THE GATE (1987) and WISHMASTER (1997): A DEMONIC DOUBLE HORROR FILM REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
THE GATE. (1987) DIRECTED BY TIBOR TAKACS. STARRING STEPHEN DORFF, CHRISTA DENTON AND LOUIS TRIPP.
WISHMASTER. (1997) EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY WES CRAVEN. WRITTEN BY PETER 'HELLRAISER' ATKINS. DIRECTED BY ROBERT KURTZMANN. NARRATED BY ANGUS SCRIMM. STARRING TAMMY LAUREN, WENDY BENSON, ANDREW DIVOFF, JENNY O'HARA, KANE HODDER AND ROBERT ENGLUND.
'God breathed life into the Universe. The light gave birth to Angels. The Earth gave birth to Man. The fire gave birth to the Djinn, creatures condemned to dwell in the void between the worlds.'
Angus Scrimm as The Narrator in WISHMASTER.
'To you, I am this. The cry of the abandoned child. The whimper of the whipped beast. I am the face that stares back at you from the shadows of your mirror. The hollowness at the heart of all your hopes, Alexandra. I AM DESPAIR.'
The Wishmaster.
Be careful what you wish for.
These two cult horror classics are each out now from LIONSGATE, as part of something called the VESTRON COLLECTOR'S SERIES, a collection of films for cult classic fans, so I watched 'em both back-to-back this weekend. I'm afraid I didn't think much of THE GATE, which will probably annoy and offend its millions of cult fans, but WISHMASTER was much better. See? I didn't hate 'em both, only THE GATE, lol.
THE GATE had such fantastic potential. I mean, a hole opens up in the ground that's a portal to Hell? This should have been a brilliant film. I blame the fact that it was made with kids instead of adults. Little Timmy and Tammy Scumbag ruin everything, haha. I found the kids in it annoying in the extreme, but here's the deal anyway.
Glen and the teenage Alexandra's (Al for short) parents are away for three days and Al's meant to be babysitting in loco parentis. While they're gone, Glen's best friend Terry surmises that a hole that's recently opened up (well, it had a little help, shall we say?) in Glen's backyard is a gateway into another world, a demonic one, which they've opened themselves by accident. They frantically try to close the gate with Biblical chanting, among other things, before Glen's parents get back, and also before the house is flooded with demons.
A lot of mad stuff happens in the film that would take all day to fully describe. Suffice it to say that the little demons are adorable and well-crafted and that the corpse of the construction worker coming out of the wall is probably the scariest bit. The film isn't really scary at all overall though and the punchline 'Do you think they'll notice?' is cute, real cute. A nice neat ending to the film. Yes, dumbasses, I think they might just notice...!
WISHMASTER is nearly as hard to explain. A friend with whom I watched it said that it was like a feature-length episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. She totally meant this positively as she's always adored The Buffster.
As I've never been a BUFFY fan, I couldn't really say but the whole thing definitely has an obvious 'Nineties vibe. Let me see if I can synopsise the plot as concisely as I can manage it. It's kind of convoluted too, like THE GATE, but it's worth making the effort in this case.
Do you know what a 'djinn' is? It's kind of integral to the plot, lol. It's an ancient spirit which can grant you three wishes but, once you've made your third wish, legions of djinn will
then be free to roam the Earth. Trust me when I say that you really don't want that.
Anyway, Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) looks extremely suave here as an antiques collector who's been waiting ten years to get hold of a particular statue. A fire opal containing a naughty djinn that's a part of the statue gets broken off and sold to a pawnshop by a greedy construction worker.
Alex Amberson is the beautiful blonde appraiser in the auction house that eventually ends up with the fire opal. Alex's scrutiny of the precious jewel accidentally wakes up the sleeping djinn, who's been napping now for several hundred years. Lazy djinn, lol. Time to get up off your ancient arse and get bus-ay...!
The evil djinn loses no time at all in getting bus-ay. As the Wishmaster, he feeds and thrives on the single wishes of pathetic humans. Once he's granted enough single wishes, he'll be fully recharged and able to wreak the kind of mischief he lives for. He focuses on Alexandra because she's the one who's had the temerity to wake him from his beauty (or should that be ugly?!) sleep.
If he can get Alexandra (who's already mourning her dead parents and her dead best friend/would-be boyfriend Josh, who was killed by the evil djinn) to make three wishes, the djinn will be free to flood the world with his own kind.
The djinn has no scruples about using Shannon, Alexandra's adored younger sister and only remaining relative, to get what he wants from the pretty appraiser and part-time basketball coach. He has no scruples about anything, really. He looks like the kind of really mean djinn who'd sell his own mother for a miserly top-up of phone credit.
The troubled Alexandra still suffers nightmares about her inability to save either of her parents from a fire, and now she thinks she's lost her soulmate Josh Aickland too. She's not about to surrender her beloved baby sister to the less-than-tender mercies of the djinn.
But first, they've each got Robert Englund's (the Collector's) party to go to. And it's going to be a party that no-one will ever forget. They'll be talking about this party for years and years to come. The mischievous djinn and his own Army of Darkness will see to that. Eat your heart out, Bruce Campbell, eh...?
I love the way too that, when you ask him for a wish and he agrees, he never gives you the thing you asked for. Or he does, but just not in the way you wanted it. A shopgirl who wishes to be beautiful forever gets turned into a mannequin, for example. See what I mean? The sneaky bastard twists things so that, no matter what you wish for, you never really get it. He's good, I'll give him that. I mean, he's evil! Ah, you know what I mean.
The handsome and burly Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees, FRIDAY THE 13th) has a brilliant cameo as a security guard who won't let Nathaniel Demerest go where he wants to go. Bad move, Jason honey. The djinn goes where the djinn damn well pleases and no mother-loving star of a bestselling horror franchise ain't gonna stop him no-how.
Tom Savini, the legendary make-up artist, has a cameo in the film also and I love Jenny O'Hara as folklore expert Wendy Derweth because I know a lovely woman (very sweet, a great talker) who she's the exact image of.
My favourite bit of the film is probably where those terrifying stone statues of warriors at Freddy Krueger's house come to life during the awful party and flank their Master, the djinn. The evil Wishmaster. Nathaniel Demerest, Esquire. He answers to all three...
THE GATE, WISHMASTER and also Bram Stoker's THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM are available now from VESTRON VIDEO, all restored and remastered on Blu-Ray with tons of brilliant extra features. If you're too stingy to pay cash money for 'em, try wishing for 'em instead. You never know your luck and I know a djinn who's just DYING to be of service...
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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