depicted in paintings by Alex Ross. (He’s celebrated for his realistic portraits of comic book super heroes, which are more impressive when they come from his imagination and not photography we’ve already seen, but still, it was cool that they got him). The end of the sequence reminds us that in 
“He had an uneventful childhood. He played baseball with the other kids on the block, became fascinated with the antics of what later became his heroes – The Three Stooges, read Spiderman comic books, thought Jerry Lewis was hilarious and the Little Rascals even more so. What influenced Raimi to become the ‘horror meister’ of slash and gore films is not found in his past.”
After his horror breakthrough, his failed comedy, and his knockout horror sequel, Sam Raimi finally made it to the semi-big-time. He’d really wanted to do a movie of Batman or The Shadow, but could never get the rights. Then he came up with the idea for his own dark avenger, one with the ability to change his face. His 40-page treatment The Darkman was greenlit by Universal Studios in 1987.
Raimi brought in 
Just when the night crew is closing up at the Walnut Lake Market, cashier Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox, 
After the massive success of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET in 1984, you’d think Wes Craven would’ve been sitting comfortably atop the horror director pyramid. Yet his directational followups were just the ’85 TV movie CHILLER, the ’86 silly robot movie DEADLY FRIEND, and a couple episodes of the new Twilight Zone. It wasn’t until ’88 that he did something he seemed passionate about, the pretty respected voodoo thriller THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW. By ’89, only five years after the birth of Freddy, he was already at that sad “time to come up with the next Freddy” stage you’d expect him to go through eventually. 
