Scream Factory makes three wishes upon the Chiller network with their new Blu-ray of THE MONKEY'S PAW.

Despite his recent promotion, times are tough for factory worker Jake Tilton (C.J. Thomason, SUTURES) with his ex-girlfriend Olivia (Michelle Pierce, TRANSFORMERS) married to his philandering boss Kevin (Andy Favreau, WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER?), his sick mother undergoing chemotherapy, and his brother Charlie (Grayson Berry) leaning on him to help with the mounting medical bills. He is more than surprised when recently fired supervisor Gillespie (Daniel Hugh Kelly, THE IN-CROWD) gives him a lucky monkey's paw, promising that it will grant him three wishes. Jake jokingly wishes for the sweet GT he saw in the parking lot and finds it still in the parking lot at the end of the night with the keys in the ignition. He and grizzled buddy Cobb (Stephen Lang, AVATAR) go for a joyride and hit a tree while avoiding a gator in the road, sending Cobb sailing through the windshield. Dazed and desperate, Jake uses the paw and wishes Cobb alive again but it does not seem to have any effect. Fleeing the scene, he does not realize that the wish has indeed worked until Cobb confronts him demanding Jake use his third wish to bring his estranged son Cory (James Minor III) – whose mother Abby (Tauvia Dawn) has a restraining order – back into his life. When Jake hesitates, reminding Cobb of all the problems in his life (pining for his ex, his sick mother and his brother guilt-tripping him for not seeing her or helping pay for the bills), Cobb decides to remove those obstacles to induce his cooperation.

A loose adaptation of the titular W.W. Jacobs story – adapted several times throughout the history of cinema as short subjects and television episodes of anthology series (as well as a Halloween special of THE SIMPSONS), and the springboard for films like Bob Clark's DEAD OF NIGHT with the dead son wished back to life or the WISHMASTER films where the granted wishes have gory repercussions – Brett Simmons' THE MONKEY'S PAW is a slick-looking though poor follow-up to his previous horror film HUSK, which also featured Thomason as was quite good despite deriving heavily from the creepier SCARECROWS (1988). fails for its overall generic-ness from the rudimentary plotting to the use of the overplayed New Orleans setting including Dixieland jazz, palm readings, a bar called "Gator's Den" (and former Disney child star Corbin Bleu as a Cajun stereotype), and a climax set during Mardi Gras. Thomason makes for a likable lead while Pierce is pretty but forgettable. Lang chews the scenery as usual – his motivation here suggests that he hasn't come back "soulless" but may have been a bad egg to begin with – while Kelly is wasted, as is ALIEN 3's Charles S. Dutton as a police detective investigating the murders (with Jake a likely suspect, of course, since this is one of those movies where police do not look for fingerprints).

Supporting characters who should have more of a bearing on the plot or give the main ones some more depth, but they are so sketchily developed as to seem like incidental victims to flesh out the story (the gore effects are proficient but seem gratuitous and even disruptive to tone in the case of one head-splitting shot). The climax departs from Jacobs' ending since the flashbacks to the paw's backstory already indicate that the filmmakers have no interest in dealing with the horrors of the unseen, and no amount of plot contrivances to generate tension and action during the ending can really explain why Jake can't just make his third wish on the spot rather than tracking Cobb down (in light of what does happens, it seems like the less choice of wishing the revenant away would have resulted in less bloodshed and broken bones for all around). There was a point during the climax where it looked like it could get back on track, but it's merely a setup for an obligatory surprise ending. The twangy scoring is cliché, but the overused New Orleans settings and some less familiar locations still look atmospheric, especially as lit by DP Scott Winig (LAID TO REST) with atmospheric blue and green gel lighting. An interesting attempt to update the classic story, but more DTV/streaming fodder than a potential cult classic.