Wish Upon ★★★
EACH year the Hollywood Black List comes out.
It’s based on a survey of film company executives of the ‘most liked’ screenplays kicking around the studios that haven’t yet been filmed.
The 2015 list included a horror script written by Barbara Marshall which was subsequently commissioned, filmed and released in 2017 as Wish Upon.
While the resulting film wasn’t a roaring box-office success, it makes good mileage from an age-old idea based around the simple warning ‘Be careful what you wish for’.
Joey King plays Clare Shannon, a smart, inwardly-confident but socially awkward teenager living with her father Jonathan in a run-down home.
Things have not been easy for the pair since the sudden death of Clare’s mother. Previously a talented musician, Jonathan is now struggling to provide as a second-hand junk seller, much to Clare’s ongoing embarrassment.
On one of his neighbourhood dumpster dives Jonathan discovers an ornate metal box that he gifts to Clare.
She is intrigued by the Chinese writing that adorns the outside of the circular container but isn’t able to open it.
After another run-in with the school’s most popular and bitchiest girl, Clare is angry and frustrated and, almost unthinkingly, wishes the girl would ‘rot’ while at the same time touching the box.
We then cut to the girl waking up the next morning to find herself ‘rotting’ and eventually hospitalised.
Soon after Clare discovers her much-loved dog, Max, dead in the crawl space under their house. For the first couple of wishes Clare doesn’t get the connection, until the bodies start piling up around her.
Eventually she turns to a friend to help her decipher the writing on the magic box and uncover its shocking history and the ramifications of its use.
Like I said, it’s a simple film, efficiently presented and well-acted with some nice gore and effective jump scares.
As the coincidences mount, however, the story Goes off the rails for the last act before redeeming itself with a good final scene.
Joey King is good in the lead but Ryan Phillippe feels a little mis-cast, mainly in age, as her father. Sherilyn Fenn also has a small role.
The director is John R. Leonetti who has a good recent record in the horror genre with Wolves at the Door in 2016 and Annabelle in 2014 as well as cinematographer on the first Conjuring and Insidious films.
This one passes the 90 minutes or so in entertaining fashion.