Make a Wish

Make a Wish was a scream. At least we finally get a gay movie where the story stays coherent all the way through. Everyone was dying laughing. The movie is fun to watch, a guilty gay pleasure, grab the popcorn and turn off your brain. I thought having the cast play everything so straight faced was right on, the horror clichés were not lost on the audience.

I would say it is more funny than scary, but there are a couple of great scary surprises. I thought the acting was solid. This is a very low budget feature with no B cam and a small cast, maybe that's why the other writer before me was so fooled, I guess he has never actually seen bad acting, or maybe he's too easily fooled by the usual Hollywood scene stealing and scenery chewing.

I loved how the movie veered into an incredibly weird and surreal serious

climax, then ... well go see it.

Make a Wish is another variation of the typical slasher movies. The variation here is that the main characters are lesbians. It's very simple. A group of lesbian friends, lovers, exlovers go on a camping trip and one by one get picked off along with a few men that happen to be wandering around in the woods. It has some usual twists and turns and the viewer has to figure out who is doing this and why. For men that may want to watch this expecting to see a lot of hot lesbian sex scenes and lots of blood and gore, this isn't for you. This film is just like the other typical slasher movies. There are lots of kissing scenes and a few R rated sex scenes but not much. It's not a prominent part of the movie. For the blood and guts, again typical, I've certainly seen a lot more but I've also seen less. This is a low budget film but it does entertain. It's alright, not good, not bad just alright.

I don't think the Ferranti family is fooling anyone with their IMDb voting. Most theaters advertise this one as a "lesbian slasher film". Here's the thing...there's no slashing, and the lesbians are stereotypical dykes that will have more than one self-respecting homosexual standing up and calling foul. The entire time you're sitting through the meandering plot, abysmal dialogue and wretched emoting, you're waiting for one satisfying splatter scene...which never arrives. The acting: unintentionally comical. The music: distracting and inappropriate. The ending: is like getting kicked in the head while you're unconscious. NYC theaters exhibiting this trash should be ashamed. Not "so bad it's good" but "so bad it's good to not be a Ferranti".

I was fortunate to attend a screening of Make A Wish in LA at Outfest in the Director's Guild of America theater, it was a scream. At least we finally get a gay movie where the story stays coherent all the way through with no embarrassing stupidity like The Fluffer or the like. Everyone was dying laughing. The movie is fun to watch, a guilty gay pleasure, grab the popcorn and turn off your brain. I thought having the cast play everything so straight faced was right on, the horror clichés were not lost on the audience. I would say it is more funny than scary, but there are a couple of great scary surprises.

I thought the acting was solid. This is a very low budget feature with no B cam and a small cast, maybe that's why the other writer before me was so fooled, I guess he has never actually seen bad acting, or maybe he's too easily fooled by the usual Hollywood scene stealing and scenery chewing.

I loved how the movie veered into an incredibly weird and surreal serious climax, then ... well go see it.

Susan invites all of her ex-lovers on her annual Birthday Camping trip. The six women are instantly at each other's throats. After they realize that Michelle never showed up, they start disappearing one by one. Everyone's a suspect, including the crazed bow-wielding redneck who keeps crashing the party and a jealous boyfriend of one of the women.

"Make a Wish" is directed by a lesbian and intended for a lesbian audience, and I think it might be one of the first horror films to fit this category. There are lots of humorous queer "inside jokes" and it is refreshing to see a cast of mostly queer lead characters in a horror flick. Unfortunately, many of the characters are one-dimensional clichés. We have the "aggressive vegan," the weird wiccan, the slut, and the "dyke-turned-straight-girl." While the movie is inherently progressive, and much more queer than most horror movies with lesbian characters, its portrayal of lesbians is very limited.

The movie is surprisingly well-made for having such a low-budget. It was shot on hand-held digital video, but whoever shot it has a great eye and a steady hand. The acting is mostly mediocre (save for the lead actress, who does a wicked job). While most of the kills aren't shown and there is little gore (according to the director, they only had a couple hundred bucks for make-up budget, which is impressive because there are some really inventive effects here!), the deaths are pretty nasty. It isn't a scary movie by any means, but I admit that I was surprised to find out who the killer was.

"Make a Wish," the first lesbian slasher, isn't a great movie. However, it is a good time and better than most recent Z-graders. I'm not sure many typical horror fans would like it, but I'll recommended it to folks who like both "The L Word" and "April Fools Day." My Rating: 5.5/10