Wishcraft

In competition at the Brussels Fantasy Film festival 2002.

Here's another teen slasher coming down the screen. Curiously, it is not an inept one. No flashy camera angles, no genre parody nor blink-and-you'll-miss-it effect. Just a good old scary story of teenagers getting killed by a strange and very strong killer. A nerdy guy gets by mail a totem that guarantees him 3 wishes. he doesn't believe in it at all but decides to get one for a try. He wishes to go to the prom with the local beauty queen...and succeeds. For a second one, he wishes her to fall madly in love with him...and she does. 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). All the actors (including sexy Huntley Ritter (Voodoo Academy, Bring it On)) are doing a good job though no awards will ever be given them to. Meat Loaf is just another cop with a very few scenes. Fun to see him in here but his acting skills are...hum...well, y'know.

Richard Wenk knows how to scare people from time to time and the storyline, though not revolutionnary, follows a very well known path. The suspense is also well handled as the final twist is unpredictable but really preposterous! 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

I highly recommend this film! Although it's rated 'R', there's no nudity, BUT the movie hits a homerun in the LOVE SPELL theme...

Here's the synopsis... Boy receives a strange totem that gives him three wishes... first wish is for school's most beautiful girl (and she is a major 'hottie') to go to the dance with him. Incidentally, she's also the school's superjock's girlfriend), so the nerd is shocked when the girl suddenly asks him to the dance the next day. The film spends time on the girl, and she does a great job of acting shocked. 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. The next day she's at his door acting like she has an incredible crush on him - lovestruck beyond belief - and although she questions these sudden new feelings, she can't help herself. 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... and sweet justice proves the victor.

The theme and controlling forces makes this movie erotic - despite no nudity... and the acting is good, which makes you believe that the girl is really under a love spell. The movie is consistent and well worth a look see.

I highly recommend it! :-)

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. But the film works somehow in its own weird way. The nerd is sent a magic object (you won't believe what it is), and a note stating he has 3 wishes. He uses the wishes just as you might expect. 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. Random scenes that make no sense, and are obviously to establish the motive for the murders. The acting is actually pretty decent for the leads (nerd & cheerleader, although the nerd's bug eyes were annoying to look at), but acting of supporting roles are at a kindergarten level.

Fair, and OK if you have nothing better to do.

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 ). Whatever. In spite of some good elements, it turned out to be a typical, ordinary member of the genre. 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

The acting was very bad, the casting was horrible, it was not very good, I had trouble watching it, until the last 15 minutes. The principal photography was off and on. I was curious what the budget was for this film, I would like to discuss this film further with the principal's