Wishcraft

Plot synopsis:
A high school student named Brett Bumpers (Weston) receives a mysterious package one day. It contains a bull penis totem with a note explaining that it will grant him three wishes. His first wish is for Samantha (Alexandra Holden) to go with him to a spring dance. The next day, Samantha invites him to the dance, and he suspects that his wish has come true. Samantha's boyfriend Cody is the star jock at the school, and he is humiliated by Samantha's decision.
After the dance, one of Cody's buddies is murdered by a cloaked figure with a grotesquely disfigured face. When Brett drops Samantha off at home, she suggests that they should return to just being friends. Heartbroken, Brett makes his second wish that Samantha would become his girlfriend and actually fall in love with him. The next day, Samantha breaks up with Cody and initiates a relationship with Brett. Meanwhile, the cloaked figure continues to kill students at the high school.
Feeling guilty about wishing Samantha into a relationship, Brett confesses the truth to her. As Samantha is coming to grips with the truth, the cloaked figure attacks the pair. He lures Brett away from Samantha and then reveals himself to be Brett's history teacher, Mr. Turner (Austin Pendleton). Mr. Turner explains that he bought the totem and discovered that it actually granted wishes. He wished his wife dead, to avoid divorcing her. Then he wished for "Fuck-you-money", and he promptly got $100 million which he hid in a Swiss bank account. Mr. Turner confessed that he also wished for supernatural strength, because he decided to kill problem students at the school. As he was killing the students on his list, he sent the totem to Brett because he was an exemplary student. If the totem is given to another person, that person can also make three wishes.
Mr. Turner then reveals that Samantha is the last name on his list. Just as he is about to kill Samantha, Brett makes his third wish, asking for more strength and agility than Mr. Turner. The two struggle, and eventually, Brett kills Mr. Turner with a samurai sword. Brett gives the totem to Samantha so that she is not forced to love him against her will. She uses the totem to begin their relationship again, but this time, on her own terms.

Tags: murder

Review:
This movie plays out better than "Cherry Falls" in the long run (CF peeters out and turns into a predictable slasher film in the end; this film does not).Also, the chemistry between the leads is good and the movie doesn't overextend itself and play up the supernatural too much with cheesy special effects they probably couldn't afford anyway.
Once the dance is over, the spell is over and she tells him that 'no hard feelings but our relationship is over'.The girl goes back to her boyfriend and things back to normal BUT he wants this girl to be his girlfriend, so he uses his second wish to make the girl be his girlfriend and love him forever.
This is played out perfectly, providing the viewer to witness what she's going through - providing us her pov.Like every HORROR movie there's someone killing students and because giving the ending away would ruin the movie - lets say that the ending and the actions are very appropriate...
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.
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..
A brilliant blend of different genre's, with the end result being a superb horror/teen slasher flick!.
What starts off as a stereotypical teen-angst story of a nerd being in love with the prom queen quickly and furiously mutates into a horror film about a boy with three wishes, and how he chooses to use that power.The ending is great, and truly a surprise.
What is the biggest surprise is the fact that no one saw it coming - when you think the film is headed in one direction, it is actually going in another!
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.
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.
Just a good old scary story of teenagers getting killed by a strange and very strong killer.
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).
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.
On this movie you cannot comment in ways like "eeew, another bad teen movie", because in my opinion there is much more in it than just the things you can easily be seen.When I watched the first minutes of that movie, I wondered what this film would be about, because I was awaiting a horror movie.
But with some more minutes passing by, I started to like this one - and then I got my horror.Well, I think the main disadvantage of that movie is, to choose a totem which is a bull's penis.
And there also is a hidden moral, if you read between the lines.Brett wishes a relationship with Samantha, but after some time he realizes that you cannot force feelings like he did with his wish.
The violence is more in line with a PG-13 horror movie, and I think Wishcraft got its R rating mostly from a few choice profanities uttered merely to avoid a PG-13.If you like campy and quirky horror movies, you'll probably enjoy Wishcraft.
Instead, it seems to be more of a teen thriller, influenced by slasher movies.The story was better than I was expecting, though the ending kind of came out of nowhere.
Some people will find it a bit too inhibited (especially for an R-rated horror movie) or boring (much of the movie is spent developing the romance between the protagonist and his girlfriend), but I thought it was enjoyable..
This teen slasher obviously lacks a decent amount of story, since i dropped in halfway & still managed to reconstruct the whole story ( not in the least because all of it was retold in the form of a confession that the Nerd is making to the Pretty Girlfriend ).
In order to sit through it, these are the good elements : - Alexandra Holden - a girl being hung by use of a traffic light - a guy being crushed with a bowling ball - a cool killer outfit - a katana - Viking dart - a teacher handing us our comeuppance.
A nerd gets a bull penis in the mail one day, which grants him three wishes.
Meatloaf seems to make REALLY good movie role choices (Fight Club, Rocky Horror, Wayne's World, etc..) or pretty bad ones (pretty much any other movie, including this one)My Grade: C- Where i saw it: Cinemax.
A high school student (Brett) receives a mysterious package in the mail that holds some kind of mutilated animal genitalia and states it grants three wishes.
After initially throwing it straight in the bin Brett has a change of heart as the school dance looms and digs it out again.Making wishes triggers a string of 'Scream-like' murders by a cloaked figure, which come across as somewhat supernatural, on other students.
At Edinburgh's Dead by Dawn horror festival, I had the dubious pleasure of watching Wishcraft, in which a 20-something `teen' cast get killed by some nasty demon-looking creature, after one receives a mysterious bulls penis in the post which grants wishes.
Yup, it's the old teen slasher at it again, although in it's defence, Wishcraft does feature a couple of daftly inventive deaths, such as the bowling ball sequence.
Sadly, it gets far too bogged down in the teen angst angle, as our geeky `hero' Brett (Michael Weston) wishes for the most beautiful blonde in the school be his girlfriend.
So bad it makes other bad teen slasher "Cherry Falls" seem like a good movie....
Wishcraft is another bad teen horror movie.
Sometimes seems like the movie tries to be funny, but the jokes...(argh!)The main character gets a "wishing device" which is bull´s penis...
I usually don't enjoy the teen slasher flick genre, but this one makes all those I know What you did last summers, and Urban Myth movies look great.
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.
The main character Brett gets a bull's penis in the mail.
later he decides he has nothing to lose and takes the bull's penis out of the trash and makes a wish that the popular cheerleader named Samantha will asked him to the spring dance.
Brett decides to make a second wish asking for Samantha to be his girlfriend forever.
This seems to be a dream come true for Brett until he gets to know Samantha and actually starts to feel guilty.
Give this film a chance if you like a good slasher flick!
This is one of my favorite teen Slasher movies, that's extremely entertaining, with a really creative story, and fantastic performances!.
This is one of my favorite teen Slasher movies, that's extremely entertaining, with a really creative story, and fantastic performances!.
A.J. Buckley is very funny as Brett's best friend, and I found the plot to be fascinating, plus you care for the two leads in Weston and Holden because there so likable.
Some of the movie's best scenes came when Brett's wishes were coming true, and Alexandra Hodlen is also incredible eye candy!
Meat Loaf is pretty bad though(could have been worse though), and one part that made me laugh a lot was when Howie (A.J Buckley), wishes to become a bad ass like Steven Seagal, and ends up getting his ass kicked, and the ending always puts a huge smile on my face, plus one of the main reasons I was able to care for Brett's character is because in a way I'm very much like him.
This is one of my favorite teen Slasher movies, that's extremely entertaining, with a really creative story, and fantastic performance, and if you haven't seen it give it a chance, you might end up loving it as much as I did, but not everyone will.The Direction is wonderful!.
job here with fantastic camera work, awesome angles, adding some creepy atmosphere at times, and just keeping the film at an extremely fast pace.There is a little bit of gore, lot of off screen stuff(mostly).
Michael Weston is amazing here, he is extremely likable, reminded me a lot of myself, had outstanding chemistry with Alexandra Holden, was charismatic, had a geeky charm, and showed tons of potential, I hope he makes it big, because he's certainly got the talent!
Alexandra Holden is also amazing here, she is incredibly gorgeous, extremely sexy, had outstanding chemistry with Weston, was extremely likable, showed that she could be a fantastic scream queen, and had a really cool character, I loved her!
A.J. Buckley is hilarious as the best friend,he was childish but in a lovable way, he had great chemistry with Weston I loved him!.
Hi-school nerd Brett Bumper (Michael Weston) has got a crush on the school beauty, Samantha (Alexandra Holden).
As his relationship with his sweetheart deepens, the murders begin getting closer to home until Brett realises that Sam could be next on the killer's list.Unlike most of the z-grade genre pieces that have been slowly fading from store shelves, Wishcraft looks neatly produced and fairly well budgeted.
There's a little bit of romantic comedy, a few teen movie ingredients and for the main course, a dose of horror.
The previous reviewers had it right when they said this movie is a crappy combination of two far superior horror movies - "Wishmaster" and "Scream".The movie is funny in terms of how awful it is, for instance the lead male character is supposed to be a high school boy, but he looks like he is in his late 20's or even early 30's!
And most of the other supposed high school "kids" are also way older than they are supposed to be.There is nothing more jarring and breaking of realism in a movie than characters where the actors don't fit the roles they are supposed to be playing.
Also, the movie doesn't know what it wants to be, a cutesy teen romance or a violent slasher movie.Note to horror fans, the kills are not good, there are very few of them, the gore is wanting, and a lot of the movie consists of silly dialogue and no action.Even the basic premise is a rip off of the movie "Wishmaster", where the characters get three wishes.
ENDING SPOILER The main villain turns out to be not supernatural at all, but an old washed up history teacher at the high school.The only bright spot is Alexandra Holden, who plays the hot cheerleader and the prettiest girl in the school who the male character lusts after.
Rubbishy horror film that offers nothing new, you know your in trouble when even Meat Loaf uses a pseudonym!
Great, I thought, thinking this was a perfect opportunity to watch a good horror & soak up the atmosphere it being a dark, stormy, rainy night.
Unfortunately instead of a good horror I ended up watching the abysmal Wishcraft...
Brett tells his best, & only, friend Howie (A.J. Buckley) who convinces him to give it a try & make a wish.
Brett wishes that a blonde babe named Samantha Warren (Alexanda Holden), whom he has a crush on, would ask him to go to an upcoming school dance.
The next day at school Samantha does indeed ask Brett to the dance which annoys her stud boyfriend Cody (Huntley Ritter).
Brett uses his second wish to make Samantha fall in love with him which antagonises Cody even more & puts a strain on his friendship with Howie as Brett's life starts to spiral out of control, & the small matter of a psycho killer running around keeps rearing it's ugly head as more of Brett's classmates die & Detective Sparky Shaw (Meat Loaf as Micheal Aday) is determined to catch those responsible...Directed by Danny Graves & Richard Wenk I thought Wishcraft was a pretty awful film.
The friends who keep splitting up, a killer who is not as they first appear & all the good guys live to see a sickeningly happy ending while all the bad ones die, yawn.
At first Wishcraft tries to convince the viewer that a demon of some sort is responsible for the killings but is revealed not to be the case during the incredibly lame 'twist' ending, the killers motives are worthless, bland & mean absolutely nothing in the sense that the killer more or less just 'felt' like killing some random teenagers as they have no real connection to anyone else for the majority of the film.
The plot devices which connect the Bull's penis, the three wishes, the killer & Brett together are tenuous & very simplistic.
At the end I felt that the supernatural elements just didn't work alongside the bog-standard teen slasher themes, they never really gel that well.
I also have to mention the endings, first the 'exciting' climax when the killer is unmasked & the hero saves the day which is really bad & seemingly had very little thought put into it & the second 'true love conquers all' happy ending afterwards which goes on for a full five minutes, yuck.
Wishcraft is also really slow & boring spending far too much time on Brett's magical relationship with Samantha, during these scenes I swore I could have been watch a Disney film as the school nerd gets to date the best looking blonde around & not quite know how to handle it.
Director's Graves & Wenk fail to create any atmosphere, tension, scares, surprises or shocks & Wishcraft ends up having the look & feel of a TV film.
"Wishcraft" is a decent slasher but nothing special.**SPOILERS**Trying to win Samantha Warren, (Alexandra Holden) the girl of his dreams, Brett Bumpers, (Michael Weston) receives a strange package in the mail that grants wishes.
As the killer turns to Brett, Samantha and their friend Howie, (A.J. Buckley) with the police on their trail, a secret about who sent the packages and why they're killing the students leads to a final showdown in the woods.The Good News: This is a really competent slasher film with some rather nice examples of the genre.
Coupled with the different kills committed during the film, it's the definition of a great killer.
Watching those scenes are a pain, and feel a little out-of-place in a slasher film.
It could've been fixed, and makes it all the more likely that it would've been decent.The Final Verdict: When it's a slasher film, this really work ad works well, but it's interrupted by moments of boredom when the teen angle side is pursued.
Seemed he could care less about those who died, and probably wouldn't have cared until the killer made it clear he would go after main char's beloved Sam. Which brings me to the end of the movie.Couldn't Whiner have wished himself back in time, or that the totem never was found in the first place?
Horror/comedy movie or not, I will not root for a guy that has sex with a girl when she's under a love spell of his (no matter how big jerks the rest of the ensemble turns out to be), and then gets her in the end.
Killer dealt with, love spell revoked, new wishes to manipulate people being made.
But alas, my wish wasn't granted.If you like horror movies, save yourself the trouble, and wish for a better movie to enjoy.
But if you can handle bad "horror" movies, go ahead and watch it.
Quite mesmerizing, it gives the impression of someone who was wearing a surgical mask while he was getting a tan.Second, as usual, people who receive three wishes are SO unimaginative in using them, and the main character is equally clueless in this movie.
A worthy take on the teen Horror genre, but perhaps a bit too light for some..
It's a slick well made movie that will appeal greatly to anyone in to teen Horrors.
I saw 30 seconds of this on Sci-Fi one night, which was enough to make me check it out, and as a movie I enjoyed it greatly, but I felt the horror element was way too light to really think of it as much more than a teen comedy with horror elements.