Wish Upon

Wish Upon is so goofy that with a little more effort, it could have been a spoof of teen horror movies.  Even the actors up on the screen seem to realize how silly it is, and must have been suppressing their laughter while filming some of the scenes.  The movie doesn't work in any real way.  But, if I have to be honest, I was kind of amused by it for reasons the movie didn't intend.

The movie is about Clare Shannon (Joey King), a teenage girl who is smart, pretty, talented and creative.  Unfortunately, she is also poor, which makes her an easy target for the various bullies at her school, as well as the resident popular mean girl, Darcie Chapman (Josephine Langford).  She lives in a ramshackle house with her unemployed loser father (Ryan Phillippe), who spends all day dumpster diving for things he can sell.  During one of his searches, he comes across an old wood carved music box, which he gives to his daughter as an early birthday present.  There's Chinese writing on the box, and from what Clare understands, it seems that the box is able to grant seven wishes.  All she has to do is place her hands on top of the box, make a wish out loud, and it will come true.  Unfortunately, Clare does not get a proper translation of the rest of the writing until much later, as it turns out that whenever she makes a wish, something terrible or tragic will happen to someone else.

So, the movie is essentially a modern telling of the classic horror story, The Monkey's Paw.  Clare's first wish is that mean Darcie would "just go rot".  The next morning, Darcie awakens to find her legs covered in some kind of strange skin disease that requires hospitalization.  As a consequence, Clare's distant but wealthy uncle slips and falls in the bathtub, and dies.  For her next wish, Clare wishes that her father had money.  Hey, what do you know?  Turns out that wealthy old uncle left his entire fortune to her in his will!  As a consequence, the nice lady across the street somehow gets her hair stuck in the kitchen garbage disposal and is choked to death.  The death scenes in this movie sort of resemble the elaborate ones in the Final Destination series, and almost seem to be going for a kind of dark slapstick vibe.  I can easily see someone on Youtube editing the sequences with cartoon sound effects and an off camera laugh track.  The whole tone of the movie is so over the top, it's certain to elicit laughs from an audience, rather than the desired thrills and chills.

Clare's further wishes include being popular, having the guy she longs for fall madly in love with her, and for her father to be less embarrassing.  This somehow results in her father suddenly knowing how to play the saxophone, and being in a jazz band.  It's not until a kid at school (Ki Hong Lee) helps her translate the full Chinese inscription upon the box that Clare realizes the consequences that are connected to her wishes.  So, why doesn't Clare destroy the box?  Turns out it's indestructible.  Why doesn't she just stop making wishes?  Turns out there's a demonic curse connected to the box that makes Clare obsessed with the power it can grant her.  The tragedies and deaths around her start piling up.  Even the cute guy she wished would be in love with her turns out to be an obsessed stalker who sneaks into her house and takes photos of her sleeping.  But Clare just can't stop, despite the pleading from her closest friends.

Wish Upon does not know the meaning of subtlety, and while I don't exactly ask for subtlety in my horror films, there is a fine line between going over the top and going into straight-up unintentional comedy.  The screenplay by Barbara Marshall does not understand this delicate balance.  Apparently it was once on Hollywood's Black List for the best unproduced screenplays.  My only guess is whatever worked in the script did not carry over to the screen.  There's little tension to be found, and director John R. Leonetti (Annabelle) just can't craft any memorable or suspenseful images out of this material.  The cast at least are doing their best with what they've been given, but they often seem too good for what they're working with.

This is not a good movie, but I can see it earning a kind of cult following with people who love bad horror films.  It doesn't quite go far enough for me to label it a personal guilty pleasure, but I have to admit, the movie is too silly to be boring. 

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