Wish Upon (2017)

User Review

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  TheMovieDiorama

  3 / 10

  Wish Upon made me wish this film knew what it wanted to be. A feeble attempt at a horror? An unintentional comedy? Or perhaps a subtle drama about addiction? Either way, it's an incredibly unfocused flick that bounces genre tropes around more frequently than a man on a trampoline eating a Chinese takeaway (honestly the best I could come up with...). Yet despite the obvious flaws, and there are many, I didn't hate it. Perhaps the film wished to hypnotise its audience. A young girl is gifted with a peculiar looking music box that is said to give the user seven wishes, but with consequences. Let's think about this, what could those consequences be I wonder...? Bankruptcy? Chocolate no longer exists? Quite predictably, it's death. With strands of 'Final Destination', the plot's premise contains familiarity and therefore makes the story predictable. So to change this up, director Leonetti decided to pursue the typical "teen" route. An unpopular high school student succumbing to bullying, with a tough personal life and all the other generic traits seen a million times before. It attempts to justify why the wishes she makes are so low-key and selfish. But, quite rightly, her friend points out "you could wish for world peace? A cure for cancer?". And that's the main problem. The themes of greed and selfishness are ridiculously forced to the point that corrupting the main character, who was surprisingly well developed, again felt predictable. Then you get to the barrage of plot conveniences. Such a coincidence that she is undergoing Chinese lessons enabling her to translate the box and her father searches in scrap heaps who locates the box and a classmate's cousin translates ancient Chinese halfway through the film to identify what the consequences are. Urgh. The lore around this "MacGuffin" intrigued me, not enough to make the object memorable though. Oh, the deaths are unimaginative and the film isn't scary in the slightest. King gives a good performance though. However, she is unable to save this pointlessly wishful tame horror that works best when it's a teen high school drama.

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