Wish Upon - Review

Despite the current winning streak that horror films have going for them, the bad horror was bound to pop out from behind a door and unceremoniously end it all. While this usually occurs in two months, January and October, Wish Upon hits smack dab in the middle of summer to ruin everything. Hardly a horror film in any sense of the word, Wish Upon is a travesty for more than a few reasons.

Jonathan Shannon (Ryan Phillippe) gives his 17-year-old daughter Clare (Joey King) an old music box that promises to grant its owner seven wishes. Skeptical at first, Clare becomes seduced by its dark powers when her life starts to radically improve with each wish. Everything seems perfect until she realizes that every wish she makes causes the people who are closest to her to die in violent and elaborate ways.

Never has a film been so conflicted on what is wants to be. It’s got all the classic clichés of a teenage romance, complete with the sneaky lesson about how not everything you wish for will make things better, and then the horror elements, that aren’t all that scary to begin with. Wish Upon is wholly unoriginal in every way. The ancient artifact brings about an ancient curse and so on so forth as every bad movie ever as presented it.

It’s hard to not feel bad for the cast to some degree. All of the performances feel like they’re trying to make something of the material but it all comes out awful. Joey King has some truly horrendous line delivery at times from a truly selfish and unlikeable character. Though not a bad actress, or at least never appearing to be, King really stumbles around here. But she isn’t alone, none of the characters or motivations feel real and every interaction is painstakingly brutal to sit through.

As said before, none of the “scary moments” are actually scary and provide more humor than anything else. There are these random scenes that are so short and inconsequential or have continuity issues that are supposed to aid in the horror but wind up being distracting more than anything. And if this whole review wasn’t enough to deter you from seeing Wish Upon, then the fact that they actually use a blurry cityscape shot (like 480p) in the middle of the film should show you exactly the quality of this movie.

Overall, Wish Upon is an absolutely horrendous horror film. None of the scares work, the performances are dull or just bad, and most of the narrative progression doesn’t make remote sense. If you’re looking to see Wish Upon, I’d advise you not to. That is unless you’re looking for one of the best comedies of 2017, even if it is unintentional.

So what did you think of Wish Upon? Have you seen it? Are you interested in seeing it? Share, subscribe, comment below and as always return to I Am Sam for weekly reviews and insight.