Wish Upon hits Blu-ray this week, and being a sucker for the wish fulfillment horror subgenre I had to check it out. From a script that was voted to the Black List in 2015, the film stars Joey King (Independence Day: Resurgence), Shannon Purser (Barb from Stranger Things), and Ryan Phillippe (sporting the worst beard ever) in a film directed by John R. Leonetti (Annabelle/The Butterfly Effect 2). Seriously, this is the kind of beard that gets men the “shave it or else” ultimatum from their significant others. The film was a modest hit for Broad Green Pictures and is very appropriately coming out on home video just in time for the Halloween season.
Wish Upon focuses on 17-year-old Clare Shannon (Joey King), a young woman who is haunted by her mother’s suicide. Raised by her father Jonathan (Ryan Phillippe), who makes a living rummaging through dumpsters, one day he finds a Chinese music box and gives it to his daughter as an early birthday present. Clare isn’t the most popular girl in school thanks to her dad’s profession, and her family, while happy, just barely scrapes by. When Clare gets the box, she can make out something about seven wishes and decides to test her luck by wishing mean girl Darcie (Josephine Langford), would just go and “rot.” When she finds out the Darcie suddenly develops necrotizing fasciitis, Clare decides to wish for not only money, but also the adoration of her crush and of course popularity; this is set in high school, after all.
Like the Monkey’s Paw, all of the wishes made with the box have a dark caveat. The music box that was made to resemble a Chinese wishing pot also demands an Equivalent Exchange blood price for each of the granted wishes. The final piece of the mythology, and the biggest missed opportunity of the film, is that once the seven wishes are granted a Yaoguai or Chinese demon will claim the soul of the wisher. Sadly the film fumbles the opportunity to bring a badass Chinese soul eating demon a la Wishmaster into the mix, which would add another a much needed layer to this wish fulfillment meets Final Destination mix. Like the Final Destination franchise, the kills here are super elaborate, and purely by accident — they also threw in a few fake-outs for good measure.
As far as wish fulfillment films go, this is probably your worst-case scenario. Clare is a not a good person by any stretch of the imagination, which could be the reason this film didn’t do as well as it could have. She’s naïve, selfish, emotional, and irrational, and this doesn’t bode well for her loved ones since they essentially gave a millennial a murder box, which rewards her for killing them off. Even when she knows there’s a blood price associated with her wishes, she JUST KEEPS WISHING, and not for really great stuff either. The bulk of her wishes are shallow and impulsive, because short of the dead mother angle her character lacks any real emotional depth. When her friends, who are tired of being her wish fuel, finally confront her, she goes full on wish junkie, because she even though she is going to lose her soul to a Chinese wish box demon, god forbid she be poor and unpopular.
But on the bright side, while this is indeed bad for our protagonist and those around her, its good for viewers because it keeps the body count high and graphic. Now keep in mind this release comes with an UNRATED Director’s Cut on the Blu-ray disc, which was the basis for this review.
I simply loved Wish Upon and thought it was a lot of fun in a “watching a car crash in slow motion” sort of way. I dug the mythology they establish here, and I think its a good start to a possible franchise; they just need to go crazier with the kills since Final Destination isn’t doing it anymore, so to me it’s fair game. I did think the twist of the having the protagonist being a horrible person was a good one too, I just don’t exactly know how intentional that was. I mean we usually get someone who, once they realize what the rules of the game are, immediately tries to dig their way out of the predicament, but Clare’s go big or go home attitude is a welcome change of pace. Hopefully in the next installment they will get that whole Chinese Demon thing going and give the music box to a sadistic 12 year old – it could be kind of like the female version of Death Note.
We can only hope.
No matter what they do next, definitely count me in for Wish Upon 2!