Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 27, 2017

Note: This film is available as part of the Wishmaster Collection.

What would your three wishes be? It’s a time honored game played by a lot of kids, and maybe even some nostalgic adults: pretend you were someone like Aladdin who discovered a genie in a bottle (since that’s where genies supposedly are invariably found), freed it from its confines and then were granted that magic trifecta of desires. Of course any kid worth their salt makes it clear that their third wish is for three more (or infinitely more) wishes, unless the rules have already been proscribed denying that ability. But at least those first two wishes can be fun to contemplate, for those fond of indulging in such episodes of pretend. You might not want to get to that venerable third wish should you find yourself in an environment like that depicted in the Wishmaster series, since part of this film’s conceit is that the djinn (an Arabic term relating to a class of supernatural beings, one of whom is called a djinni, or as it became Anglicized, genie) are basically just waiting to escape their purgatorial (or in fact hellish) universe to invade ours, and that some poor hapless mortal getting to that third wish is the mechanism by which that event can happen. That’s just one way the Wishmaster franchise skews traditional elements of “genie in the bottle” stories, with another one being that very bottle element: in this formulation, the djinn is imprisoned in a jewel, one that (of course) repeatedly falls into the hands of either unwitting innocents or very witting bad guys, all of whom (again of course) unleash the superpowered being into the human realm, with expected calamitous consequences. The first Wishmaster is fun if hokey, augmented by some nice visual effects work, but this is one franchise that definitely experiences the law of diminishing returns as it goes on.

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies is a fairly substantial step down from the already none too high levels set by the original Wishmaster, but if taken on its own lo-fi merits, it has some enjoyable elements. The film is notable in that its putative heroine is a criminal named Morgana Truscott (Holly Fields), a thief who gets involved in a messy shootout in a museum she’s attempting to rob, a shootout that of course ends up dislodging the fire opal that houses that unrepentant Djinn (Andrew Divoff, returning from the first film). By contrast, the first film passed the jewel from the initial thief to what amounted to innocent bystanders, while here there seems to be a more direct linkage between the thief and the mayhem that ensues.

That said, the actual jewel stays behind in the museum after Morgana escapes during the shootout, where it animates in one of the film’s more inventively wacky sequences and gives “birth” to the Djinn, who then “negotiates” with Morgana’s accomplice and boyfriend, who in the throes of agony after having been repeatedly shot, wishes to have never been born. Wish granted, of course—but that leads to a bit of cognitive dissonance since Morgana becomes freaked out when news reports of the debacle don’t mention him at all (if he had never been born, wouldn’t that mean that Morgana had never known him?).

Morgana decides she needs a little spiritual help to figure it all out, so she goes to visit Father Gregory (Paul Johannson), who just so happens to be another (former) boyfriend. Since Morgana’s activities have awakened the Djinn, she has a subliminal link to the demon and is troubled by empathetic nightmares. Meanwhile, the Djinn has assumed his alter ego of Nathaniel Demerest, with “Demerest” actually surrendering at the museum crime scene and getting sent to the slammer for the deaths of the police at the shootout. That leads to some goofily amusing vignettes where Demerest, in stir, tricks a number of convicts into making unwise wishes which ultimately increase the djinn “soul pool”.

As with the first Wishmaster, it’s obvious the story is working toward an ultimate showdown between the heroine and the Djinn, though Wishmaster 2 is a bit more straightforward than the first film, with (again, as with the first film) the heroine’s intuition about making smart wishes finally paying off and leading to a few unexpected resurrections. Wishmaster 2 is ultimately fairly middling fare with a couple of bright spots, including some of the fun special effects, notably the spider walking Djinn in the opening sequence. Unfortunately for the franchise, this first sequel was just the first substantial step downward in quality.

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films' Vestron Video imprint, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. All four of the films in the Wishmaster Collection are within "shouting distance" of each other, quality wise, but I'm grading this film and the first sequel at 3.5, and the last two at 4.0 to indicate some subtle but noticeable differences between these transfers. The first two films exhibit some fairly bad wobble during the credits, a tendency which calms down when the actual film begins. As with Wishmaster, this first sequel's palette looks quite good in this transfer, with (again as with the first film) the brightly lit outdoor scenes popping very well and offering good fine detail levels. This film has a little bet less of the red grading than the first film, but individual moments that are bathed in the hue exhibit the same loss of fine detail as in the first film (see screenshots 5 and 8). Also as with the first film, while grain resolves generally very well, there are isolated moments of chunkiness that can feature a kind of chroma like anomaly that tends to add a bit of color to the grain field.

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies features a nice sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one that perhaps unexpectedly belies the film's lo-fi ambience to deliver some appealing surround activity, especially in some of the effects sequences. There's some robust if sporadic low end here in moments like the shootout that begins the film, or later intrusions by the Djinn. Some of the sound effects are kind of goofily amusing as well, especially when Demerest starts granting wishes at the prison and things go (intentionally) haywire. Dialogue and score are both rendered clearly, as with the first film, and with good prioritization.

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Jack Sholder


• Trailer (1080p; 1:07)


• Still Gallery (1080p; 5:22)

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies actually starts out fairly strongly, but then starts to dissipate its energy as it moves along, never recapturing whatever fitful force the first film was able to muster. As with the first film, there are some fun if "old school" looking effects on tap, and the performers do what they can with inadequate material. Technical merits are generally very good for those considering a purchase.