2 Guys And A Chainsaw

A bloody-good time. This Wes Craven-produced short franchise is a special-effects extravaganza with a fun villain and an interesting premise: What would happen if you awakened a modern-day genie who wasn’t so blue and friendly?

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Wishmaster (1997)

Episode 249, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Craig: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Craig.

Todd: And I’m Todd.

Craig: We decided though we have a growing list of requests to just kind of do something random. And in fact, this was just something that crossed my mind, actually, you know, we hadn’t picked anything. Uh, since the last time we talked and I happened to have this movie on DVD.

So I knew that it would be easy for us to come by.

Todd: So laziness basically brought us to here.

Craig: Pretty much. Okay. I mean, and so most of my decisions are made, frankly, but, uh, we decided to do 1997’s Wishmaster. Yes. I was just thinking, you know, We had talked about when we did Scream, how we had really hit most of the major franchises.

And then I thought about that statement and I thought, you know, there are really quite a few that we haven’t done. I mean, we haven’t done any Candyman. We haven’t done any Leprechaun. I, gosh, I don’t know :eprechaun. I don’t know if we’re ever going to get into that. Hey, I want to do.

Todd: I’m I’m really jonesing for Leprechaun in Space.

Craig: I don’t think I’ve ever seen Leprechaun in Space. I’ve seen the most of them. I don’t think I’ve seen that one. Wish master was a franchise in the late nineties and early two thousands. And. I saw them all and they played some of them on, uh, cable television, quite a bit there for awhile, especially the third and fourth ones, because I think that the third and fourth ones premiered on cable, I don’t think they even were straight to video.

I think that they were cable movie. Fair. But the, uh, first one came out in 1997 and I remembered liking it. Or at least I thought I remembered liking it, but I thought, Oh, you know, this is one of those stupid movies. That’ll be fun to goof on. And so I recommended it and I sat down to watch it. The first thing that pops up when you pop this movie on is West Craven presents, which I had completely forgotten.

Um, I had no idea that he was an executive producer on this movie. And so right from the beginning, I’m like, Oh, wow, well, that’s, that’s pretty cool. And then as I was watching it, I was, my thought was, this is really not a bad movie. Like there’s actually quite a bit of cool stuff going on here. And I completely forgotten that it is chock full of.

Excellent horror movie cameos. My God.

Todd: It sure is.

Craig: And so I was really pleasantly surprised. Now it’s not a perfect movie and I will be more than happy to tell you the things that I took issue with. Um, but over all, I was really kind of really pleasantly surprised to revisit this is this. A movie that you had seen Todd?

Yeah, I

Todd: had seen it. I had seen it probably about the time it came out. I think I probably rented it on DVD somewhere in the, when I was in college. Uh, probably around 97. So yeah, I I’d seen it before and I remembered a couple big scenes. The big showpiece scenes, basically of the movie being pretty wild and crazy, but it didn’t really stick in my head as a movie.

Like, yeah. Let’s, you know, let’s, let’s keep this one in rotation. It really kinda came and went and then I didn’t keep up at all with the rest of the series. So I didn’t even know. They’re like, gosh, they’re like five of them, right? Five or six or four 4k. Yeah. So at least, yeah. I didn’t even know there was more than two.

So, uh, it seems like, uh, they were, they were pumping them out in short succession after this, like every year or two after this for the next few years. And then it kinda stopped. I think they were probably trying to get. Another iconic horror movie villain going right, like another Freddy Krueger or Jason or something with this.

Uh, I’ve seen people reference him as almost like a cross between pinhead and Freddy Kruger. He’s got that. The wish master has that wit about him, that Freddy Kruger kind of has that malevolence, but also that dead serious kind of, well, actually his look isn’t too far off from the center bite. Look.

Really true. And the fact that he comes from another world, the, the, the space between worlds, basically as this mythical gin character, the evil genie, the more, uh, in keeping with the actual Persian legends of the genie as being a malevolent type, a trickster spirit, instead of a goofy, fun, happy, happy guy, like a Latin or one time, which came out around this time, too.

So, you know, it, it’s a, it’s an interesting take on that. And I was also surprised to see so many, so many cameos, I guess, to now watching this, uh, at 41 years old, having seen so many horror movies and being come very used to these faces. I probably recognized a lot more faces now than I did when I was watching it in 1996.

Oh

Craig: gosh. Yeah, I definitely did. I, there were several times I’m like, Oh, I know who that guy who was, that guy is somebody I would have to look them up. That’s right, right. So it was directed by Robert Kurtzman, who hasn’t done a ton as in terms of directing, but he’s a really well-established makeup guy. Uh, he did makeup on from dusk till Dawn Gerald’s game, the haunting of Hill house.

Dr. Sleep tusk. Some, some really big stuff, even, you know, Up to current day.

Todd: Well, he started out on night of the creeps, which we’ve done moved to Phantasm two. He did intruder clearly here with evil dead two and intruder. He, he crossed paths with the Raimi pigs and Sam Raimi actually is the one who recommended him to direct this movie.

As a matter of fact, and Ted Raimi of Sam’s brother plays a cameo role in this as

Craig: well. Yup. And it was written by a guy named, uh, Peter Atkins, who I didn’t recognize a lot of his work, but he got his start in a theater group in Canada, I think with Clive Barker and Doug Bradley because of his association with the two of them, then he did some work on some of the Hellraiser movies.

So, you know, these are folks that may not have some of the prominence of some of the directors and writers that we’ve talked about, but certainly have worked with some of the big guys in the genre. And it’s just, it’s a pretty simple story, really. I mean, it opens up, we see this like Alchemist or wizard or something, making a gemstone.

Uh, and it was really reminiscent to me of the opening scene of nightmare on Elm street. One where Freddie was making his glove, like it’s all close closeup and you just kind of see the process. And then we get this script on screen. One weeks, a gym shall be given three wishes upon the grounding of the third.

The unholy legions of the gin. So there’ll be free DePaul in the earth

and all

the gene. I didn’t realize until after I’d watched the movie and I was going back to research it that the narrator is Angus Scrimm. Who of course. We are huge fans of, so like you said, it is the source of our kind of genie legend. Um, but again, much more malevolent than it’s become, uh, in our culture.

Todd: It seems to be a very, um, Low bar to a cross there.

I mean, you only have to make a third wish and then basically the world is over and the gin takeover, right? Like throughout history, everyone’s only gotten as far as to, I mean, wow. That’s pretty impressive.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I feel like the SQL’s explore this more because it’s not like this gin is the only one in existence.

There are other ones too, but I don’t know. How the others are accessed. You know, this one eventually becomes trapped in this gym, which then it’s, it’s like the genie in the lamp, I guess somehow you have to summon it or whatever. It’s, it’s, it’s a little bit nebulous, but. Whatever it doesn’t matter. The opening scene is in Persia and 1127 AB and I just thought this opening scene just really set the bar super high for the movie.

I mean, it’s like in this courtyard kind of thing, I guess, and the gin. Basically just slaughters this entire courtyard full of people. And this is an effects movie. I mean, that’s what the movie is really, really all about. It’s these effects in there. I would say probably 95% practical. And in this opening scene, you’ve got this, Jen slaughtering, all these people, but in these, it’s not like he’s just running around with a sword, disemboweling people.

I mean, it’s all just this really creative stuff. Like yeah. One lady turns into a tree. Some other guy’s intestines are like bursting out of him and biting and attacking him a skeleton breaks out of this guy’s skin. And then is running around killing other people. One guy turns into a snake. I mean, it’s just this huge effects driven scene and it, and everything that follows, I just thought looked.

Fantastic. I just thought it was great. Like this is, this is so up my alley, these practical effects, I was just stoked from the get-go. Well, yeah, when

Todd: your director is, is basically running the special effects from his own special effects house, you would hope it would be that good. Right. And Greg Nicotero is also, was also on his crew at this time and eventually split off to do his own thing.

But Greg Nicotero also re you know, runs a lot of really great special effects for a lot of films, including. Oh, the walking dead. He’s the lead effects guy on the walking dead series. So the, the, I would say the only problem I had, well, the first, the first part of the movie is great. Like you said, it’s just an excuse to raid the effects shop for everything that you can find and try all these different things out.

It was just everything, but the kitchen sink. And then we kind of come back to that at the end of the movie as well. And then you write throughout the movie, we get a lot of very detailed Gore effects. I mean, one every five or six minutes, it seems like. And so that makes, they make sure that the deaths are really gory and really creative.

And that part of it’s good. I did feel like it really threw him in your face. Like it really lingered. It was a very, um, exploitive movie in that way. Just the Gore was. And the Gore effects were really front and center. So if that’s something that you like then, yeah. I mean, this is like a whole issue of Fangoria could be devoted to this movie and maybe was, but then again, the fact effects sometimes seem to just sort of overtake the movie.

It almost seems to be the point of the movie at times. And I know I got a little weary. I know that sounds crazy, right? Like it should be just like. Like bring it on. But for me after a little while, I got a little weary of all of it. The, the long lingering closeups of the Gore and the, you know, splitting of heads and things exploding and stuff like that.

It felt like a bit much to me at

Craig: times. Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, maybe I was just in the mood for it or maybe it was, you know, some latent nostalgia. I don’t know, but I, I just, uh, I was down for it. I thought it was really cool. And, and just because it was so the craft of it, it was done so well. And, and just so many, like you said, I mean, it’s just one after the other and had they been.

Effectively done then. Yeah, I definitely would have been rolling my eyes at it, but it just felt so skillful. I mean, they were fun to watch. They looked great. And I’ve said this before, but the, the older I get for whatever reason, super. Realistic like body horror, like a lot of blood and that kind of stuff.

It gets to me more than it used to it. Didn’t used to bother me at all. Um, but this, I mean, it’s fantasy it’s fantasy. No, you go ahead and it’s fun.

Todd: Good. As the special effects are, the practical effects are the visual effects, definitely show their age and it’s a shame really. For those to be juxtaposed in here at times, it kind of cheapens the movie a little bit, but it’s just more of a product of its time at this time.

I think they were really still experimenting with CGI and some of the CGI in this movie is really pretty lame. But you know, aside from that, like you said, the practical stuff is quite good. Right?

Craig: I agree with you. I mean, the, the visual effects, aren’t amazing, but they’re kind of few and far between, uh, at least as compared to the practical effects.

And so I was willing to forgive some of that. But anyway, in this opening scene, uh, we see the gin, the gin is played by Andrew div off, who I think just slays in this role. Uh he’s he’s got this kind of sinister look. The, the man, the actor has kind of this sinister look, he’s got these piercing eyes.

Andrew DevOps has been in a million things, but it hasn’t really establish. The level of fame where people are like, Oh yeah, that guy, you know, he plays smaller roles. Uh, most of the time I remember him, he was in a movie sometime in the nineties, I think called toy soldiers. And it had, um, Wil Wheaton. And who’s the guy from, he played the best friend in Lord of the rings.

I can’t think of his name. He’s in the Goonies. Uh, Sean Austin. Yeah. Sean Aston and

Todd: Oh God Lou Gossett Jr. Right? Wasn’t

Craig: he in that? Yeah. Yeah, he was, it wasn’t this movie. I don’t think made much of an impact, but I always liked it as a kid because it was one of those buddy movies. Like these teenage boys, like.

You know, fighting against bad guys. And those kinds of movies were always. Cool to me. He was in that. I remember him from that. He was also an air force one. He was in loss. He’s had an established career. He’s just not like an Atlas star, but he’s, he’s great in this role. And he has a great voice and they have him, you know, when he, he does.

Play like a human version of the character, but for the most part, he’s in this practical makeup, uh, that apparently took about, I think three and a half hours to put on every day and an hour and a half to take off something like that, which, you know, I’ve heard of other movies where the makeup takes.

Significantly longer than that, but it looks really good and he’s, I don’t know how to describe him. He’s just monstrous. And he’s got like, kind of almost these long flesh and bone kind of pony, tail things coming out of his head. And, um, he’s very defined as far as bone structure and he’s got these crazy colored eyes.

He looks great, but he’s like, Talking to this Prince of Persia or King of Persia or whatever. And all this mayhem is going on all around by all the names of God. This is not what I wanted. Then we should away it sorted one. We shit away. No one wishes. I pick your majesty silence. But by poor people, I must do you wish to hate on the entire world?

No, my wishes please. That I won’t and you without. Oh my my wish is all this creature needs and the wizard somehow traps the gin in this red stone. Um, I think they call it like a blood Opal or something later on. And then we cut to America in the present day where a man named Raymond Beaumont played by Robert England is an art collector or like an artifact collector or something like

Todd: that to some rich, rich guy, rich asshole.

Craig: Right. And, uh he’s and he plays that. Well quite well. Yeah. I’ve heard that Robert England is a really, really nice friendly guy, but he plays the sinister asshole role very well. And he’s, you know, like rubbing his hands together. Like I’ve waited 10 years for this.

Yeah. And this big crate that’s like coming off a ship and, uh, his assistant is Ted Raimi. Who, you know, the Raimi brothers are filmmakers for the most part, but we’ve seen Ted Raimi and other movies too. But, uh, as it happens, the Workman who is operating the crane that is unloading this artifact. His drunk, uh, his drinking and his drunk, any spills, his drink on the controls, which causes them to shush, uh, short out and it drops the crate drops and crushes, Ted Raimi, and, uh, the statues shatters.

And we, the audience see that inside this statue is this Jim, um, that we had seen before. And one of the random dock workers takes it and apparently takes it to a pawn shop because we see this pawn shop guy, bring it in to some business for appraisal. And this is where our main character Alexandra. Works.

And I guess this is kind of what she does. She appraises stuff. The main girl is played by a lady named. Tammy Lauren, not to be confused with the hideous, Tommy Lauren, but, um, and, and I, you know, she’s, she’s just kind of a recognizable face, but that may just be because she’s just kind of a generic, pretty lady, I guess.

I mean, she’s, she’s done tons of TV. She had a big stint on young and the restless, she was on home improvement. She’s done tons of stuff, but nothing that I specifically remembered her for. And I’ll go ahead and say, That my biggest complaint about this movie is that our heroine is not particularly engaging.

There’s, there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s not a bad actress. She’s fine. And she’s a beautiful woman. It’s just, well, for whatever reason, I just didn’t really. Connect with her that much. And that’s, you know, some of the heroines in these horror movies are not even great actors, but there’s just something about them.

Like for example, Heather laying in camp and the night run Elm street movies, Heather lay-in camp is not an amazing actress. She’s not, but. For whatever reason, I just find her very endearing and I like her and I care about her and she really carries the weight of some of those movies on her shoulders.

And I just didn’t get that. And I feel bad saying it because she didn’t do anything wrong. She’s fine. But I just didn’t connect with her very much. Well,

Todd: she doesn’t have much to do. I mean, for most of the movie, she’s just hanging around, getting visions and, and, and feeling that something is off. And, uh, it’s the gin.

When he gets released, who’s kind of working his way towards her. Right. Yeah. And the reason he’s working his way towards her is what I

Craig: think it’s because she she’s the one that released him. So she gets this gym. She’s like trying to appraise it. So she breathes on it and she rubs it. And so I guess that’s what like releases him

Todd: or whatever, but it doesn’t immediately release him.

I mean, like you’re right. The movie makes a big deal out of this, that, that she breeds on. It rubs it. Like it’s extremely significant, but then it’s not like he pops out. No, not yet. She gives the Juul to her friend, Nick who’s, um, Josh, sorry, who they kind of want to, they’re trying to get a relationship going or he’s interested in a relationship.

She’s not quite sure they’re really good friends. Right. And, uh, he works in the lab and he’s looking to put in the spectra spectrometer, spectro analysis machine or whatever. Yeah. And so late at night, you know, he turns on the machine and is analyzing the gym and it explodes and it kills him. Uh, but we see before.

The police get there. Uh, that actually the gin is now out, out in, in the smaller form, right? He’s in this little kind of creature that crawls across the ground doesn’t have legs. And the smaller version of, uh, the gin is actually played by a Verne Troyer. First film rolls. Yeah. Like, like his third film role was this one.

First one was Pinocchio’s revenge. You’ve seen that. Nothing too, too remarkable. Right. Uh, but yeah, he was in, in this one too.

Craig: Doesn’t kill Josh. It just, uh, badly, badly injures him. And then yes, this little, it reminds me of, um, The tequila worm from a Poltergeist or Poltergeist to whichever one it was, you know, it was just kind of this slithering thing, but it, it, it crawls up to Josh and says, I can take your pain away.

Do you wish it. And he says, yes. So to take his, that’s the thing, this is, it’s very much a monkey’s Paul kind of thing. Like you can wish for whatever you want to, but the gin is going to somehow make it horrible for you. And so it takes away his pain by killing him. And then, uh, it grows like it, it derives its power, uh, from these wishes.

And from the very beginning, it’s like, Alex Alexandra. She is somehow connected. To it, the gin or somehow. And so she has these visions. And so whenever it kills somebody, like she sees it, like she experiences it and it causes her great term.

Todd: It causes her to spring up in bed where she apparently lights candles at the foot of her bed before she goes to sleep, which is a bad idea. Yeah. She, throughout the whole movie, it’s really most of the movie from here on out. Well, they meet up is just her freaking out every time and really freaking out every time she gets one of these.

Well, and

Craig: it’s funny that you said she lights candle. She, she does. Fire is a big motif for her in this movie because apparently. Her parents were killed in a fire and she was there and she was able to save her younger sister, but she wasn’t able to save her parents. So that’s constantly on her mind and she has visions of fire all the time.

Doesn’t stop her from lighting candles. All over her house while she’s sleeping and also doesn’t stop her from smoking 4,000 cigarettes.

Todd: It’s so funny. It

Craig: totally dates this movie cause people don’t smoke in movies anymore. Cause smoking’s bad. Don’t it’s bad for you. Don’t do it. But. She does. She’s a big old smoker anyway, whatever random observations for me, but then kind of for a little while, you know, cuts to these scenes where I guess the gin is like trying to build his power or whatever.

And so he’s kind of going around, tricking people into making wishes. One of the first ones is this bum that he finds on the street. Played by buck flower,

Todd: love the guy that’s so iconic

Craig: and all of these horror movies often as above them. But gosh, at this point now that we’ve watched so many movies and now that I know who he is, every time he pops on, like, I get so excited and I’m like, ha ha

Todd: buck

Craig: flowers.

But, uh, he’s a, he’s a bum. And he’s like hanging outside a, uh, what’s the word F a pharmacy. And, um, the pharmacist comes out and yells at him and tells them to go away. And this was the guy that I’m like, That guy is familiar. I knowing who that guy is. And so I looked him up and it’s Reggie banister from all of the Phantasm movies.

So many cameos, they have a fight full, like it’s just profanity laced. I thought it was just, yes. Then buck flower bumps into the gin in an alley. And the gen tricks them into making a wish. And he says, you know, Eight and he’s got this great voice. Like what would you do it? He’s got this great, like, yeah.

Yeah. This is great. Like low gravelly voice. What would you have happen? Give it some thought.

Hey shit. Only get ganja.

You don’t want me to get cancer and die? That’s you wish? So of course the pharmacist immediately gets like, I don’t

Todd: even know what it’s, what is the some kind of, uh, like instant skin cancer and every cell in your body or

Craig: something. And so he just immediately dies.

Todd: It’s just, it’s a lot of airbag airbags and bubbles underneath his ladders underneath is his fake skin fun.

I

Craig: mean, I thought, uh, it’s cool. Yeah. The bum runs off in the gins, like enjoy your time while you still have a soul. So like, I guess he is collecting these people souls who make these wishes, but. Not right now.

Todd: I’ll get back. He’s going to wait just the right moment.

Craig: Right? Of course, Alex sees all this too.

Cause she sees everything that happens. The plot really, I guess in looking at my notes. It, it, it looks to me like the plot is kind of plotting at this point. And I guess it is, I think is, but there’s so much like, it feels fast paced because it’s so effects driven and they don’t really linger on any one scene for too long.

And, and yeah, so, I mean, she’s just kind of. You know, this weird stuff is happening to her. And so she’s just kind of trying to investigate and

Todd: figure out what’s going on. She seems to think that there’s something up with the gem, because that was what, you know, she left with him and went into headaches when it exploded and he had been killed and she had even seen when they were looking at it together, something weird inside.

So she decides to try to track down exactly where this sham came from. She presumably goes to the. Figures out that it came from the pawn shop, uh, from, from talking to Nick who she got it from. And then, um,

Craig: I dunno where you’re getting Nick you’re obsessed

Todd: with Nick. His name is the guy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Josh was her friend. Nick is the guy who’s all obsessed with money. Right. He was like, Oh right. His boss.

Craig: You’re right. You’re right. Sorry, go ahead.

Todd: So, yeah, she tracks it through Nick and then they go on, she ends up somehow finding the dock worker who stole it. And from there, he just mentioned that he got it from the statue and there she goes and meets up with Robert England’s character.

And that’s when he, we see his whole house, which looks suspiciously, like exactly the same set that we saw in the very beginning of the movie, kind of.

Craig: Really,

Todd: this is Lee similar, where he just has a, like you said, he’s like an old, rich, uh, asshole who collects, uh, all of these artifacts. And he has one, he says from every ancient civilization and that had a still right there was where that statue was going to go, but I’m still throwing a party for it.

And if you want, why don’t you come on out? Break your along. And I love all the little shades he’s throwing in here. Like, I didn’t know if he was going to try to molest her or what was going on here, but anyway, she collapses has another vision. Blah-blah-blah um, it’s all just basically leading up to this guy, uh, the gin of finding her.

So that’s, what’s kind of plotting, I think is her side of it maybe. Yeah. And I think what’s sort of plotting about it is we already know. Right. Like, we already know exactly where the gem came from. And so we’re just watching the first five minutes of the movie. In reverse for the next 20 minutes of the movie, interspersed with the gin stuff, which is way more interesting.

Know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, if it was a mystery like that, we were kind of engaged with too. We were kind of wondering, but even the folklore of the gin himself is spelled out to us in a few sentences in the beginning of the movie. So these scenes where she meets up with the folklorist and she basically says exactly the same thing to her true are like, Oh, okay.

Like, Tell me something new. Yeah. So I think, I think that’s why it felt plotting on that side.

Craig: That’s fair. I think that’s totally fair. But at the same time, I mean, even before we get there and I like that the lady that plays whoever she is, college professor, whatever that explains the gin. Legend. I, I think she’s bringing O’Hara.

But, um, even before that, like the gin goes to a Morgan gets a body, like he just doesn’t manifest into some human version of themselves. Like he goes and gets a body and he tricks the mortgage worker into he’s like, do you wish you didn’t see this? And the guy’s like, uh, yeah, makes it so the guy’s eyes are like, Stitched up and grown together.

Just these little things that are not really relevant to the plot at all. I mean, it’s just excuses for doing these. Makeup effects and practical effects. But in the moment I didn’t care cause they looked good and they looked cool and I, and I enjoyed seeing it, but he gets this, you know, human body. And it’s funny because then from that point on pretty much every woman who sees them, like takes off her panties and throws them at him, like he’s supposed to be like the hottest guy and he’s a handsome man.

He is, I just don’t know that he necessarily justifies the reaction that he immediately gets from every woman that he sees. For example, when he goes to get a suit, uh, in a, in a store and the gorgeous, uh, sales girl is totally flirting with them. And he eventually, you know, while she’s ringing him up, He like just makes money appear on the counter or whatever, and says something about how beautiful she is.

And don’t, you wish you could be beautiful forever. And she’s like, well, I guess he’s like, well, say it. She’s like, okay. I wish I could be beautiful forever. And then he turns her into a mannequin. I mean, it’s, it’s silly. Yeah. I don’t know.

Todd: I just, but it’s, it’s clever. I mean, it’s, it’s an interesting superpower, right?

Like it, it definitely gives him limitations. Like you said, he can’t go around with a sword and cut people. Like you get this idea, like he’s actually unable to do that. Right. So. He has to trick them into wishing for something in order to get his stuff done. And half of the time it’s these corny sort of silly ways, but it gets the job done.

And that’s probably what you’re stuck with. So, you know, when you’re, when you’re a gin, this is, this is the, the clay with which you work. Right.

Craig: Well, and that’s the thing too. Like he has to get them. To wish. And he asked to get them to wish for the right thing. And it always works out, but there’s at least one scene where it almost does it.

He’s trying to hunt her down, I guess, because she’s the one that led him out. He has to get her to make three wishes in order. For him to truly be freed and for all his breadth or, and to be freed and for them to take over the world or whatever, but he ends up at her job and it’s late at night. So it’s closed.

Of course. And there’s a security guard played by Kane hotter, again, another big horror guy. And at first he’s trying to get this security guard to wish and he does, but he just wishes. I wish you would go away or something like that. And you can tell by Andrew DevOps performance, that he’s really irritated by this because it’s like he has no choice.

But to do what was wished. So he turns around to leave, but no, I have to get inside. Well now you’d have to go through me. And that is something I would love to see. And this is what are those not practical effects. That’s just okay. Like he turns him into pretty bad glass, crystal or something and walks right through him.

And he shatters into a million pieces. I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, I can keep going a lot. Like it, he finally gets Alex’s location because he talks to Nick and he, you know, charms him with kind of a magic trick, turning something into gold or something. Yeah. But then, uh, Nick’s like, well, I can’t tell you where she is.

And he’s like, well, I’ll make it worth your while. What do you want? He’s like a million dollars. And then we just see this random scene where this sweet, old ladies getting on a plane and the person who’s taking her tickets, like, Oh, you forgot to sign for the insurance policy. And she’s like, Oh, Oh, I guess I better do that.

Cause it’ll go to my son, Nick.

Todd: So next shot is the plate explode.

Craig: But that’s the other thing that I like about the movie too, is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Like it’s goofy and it knows it’s goofy and that’s okay. Anyway, I like it. Then she goes and visits. Wendy, Wendy, I don’t even know who Wendy is.

Wendy is like a college professor or something.

Todd: She’s a professor of folklore. Yeah. But you

Craig: said who she was played by? What was this lady’s name? Uh, Jenny O’Hara. I recognized her right away too. And I’m not exactly sure what I specifically recognized her from, but I looked her up and she was in, I think it was M night Shyamalan.

Devil, uh, yes, the movie where they’re like all trapped in an elevator and one of them is the devil,

Todd: but she was in her alert.

Craig: I, I, I didn’t say she was the devil Todd, but I guess now I did spoiler

Todd: alert. She was in mystic river as well. Um, but she’s been all over television. I think that’s probably, probably, yeah, she has a very distinctive look. I recognized her as well, and I was embarrassed to note, to not be able to pinpoint where, but I just feel like I’ve probably just seen her as a bit character in a lot of different TV, TV shows.

Yeah. But I like her. Yeah. She was really good. She

Craig: she’s got a commanding presence. And, and then I don’t remember exactly what happens next, but what, what I do remember is that of eventual, like the gen tracks Alex down, because Alex like coaches, youth basketball, like I guess that we’re supposed to like, think that she’s a good person because she.

Coaches basketball. He tracks her down at a basketball game and he the agendas and he meets her sister. So, you know, we know that he knows that she has a sister, blah, blah, blah. But eventually Alex goes back to windy and I really liked that scene in Wendy’s apartment. I just thought it was really clever.

Of course I knew what was going on. But I didn’t know. And couldn’t remember if the first time I had seen it, that it was as obvious as it seemed this

Todd: time. It takes a little while to catch on because it’s just, you know, when he’s just explaining to her more about the mythology, but then she starts acting like, she’s like, Oh, do you want me to open the window?

Are you a little hot in here? And he’s like, no, I’m fine. It’s like, Oh, do you need something to drink? And she’s asking her it after about the second or third requests were, as the audience were like, Oh, this is, this is out of place. Something is up. Even Alex herself is, uh, saying no. Um, why are you asking me all of these things?

And it’s clearly, uh, becomes clear to us that she’s the gin in disguise. And that what’s happened is the gin has killed her as well, which, uh, he reveals himself to Alex. And basically says, you know, it’s time for you to make your three wishes and the way that he. Now help me out here because he compels her to make her three wishes, but not right away.

Oh, Oh yeah. Her first way he gives her a free one because she says, well, I just want to wish you dead. And so he says, all right, well, you can use that one. And, uh, he, she shoots himself through the. Chin blows his brains out and it immediately seals back up again. Uh, he says that, which is immortal, cannot be killed.

So that was your phrase, you know, now you’ve got your other three. Okay. And then she wishes herself to know. She says, uh, I always tell my students when she’s talking about her basketball it’s to know your know your opponent. So I want to know about you. And so he says, as you wish, and the way that he shows her about him as he puts her back in his little layer inside the Opal, which, which reminded me a little bit of a cube, it’s like, yeah, red, glowing walls, bottles, and passageways and everything.

So it’s not just him that was trapped in here, but he’s got a whole host of little monsters and creatures some little, again, a lot of these. Things are clearly just there to be more effects for us to OU and all over. And he’s got this little, almost looks like a cross between a bird and a dog. It’s all slimy and bony and it chases her around and she wishes herself out of it.

And back to her apartment without him there. And that’s what happens. So now she’s used her two

Craig: wishes. I know, and that was my least favorite part of the movie. First of all, the fact that the fact that he says, I’ll give you one free wish bullshit. Like who’s going to fall, like, first of all, why would he do that?

Secondly, even if he were telling the truth, I certainly wouldn’t believe that like, that’s bullshit. Like yeah, you say that. And then that’s just my wish. Like that’s dumb. Um, and then her first wishes, I want to know what you are. What more do you need to know? Like Wendy has explained this to you in great detail, like, and she doesn’t learn anything new.

She just gets chased around in the, by the hell hound and the gym world or whatever. She doesn’t learn anything new. And then that forces her into her second wish, which is just, I want to go home. And so now she’s too down, like, man, talk about wasting your wishes lame,

Todd: but it ups the ante because we know that if she can be convinced to do one more wish than life on earth, as we know it is over,

Craig: I know.

And we’re nearing the end of the movie. So I guess they had to stay.

Todd: Okay. They’d rather spend time on this boring investigation than I actually liked this part. I think.

Craig: So she wishes her way back home and she gets there and she finds a note from her sister saying, I waited for you as long as I could, but you never showed up.

So I went ahead and went to Beaumont’s party and the gin or on the phone, you know, as genie will and says, uh, we’re connected now, you know, anywhere you are. Uh, I’m there two or whatever. And we see that, you know, like she tries to raise to the party, but he’s, you know, right there, she stops the car and, and he’s right there outside her window and bus out or window or whatever.

She finally gets to the party and Tony Todd Candyman himself is the doorman slash bouncer. She runs up to him and she’s like, you gotta, you gotta help me. This guy’s following me. He’s trying to kill me or whatever. And so he lets her inside and then, uh, he has a conference, Tony Todd, as a confrontation with the gin and human form.

He’s in his human form now. And I thought that was funny. Like they kind of have a little pissing contest or

Todd: at first you think, yeah, he’s not going to be easily fooled. Uh, but then he says, this was the silliest. One of them all really, it is. He says to him, don’t you wish you had another job? And he’s like, what are you talking about?

I was like, no, no, really? You could don’t you wish you could escape is what he says. Yeah, I would. And then he says, as you wish, and then as he walks away, we see behind him, he’s in a, like a padlocked, a glass case with water in it. And he’s tied up with chains like it like Houdini. Yeah. You know, one of his illusions and he’s like, he said, he, as he walks away, he says, Houdini only took three minutes to escape.

Yeah. Oh,

Craig: that’s so silly. It really was that’s that’s the silliest one. Plus it kind of, I mean, I get the whole monkeys pie idea. Like your wish gets turned around on you or whatever, but if your wishes, I wish I could escape one would think that he would be able to escape. I don’t know. No you’re whatever.

You’re a hundred percent it’s it’s still, you know, it’s a funny. Visual. And it gives an opportunity for us to see Tony Todd young, thin, you know, probably relatively early in his career. I don’t remember that

Todd: from Candyman. Yeah. I think it was around the same time,

Craig: but anyway. Okay. So, uh, they go there in the party and Alex is running around, looking for Shannon, her sister.

Shannon for no reason is being kind of standoffish because she finally finds her Alex find her and she’s like, we have to leave right now. We have to go and go. And Shannon’s like, no, I’m fine. Dang,

Todd: like

Craig: you would think these two seemingly close, like they live together. Uh, Alex saved her from a fire. You know, one would think that Shannon might trust her sister a little bit, but no, it’s like, no, I’m staying.

Did you see Beaumont’s new friend? He’s so hot and, and they look. And Beaumont is talking to the gin and his human form. And then we cut to their conversation. They’re commenting on the party. I remember a certain potentate whose last party he was talked about for centuries. What do you mean? It went down in history.

Yes, God. I’d love to host a party like that. And he’s talking about the opening scene that we saw. And then again, it’s just, it’s the impetus for this huge effects driven slaughter of this party. And it’s so much fun like this. Isn’t a great movie. I mean, it’s not a great movie, but these moments, um, are just so much fun to watch.

And I loved all the stuff that was going on. In what probably boils down to five minutes. But if that,

Todd: Oh, I dunno. It was, I think it was probably more like 10. It’s very, very, um, uh, dead, alive style where everything just goes crazy and it’s blood and guts and Gore and things, crazy things happening everywhere.

Statues are coming to life. The cops show up and they’re trying to, trying to shoot at the statues and the statues are exploding, but they’re also cutting people to ribbons. The director himself. Robert Kurtzman, uh, has a cameo in here as well as a guy who’s standing around too close to the piano and the piano starts playing itself and all the.

Wire spring out of it and wrap around his arms and his face and his head, and basically pull his head off. It’s just a mess of, of this stuff. And it’s fun. You’re right. It’s just a gratuitous out the yin yang. And, uh, and in the meantime, she’s running around Alex and eventually gets cornered by the gin.

Yeah,

Craig: that you mentioned that piano wire scene, there’s a making of documentary on the DVD, or at least the DVD that I have, I saw you can also find it on YouTube. It’s really not all that informative, but they do show how they did some of these practical effects and the way that they did. That piano wire effect.

They show that in great detail and it looks really cool. And the director, you know, I have no idea how old he is, but he certainly was very young at heart. And was, he said that he’s not much of an actor, but give him any opportunity to die on film and he’ll to it. It was really cool to see how they did that.

There were some other things, there are lots of fire effects in this movie, and lots of them are here in this final scene. And there’s lots of behind the scene footage of that. And they had some really close calls with explosions and things like there was one scene it’s here at the end. I don’t remember exactly when it is, but a man is engulfed in fire and runs and jumps out.

A window. Well, the first time they lit this guy up, you know, and he was in a fire suit and all the safety precautions, you know, all, all that was. Set, but he went to jump out the window and it didn’t break and he just bounced off it and, uh, fell back onto the floor. And, you know, they they’re shooting all this behind the scenes and you see that they urgently had to get the fire extinguishers to put them out because.

Everything was supposed to happen on the other side of the wall and it didn’t break. And there was another scene where there was some sort of explosion, a statue or something was supposed to explode. And they set charges at various levels in the statue, I think from top to bottom. And they were supposed to explode in sequence, but the first explosion was so hot that it caused the lower charges to malfunction.

And both of them exploded at the same time. And there was a big fire. And you see it happen and you see them put the, put it out and there’s so much smoke, but then what’s really interesting to see as the aftermath, like the cameras were right there to capture it and the aftermath they show the cameras or just completely melted.

Yeah. And, uh, I guess there was so much smoke that day that they were forced by the fire Marshall to shut down. Shooting for the rest of the day. But anyway, that documentary it’s only like 20 minutes is on YouTube if you’re interested. Yeah. So basically it comes down to the same scenario, Mario. The, the opening scene was where the gin has Alex cornered and he basically says, You can wish all this away.

And the stakes are especially high because he’s got Shannon trapped in a painting and she’s burning. And so, uh, in order to save her sister and herself, it’s a double-edged sword because even if she wishes to save them in this moment, Supposedly that unleashes hell on earth. So, you know, what’s the point?

What do you do? But she’s very clever. She thinks really hard

Todd: about her final

Craig: wish. And she liked flashes back to all this research research that she’s done. And, um, she sees the article about the initial accident that released the stone and she flashes on this name in the text. I wish, I wish

I wish Mickey Tourette. Hadn’t been drinking on the job two days ago. Initially the gin is like, ha, she made her wish. And then he’s like, Oh wait, damn,

because that means the stone never got released from the statue. And so he never got freed. And as everything goes back in time, we see that doc scene again, but this time the guy’s not drunk, so everything’s fine. The assistant doesn’t get squashed. The stone doesn’t get broken. I don’t really understand this because like, Are we supposed to think that Alex is still aware of what happened?

I

Todd: know it, it seems like the movie’s kind of implying that because the next scene is between her and her friend, Josh, and instead of being real tentative about their relationship, she kind of has this knowing smile and she’s like, yeah, let’s go out. And then she kisses him. Yeah. And so that was, yeah, you’re right.

It feels like it’s a knowing Alex, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be, she could just have had a change of heart over the last day. Yeah,

Craig: I guess, or I don’t know, maybe something inherent about her character was changed even as she doesn’t remember. I don’t know. But then it flat she’s back to Beaumont’s house and the pedestal where the statue is always supposed to be.

And now it is there and the camera like zooms into the statue and into the stone. And we see the gin sitting on his. Thrown just trapped within and that’s the end. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. I mean, you’re fine, obviously. It’s yeah. That’s what I thought you were going to say. Todd’s review

Todd: is it was fine.

It’s fine. I mean, I got everything to say about it that you said about it. It was a. It was a lot of fun to see all the different Gore effects and things. Uh, it did get a little plotting in the middle. It was a rather simple story. And some of it was a little hokey and cheesy, but it was a unique concept.

And again, this idea of that this character’s powers are better than just a guy running around slashing people or a guy running around, making magical things happen. It’s it’s cool. It’s sort of like the vampire trying to convince you to invite him into his home. Right. There’s that moment there where you kind of root for the.

The human, like, Oh, don’t let them, don’t let them do it. Don’t let them do it, man. You have more power than you realize. It’s just your words. And then they say something like, I want this or I wish this, and then it’s all over for them. Right. So there’s that aspect. I didn’t think the monkey’s paw aspect of it was as clever.

Is it. Could have been, I, I suppose, but I can’t write a movie, you know, so who knows what I would come up with, but it just would have been neat if those aspects were just a little more like clever twists, like a little more Twilight Zoney, but that’s just a small thing. And I thought the, the character himself was pretty cool.

I liked, you know, his eyes, his physicality, that, you know, the makeup and everything apparently was a huge pain to get into and out of. Like three hours to get into it, hour and a half to get out of it every day, but they really designed a cool creature. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, the story was rather simple and kind of silly at times.

So it wasn’t one that I’m going to probably go back and watch too often. Not one I’m going to buy on DVD, Craig. So to be

Craig: fair, to be fair, I bought it when our last. Video rental store closed down and they were liquidating all of their stuff. And so I got in on a double disc with wish master too, for like a dollar.

Todd: Have you seen the second

Craig: one? I have. I’ve seen all of, well, the second one is pretty good. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I liked the first one, but I still enjoyed it and yeah. Um, I think that that’s largely because of Andrew div off. I mean, even in the gins human form is cool. Yeah. He’s still very menacing.

I mean, he’s got that great voice. He’s got these piercing eyes and, and they, they do, you know, he plays both forms. In the second one. Also the first movie was made on a $5 million budget. Uh, six months start to finish. They shot it in 33 days and it grossed 16 million. So, you know, they, they went forward with the, uh, second one.

And the second one, I think. The fans of the first one came out for the second one. So it said, okay, too well enough for them to Greenlight a third one, Andrew DevOp was on board to reprise the role for the third one, but he wrote a treatment for the script and the studio rejected it in favor of a different script that div off hated.

And so he left and they replaced him with an actor named John Novak and they shot wish master three and four back, two back. Oh, one of those. Yeah, like a weekend between, uh, the two and three and four aren’t as good. They’re not as clever at all. They lean more into the fantasy. There’s a lot less Gore. Um, I still watched them and I didn’t hate them, but they’re obviously lower quality.

I mean, they feel like made for cable movies because they are overall, you know, this first one I think was pretty ambitious and, and considering the fact that it was shot so quickly on a relatively meager budget, I mean, 5 million. I’ll never have $5 million, but that’s a fairly low budget, especially for such an effects driven movie.

And it did pretty well. I’m kind of surprised. I feel like this franchise is forgotten. I never hear anybody talk about it. I never see anything about it. And that surprises me because I think that it was clever. I don’t know. I have an appreciation for it. I don’t think that it’s amazing. I don’t think it’s a great movie.

But, uh, if you’re a horror fan, uh, I think at least the first one and maybe the first two, um, are worth checking out. They’re fun, little rides, you know, they’re popcorn movies, they’re fun, popcorn movies. And I would recommend them. I like them and

Todd: check out the cameos.

Craig: Oh gosh. Yeah. It’s worth it for the cameos alone.

Anyway, those of you out there in internet land, let us know what you think about this movie. I’d be interested in if I’m the only one who, uh, remembers it fondly and still thinks of it. Of course, we are happy to talk to you about whatever you’d want to talk about. We are very much open to it. Plus, we’ve got kind of a long list of requests that we’re working on now, but if you’ve got something you would like for us to talk about, we will put you on the list and we will try to get to you as soon as we can.

You can find all of our back episodes anywhere where you can find podcasts, just Google “Two Guys and a Chainsaw podcast”, and you’ll find this all over the place. Check out our YouTube page. Uh, we’re not doing a whole lot with it yet, but, uh, the more subscribers we can get, the more we may be able to do with that.

And then hopefully we can broaden our viewership a little bit more until we meet again. I am Craig and I’m Todd with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.