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.
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