Respond to these rapid questions in our Wish Upon quiz and we will tell you which Wish Upon character you are. Play it now.
Wish Upon is another one of those films that would be memorable if it were significantly better or substantially worse than it actually is. Claire Shannon is a teenage girl whose mother committed suicide years before she was born. Joey King (Oz the Great and Powerful) portrays Claire Shannon. Claire has grown into a depressed adolescent who is bullied and treated as a pariah by her peers. Furthermore, she feels humiliated by the fact that her father, Jonathan (Ryan Phillippe), dumpster dives all over town, including right across the street from her elementary school. Then her father comes across a mysterious box with Chinese characters written on it. It’s a wishing box that grants the wishes of the person who opens it. The downside is that every time a wish is granted, someone dies as a result of it. And with that, we’re off!
Although this sounds like a promising premise for an action-packed schlock horror film, it’s difficult to tell what director John R. Leonetti (“Mortal Kombat: Annihilation”) and writer Barbara Marshall saw in this story. The screenplay was included on The Black List, an annual survey of unproduced screenplays conducted by the film industry that identifies the “most liked” scripts. In any case, it’s difficult to discern from the evidence onscreen that anyone could see anything noteworthy in this material, aside from the possibility of making money off of people who were under the impression that they were getting a great or even a good horror film, as opposed to one of those here for a while and gone time-wasters that I used to watch at the dollar theater when I was younger. Overall, the acting is adequate, there are a few well-executed moments of nastiness, the film is well-focused, and you can understand what’s being said.
In the way Claire is introduced in the script, there isn’t a lot of internal logic. The media portrays her as an outcast, but she actually has two strong female friends (Sydney Park and Shannon Purser, aka Barb on “Stranger Things”) who are spirited, funny and attractive. When bullied, she takes immediate action to protect herself. The characters speak in dated slang from the 1980s and 1990s (“Bitchin’!” “No way.” “Yes, way”), and they are frequently played by actors who appear to be too old, or at the very least too self-possessed, to be teenaged. A more mature screenwriter’s conception of what it means to be young and American at this point in history permeates the conception of all the young characters in this film. All of this is significant because originality and specificity would have distinguished the story and made it appear unique.
But you shouldn’t waste any more time and start this Wish Upon quiz.
The story is dripping with Orientalist cliches that are also eerily reminiscent of the 1980s. Ryan Hui (Ki Long Hee from “The Maze Runner”), Claire’s Chinese American classmate, transports the box to his cousin Gina (Alice Lee), who will translate the characters in exchange for an order of won tons. Claire has a crush on Ryan Hui, who is played by Ki Long Hee from “The Maze Runner.” In the script, the writers believe that by making the Asian characters cool and including a couple of lines criticizing Claire for stereotyping Chinese people, they will avoid appearing to be wallowing in the same cultural cliches that have driven older horror and fantasy films for decades. Another example of a movie like this is when one of the heroine’s friends chastises her late in the story for wasting her seven wishes on popularity and personal wealth when she could be using the box to solve world hunger; this comment serves as a preemptive strike against criticism, but it does nothing but serve to remind us that the movie cannot, or will not, explore its central idea in any way other than a flimsy manner. “Wish Upon” is also not willing to turn up the outrageousness to 11 and really go for it, which would have at the very least earned it a spot in the Midnight Movie Hall of Fame if it had happened.
Wish Upon Quiz
It’s true that “Wish Upon” comes to life whenever the box extracts its blood price, but it’s a minor improvement. Every single person who dies does so in a nondescript manner, only through a chain reaction of slapstick mishaps involving garbage disposal, chainsaws, lethal bathtub spigots, and other such devices. Even routine car accidents are staged to make the impact appear both tragic and comical at the same time. However, the kills aren’t enough to distinguish the film, let alone save it from being a dud. It’s possible that the violent scenes would be viewed as outrageous, as if they were part of a midnight movie, were the direction capable of conveying any intention at all. Instead, the bloodletting comes across as stale and self-important, as if we’re supposed to be horrified by what we see and come away from the film with a lasting impression of what we’ve just witnessed. Although the film is disturbing and intentionally hilarious, I found myself laughing because the film appears to be blissfully unaware of what it wants to do or what it has the potential to do. (If you’re into this sort of thing, the “Final Destination” series does it better than most.)
Also, you will find out which character are you in this Wish Upon quiz.
The scenes in which the heroine’s father reconnects with his love of the saxophone and blats out obviously prerecorded instrumental stylings that sound like smooth jazz in the vein of Kenny G are almost worth seeing just for that reason. Here it is, at long last, the spine-tingling horror you’ve been looking forward to.
For more personality quizzes check this: The Case For Christ Quiz.
