WISH UPON (2017)

Studio:       Broad Green Pictures
Director:    John R. Leonetti
Writer:       Barbara Marshall
Producer:  Sherryl Clark
Stars:     Joey King, Ki Hong Lee, Sydney Park, Shannon Purser, Sherilyn Fenn, Elisabeth Rohm, Ryan Phillippe, Mitchell Slaggert, Josephine Langford, Alice Lee, Kevin Hanchard

Review Score:

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Summary:

Deadly consequences haunt a teen girl who comes into possession of a cursed Chinese music box capable of granting wishes.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Teenager Clare Shannon wakes from a nightmare flashback to when she found her mother Johanna dead from suicide 12 years earlier.

At school, unpopular Clare and her best friends Meredith McNeil and June Acosta have multiple run-ins with bully Darcie Chapman as well as Darcie’s friends Tyler Manguso and Lola Sanchez, who is dating Clare’s crush Paul Middlebrook.

While dumpster diving for scrap metal with his friend Carl Morris, Clare’s packrat father Jonathan finds a Chinese music box that he gives to Clare as an early birthday gift. Studying Chinese at school, Clare roughly translates the words “seven wishes” on the box. After Darcie posts humiliating pictures of Clare and her father online, Clare idly wishes for Darcie to “go rot.” While Clare sleeps that night, the box opens and briefly plays music.

The next morning, Darcie wakes to find her flesh horribly decaying from necrosis. When Clare hears about Darcie’s condition at school, she recalls her wish. Clare comes home to find her dog Max dead underneath the front porch.

Clare wishes for Paul to fall madly in love with her. At the same time, Clare’s rich uncle August Anderson dies violently in his bathtub.

Upon hearing the news of August’s death, Clare wishes to inherit his wealth. Clare and her father move into August’s mansion and begin enjoying a life of luxury. Meanwhile, their former neighbor Mrs. Deluca dies when her scalp is pulled off by her garbage disposal.

Paul breaks up with Lola to pursue his interest in Clare. Clare begins waking from nightmares to find someone creeping around in the shadows outside her house.

Clare takes up an offer from her classmate Ryan Hui, who harbors a longtime crush on Clare, to have his cousin Gina translate the ancient Chinese text on the music box. This leads Clare, Ryan, and Gina to discover the legend of Lu Mei, who was the only survivor when her family died while under quarantine during a bubonic plague outbreak in 1910. Lu Mei took her family’s only worthwhile possession, a music box, to a temple where she prayed for revenge. After seven days and seven nights, a demon finally came. Lu Mei became wealthy and her enemies died, although Lu Mei later died of an opium overdose in 1922. Gina identifies the music box as a variation of a wish pot before translating that all wishes will be undone if its owner loses, sells, or gives away the box.

Upset to find her father still dumpster diving, Clare wishes for Jonathan to be less of an embarrassment. Gina ends up impaled on the horn of a bull sculpture.

Ryan finds Gina’s body several days later. Ryan tells Clare that Gina translated more of the music box text, revealing that a blood price must be paid after the music plays. Clare refuses to answer when Ryan asks if she made any wishes.

Clare ignores Meredith and June to sit with Paul in the cafeteria. However, Paul’s friends leave when Clare joins them. Clare wishes to be the most popular girl in school, which she becomes when she attends a party with Paul.

Clare visits Mrs. Deluca and finds her dead body. Putting everything together, Clare becomes fearful of the music box. She tells the entire story to Meredith and June. Although they don’t believe in the curse, June suggests throwing out the box. However, Clare is afraid of her wishes being undone.

Clare breaks up with Paul when she discovers he has been obsessively stalking her, including taking photos of her sleeping. June is nearly crushed by a falling effigy at the school’s Senior Scavenge party. Jonathan is nearly killed several times while changing a flat tire on the side of a road.

Meredith dies after becoming trapped in a falling elevator. Knowing that Clare did not discard the box like she promised, June blames Clare for Meredith’s death.

Ryan’s continued research reveals that a number on the box is a military identification for Arthur Sands, who acquired the box in China during World War II. Sands enjoyed a prosperous life before ultimately committing suicide. His wife claimed the cursed music box was responsible. The box later resurfaced in Cleveland in the possession of Lawrence Hart. He too led a perfect life until his family began dying tragically. Hart lost his mind before dying in his burning mansion, which is where Jonathan recovered the box. Ryan also reveals another translation that says the demon will claim the user’s soul as its final price after the seventh wish.

Ryan reluctantly agrees to help Clare get rid of the box. However, they are unable to physically destroy it.

Professing his devotion to her, Paul slits his wrists in front of Clare. Ryan and Clare discover the box missing from her hiding place. Clare and Jonathan are forced to move into their old home when back taxes result in government repossession of August’s property. Clare goes back to being unpopular at school while Jonathan resumes dumpster diving.

Clare discovers June stole the box because Clare would not willingly let it go. Clare and June fight over the box, which results in June falling down a staircase at school.

Clare wishes that her mother never committed suicide. She then experiences an ideal family life with Johanna, Jonathan, and two younger siblings. However, when she finds a painting her mother made of the music box, Clare realizes that Johanna killed herself because of the box, tracing the current curse back to her mother. Rushing to warn her father, Jonathan is suddenly decapitated by Carl in a chainsaw accident.

Clare makes a final wish to go back to the morning before her father found the music box. Clare wakes from a nightmare to find everything returned to normal and everyone alive.

Clare asks to go dumpster diving with Jonathan and Carl. Clare finds the box among some trash and hides it in her backpack.

At school, Clare makes friends with Ryan, although he doesn’t understand why. Clare gives him the backpack and asks him to bury it for her without opening it. Clare kisses Ryan, begins walking toward her friends, and is unexpectedly struck and killed by Darcie’s car.

Ryan digs a hole like Clare asked. However, when Ryan unzips the box from the backpack and reads its writing, he considers making a wish.

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Review:

Sometimes horror movies are made for longtime diehards craving cleverly twisted terror.  Sometimes horror movies are merely made for junior high slumber parties, a perfectly acceptable mainstream market whose different standards don’t demand the latest and greatest in eerie entertainment.  “Wish Upon” clearly belongs to the latter category, where buttered popcorn fun in the here and now beats out desires for memorable nightmares to leave a lasting impact.

Typical teenager Clare never fully recovered from her mother’s sudden suicide 12 years ago.  Unfortunately for Clare, mom couldn’t come up with a better time or place to kill herself than when her five-year-old daughter was destined to discover her corpse creepily swinging in silhouette from their creaking attic rafters.

Yes, “Wish Upon” is one of those movies where painting a cinematic image such as this is infinitely more important than realistically structuring the story.  Roll eyes if you must.  Roll with the tone instead and you’ll laugh out loud at the lunacy while still engaging with the energy specifically because the presentation is so unapologetically spirited.

Clare’s packrat father Jonathan (Ryan Phillippe) is the handsomest dumpster diver in Clevelanto.  (An establishing shot definitively sets “Wish Upon” in Cleveland, although it was evidently filmed in Toronto.)  His embarrassing hobby makes Clare an easy target for bullying bitch Darcie.  However, Clare inadvertently gets a bit of revenge when dad gifts her with a Chinese music box found in the trash.  Clare idly wishes for her nemesis to “go rot” and lo and behold, Darcie wakes up with decayed flesh falling away from her body.

Clare has unknowingly come into possession of an antique item straight out of Lewis Vendredi’s Druid Street store, complete with a curse bestowing its owner with seven wishes for the small price of someone’s life each time.  Clare doesn’t connect the consequences at first.  Aside from her dog, lost lives remain in the background long enough to go unnoticed sometimes for several days.  It isn’t until the body count hits a high in proportion to newfound fortunes that Clare finally realizes what bell she has rung.

“Wish Upon” may be a textbook teen thriller.  But that textbook is bound tight, with sharp corners, hefty content, and a crisp, glossy finish.  Everywhere the film falters, an element comes to the rescue before risking a full fall into the quicksand of routine tropes and tripe.

Each stereotypical character materializes from a bare minimum amount of development.  Straight out of some MTV series, Clare’s classmates distinguish themselves mainly through ethnicity or hair color, though newcomers and name veterans alike fill each role with as much personality as the straight script allows.

These actors force acceptance of the unbelievable because they’re so seriously invested in selling the story in spite of its silliness.  Joey King blazes the way, lighting up Clare with a cute tomboyish charm keeping her sweetness, sass, occasional dopiness, and even contemptibility at well-managed levels.

“Wish Upon” concocts a few imaginative ends for its cast only for a PG-13 rating to conspicuously neuter carnage.  Gorehounds might mind this even though it ultimately matters very little.  The movie makes its money not in bloody payoffs, but by building suspenseful “Final Destination” squirminess through anticipation-thick death scenes.

No matter if you can see what’s coming, creative effort involved in staging makes these moments worth the wait.  Sure, bits like a climactic chainsaw decapitation are hilariously telegraphed, although I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy the straight-faced absurdity of the spectacle.

“Wish Upon” uses “good enough” as an excuse quite often, yet gets away with it by pulling everything off with enjoyable flair.  Even with its overdosing radio rock soundtrack and checklist hallmarks of teen horror, the movie manages to touch on actual themes of paying a price for things you only think you want and cautiously making meaningful decisions.

It isn’t highbrow.  It won’t impress anyone anxious for inventive ambitions.  Look at it under the light of the expectations outlined above however, and it definitely does its limited job well.  Lump the likes of the first “Ouija” (review here), “The Gallows” (review here), “The Bye Bye Man” (review here), or “Rings” (review here) into the same young adult demographic, “Wish Upon” nails the formula far better than its peers, and in stylishly satisfying fashion for easy advancement to the head of the class in contemporary PG-13 chillers.

NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.

Review Score:  75

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