Wish Upon Review
If given the chance have any seven wishes granted but at a terrible price, would you still go through with it? Wish Upon is a film about a girl in high school who stumbles upon a mysterious music box that places her in this exact predicament. While this concept is a great break from the slasher or supernatural films that have come out lately, was it worth spending your hard earned cash on? Lets dive into the review!
Plot
The story of Wish Upon is Clare Shannon, played by Joey King, who is an outcast in high school that is the victim of bullying and suffers from social anxiety due to the suicide of her mother and the odd hobbies her father participates in. Although her two best friends keep her sane, she ends up out of her mind with frustration when she becomes bullied online. In her anger she turns to an odd container gifted to her by her father and wishes something terrible to her bully.
Sure enough, the wish comes true and so do all other wishes, however people seem to die in terrible ways with every wish. The struggle for her to maintain her new found happiness while also keeping her loved ones safe begins. The plot itself is familiar as with older tales of Monkey Paw where an item grants wishes but they all turn horrible in the end. I enjoyed this concept since it was a refreshing setting for a horror film. The modern setting also contributed to the horror as unique cultures from augmented reality gaming to street racing were featured to make world feel more real.
Characters
Joey King did a fantastic job in Wish Upon for being an angsty teenager who you could both sympathize with and also hate for making terrible life decisions. Although she was a great actress, I feel that the side characters really made the film like her best friend, Meredith, who was played by Sydney Park. Meredith’s sass and jokes were top notch and caused the viewers to laugh so hard every time she was on screen due to her fierce clap backs to the high school bullies. Another character that helped tremendously was Clare’s main love interest, Paul, played by Mitchell Slaggert. Paul’s entire character was to be a good looking teenager that is filled to the brim with cheesy lines. The audience moaned and groans every time he opened his mouth and yet we wanted so much more from him because we knew he had continue to deliver incredible cheesy lines. The combination of characters made for an enjoyable experience on the roller coaster of death.
Horror
There weren’t any moments in Wish Upon that will make you scream out in terror but they will make you cringe, squirm, and cry out in defiance as death approaches various characters. If you have ever seen the Final Destination films, it was similar to that where random people died by freak accidents. Some deaths were creative and out of no where, others you could see coming from a mile away, but my favorite deaths were the ones where they set up the scene and you assumed a death but then it never came. During one death in particular that involves a kitchen, the writers set up two possibly deaths by either dismemberment or explosion and then negated both of those, taking a moment to calm the audience and then rolled in immediately with the character’s actual death.
Another great moment is a situation where they threw two character’s lives in danger, showed their upcoming demise, and then removed the threat long enough for the viewer to calm themselves and then unleashed death. It was a fun experience to be a viewer and wonder who was going to live or how certain people were going to die. Even to the very end of the film, they switched a few things up and left you wondering if Clare would be able to out smart this murder box or if she’d just be another victim.
Overall
I enjoyed Wish Upon because it gave a healthy balance of horror to humor. It never took itself too seriously and played with the audience quite a bit. While this film isn’t the greatest horror film of our generation, it is definitely worth dropping money to watch a bunch of people die in terrible ways and watch a young girl just descend into madness. I recommend this film to any horror buffs or casual movie fans who want the horror experience without various jump scares.
Check out more information at http://www.wishuponmovie.com/ !
Wish Upon
Pros
- Creative Death Scenes
- Awesome Side Characters
- Plot Twists and Turns
- Didn't Take Itself Too Seriously
Cons
- A Bit Predictable
- Unusual Character Reactions
Chicano | Fighting/Writing for Diversity | DM since 08 | Anime Lover | Site: https://www.thegeeklyfe.com | info@thegeeklyfe.com | http://twitch.tv/that_deangelo | https://linktr.ee/deangelomurillo
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