WISH UPON (2017) *

Joey King stars as a bullied teenage girl who receives a mysterious Chinese box that grants wishes.  Naturally, she uses it to get revenge on her tormentors.  She wishes one girl would “go rot” and she develops a flesh-eating disease.  She wishes to be rich, and a relative dies and leaves her money.  You know, the usual sub-Twilight Zone shit.

Most of the teenage characters are obnoxious, annoying douches who are obsessed with their phones, so they pretty much get what’s coming to them.  They constantly say things like “haters gonna hate”, which makes you wish the box would utterly eviscerate them.  Unfortunately, the PG-13 rating won’t allow us the satisfaction of seeing it.  Because of that, the deaths are really lame and bloodless. (The box demands a life after every wish.)  They also heavily rely on a lot of off-brand Final Destination shenanigans.  There’s a kill by garbage disposal that tries so hard to trick you, but it’s obvious where it’s going. 

The whole movie is like that though.  It wants you to look one way to catch you off guard before trying to scare you.  If you ever saw a horror film in your life, all of this will be utterly predictable and tedious.

The teenagers are all annoying, but at least we have Sherilynn Fenn and Ryan Phillippe as the adults.  Trust me, nothing makes you feel old like seeing Phillippe playing a dad in a movie.  I did like the fact that he was a dumpster-diving hoarder.  I think that might be the first instance of a hoarder in a horror movie.  We also get a random ass Jerry O’Connell cameo too, because, why not?

I should’ve known it was gonna suck because it’s from the director of Annabelle.  It’s slightly better than Annabelle, but that’s like the faintest praise there’s ever been. Trust me, you’ll want to wish away Wish Upon.