The Final Wish
by Timothy Woodward Jr

The concept of an evil object or entity granting wishes and then twisting them as punishment for human greed is nothing new. The story of The Monkey’s Paw has been adapted and changed and expanded upon in so many works of fiction that it’s become a pretty vanilla sub-genre of horror in my opinion. I personally feel that the last time the concept of a djinn spirit was executed well was with 1997’s Wishmaster, but maybe I’m remembering it with rose colored glasses as I haven’t revisited the film in quite some time. I thought this would be a pretty fun movie since the trailer looked promising, Lin Shaye is in it, and it was from the creator of Final Destination.

In The Final Wish there’s nothing new brought to the table other than the fact that the main character, Aaron, doesn’t know that he’s got the power of having his wishes granted and wastes his first couple wishes.

Spoiler Alert: One of the wishes doesn’t really even amount to anything except a scar disappearing. I think they would have been better off switching actors out entirely to make things more drastic. Not to say that Michael Welch is a bad actor, just that his wish didn’t make sense. Aaron wishes he was good looking, and he isn’t an ugly guy. He has a scar on his lip from a cleft lip surgery, so what? That’s what makes someone ugly? Sure, it’s all about self-perception, he saw himself as ugly, but this isn’t a deep film on any level. They should have either made Welch more unattractive for the first part of the film and then had him cleaned up. End spoilers.

I feel like the dialogue was lazy and the plot was just a mish-mash of pieces of other films that we’ve all already seen. I hate to ever talk about a movie with Lin Shaye in it this way, but even she couldn’t save the film from being the cheesy snoozefest I found it to be. (I actually fell asleep while watching.) Tony Todd makes an appearance, but unlike most other films he’s in, this movie had nothing new, interesting, or entertaining to deliver. There’s a “twist” as well that I saw coming a mile away, not surprised.

I will say that at least the ending was satisfying. Anyone who reads my reviews knows I enjoy a great unhappy ending, and this was definitely not a fairy tale finale. However, a satisfying ending doesn’t make for a satisfying film. My opinion: watch this for background noise while you’re doing something else or maybe don’t even bother.

(This review was originally published on Horror Metal Sounds.)