Wish Upon

Wish Upon casts Joey King as Clare Shannon, an affable high schooler who receives a mysterious Chinese artifact as a gift that grants its owner seven wishes – with the movie detailing the horror that ensues as the box collects a “blood sacrifice” for every wish granted. It’s the kind of irresistibly high-concept premise that could (and should) have resulted in a fun, fast-paced thriller, and yet filmmaker John R. Leonetti generally proves unable to pull the whole thing together into a cohesive piece of work – with the picture’s consistently underwhelming vibe especially disappointing given its proliferation of agreeable elements. (This is, after all, a film that mostly plays like an unofficial entry within the always-entertaining Final Destination series.) It’s ultimately difficult to pinpoint exactly where Wish Upon goes wrong, as Leonetti, working from a script by Barbara Marshall, has infused the proceedings with the various ingredients one has come to expect from stories of this ilk – although it’s equally apparent that the movie suffers from a distinct (and disheartening) lack of momentum that grows more and more problematic as time progresses. The decidedly erratic atmosphere paves the way for a wholeheartedly ineffective closing stretch, which ensures that Wish Upon ends on as underwhelming and anticlimactic a note as one could envision – with the end result is a disappointingly half-baked horror effort that could (and should) have been so much better.

** out of ****