Wish Upon (2017)

"... like Sriracha hot."

I love watching shitty movies. There's a lot of fun to be had enjoying the rotten fruits of someone's labor with friends. This weekend I visited friends, and we watched films together. They said they had what was reportedly one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies of 2017. So, naturally we watched it.

Summary:

Clare gets a magical Chinese wishing box that grants seven wishes. Her dad found it in the trash. He's a dumpster diver... professionally. I guess. She starts wishing for things, banal bullshit things, but the box exacts a blood price... and hilariously kills random people as recompense. If you don't kind of want to watch this movie after that, this really isn't for you.

** I have decided to forgo my usual Pro/Con format here: terrible movies can be enjoyed on a level separate from a traditional film**

Things That Happen in This Movie:

Sexy Saxophone: When your dad is a professional trash picker (scrapper? Dumpster Diver? Trash Connoisseur?), that shit is embarrassing. It should stand to reason, then, that one of Clare's wishes is for her dad to "be cool." What we get is a scene of Ryan Phillippe (oh how far you've fallen) playing in a Dad Jazz band in the living room of their new spacious mansion (the result of another wish). Clare and her friends are there, watching. Because, ya know, why not. One of Clare's friends (Stranger Things' Shannon Purser) notes that, "... your dad is like serious hot sauce... like sriracha hot." She even gives him dreamy eyes. It's not Purser's fault, and she does the Lord's Work trying to sell this shitty script. But a shitty script it still is. JAZZ!

Teenagers Via A Fifty Year Old Man: This movie is NOT written by an out of touch fifty year old man trying madly to be "cool." But it feels that way. See the above line about "hot sauce." One of the characters plays a Pokemon GO type game, which gets her killed, naturally; another character is constantly on Pixster (some kind of bastard version of Social Media because the film couldn't, or wouldn't, pony up money for the actual rights). This is a hilarious vision of what old people think young people act like. And to be fair, that is legitimately terrifying. If utterly, and hilariously, bullshit.

White Privilege: The Movie: A little white girl receives an ancient Chinese wishing box, and wishes for all the stupid bullshit that a selfish white teenage girl would wish for. The fetishization of Chinese culture is so hilariously ham-handed that you might be forgiven for forgetting how offensive it is. I would love it, JUST ONCE, for a cursed ancient Chinese (they are always ancient, right?) artifact to be revealed as complete bullshit. Like... the White People (they are always white, right?) just get absolutely bamboozled into thinking that this thing is really Chinese... only to discover that the "runes" on the side are complete hogwash, and that the "artifact" is some shitty toy. And that the "curse" is just white people doing terrible things to each other. But, alas, that will probably never happen.

Like a Shitty, Hilarious Final Destination: The Final Destination franchise made its name on killing people in random, ridiculous ways. Wish Upon tries to do this to alternatingly hilarious and disappointing fashion. Clare's old uncle slips and falls in his bathtub. But doesn't die right away. He tries to get up, but literally BONKS his forehead on the tap... and then dies. And I laughed for a good five minutes afterword. A woman trips on her rug, and impales herself on a bull statue's horn. One woman gets her exceedingly long ponytail stuck in the garbage disposal in the sink and has her neck snapped. Clare ends up dying (the box takes YOUR soul as its final price) by getting hit by a car, and she flies hilariously high and far INTO another oncoming car. I was too busy belly laughing to be sad for her.

No Sense of Time: How much time passes in this movie? Your guess is as good as mine. And, at a cool 90 minutes, you'd still be forgiven for believing that this film was over two hours: it FEELS so long. Maybe that's because I was laughing throughout. Maybe that's because it's a piece of warmed-over shit. Who can tell.

Someone Was Obviously in Film School: Look, there are interesting camera angles and transitions, but they are all botched to one extent or another. The movie feels clunky and awkward, even if you can tell that the person behind the camera seems to know what movie making IS. They just, ya know, don't know how to do it themselves.

Lots of Really Awful Pop Music: This film features plenty of needle drops (when a film plays a recognizable pop tune as backing music for a scene). The only problem is that those needle drops are entirely inappropriate, and feature music that I have never heard of. It's kind of like the filmmakers looked at the Now THAT'S What I Call Music! catalogue instead of ponying up enough money to even buy ONE moderately successful tune. Some of this music is hilariously bad. Some of it is just bad.

The Acting is Bad... Really Bad: Nothing else to say, really. Awful line readings, and terrible actorbation (a term I use to refer to when an actor insists that they are feeling an emotion, as opposed to organically showing you that they do) abound.

You'd Think She'd Catch On: OK, so... the box is creepy as fuck (it's actual the movie's best prop; it looks legitimately gorgeous). It plays this weird ass, obviously-in-a-scary-movie music, and then terrible things start to happen to people she cares about. You'd think that she'd stop wishing for things to happen. Especially after her first wish is for a bully girl to "just rot," and that girl ends up in the hospital with a flesh-eating disease apropos of nothing. Especially after her friend points out that "the last symbol means 'Blood price!'" Like... bitch, stop wishing for stupid shit.

In Conclusion:

This is undoubtedly a terrible movie. It is SO terrible, that it is actually a lot of fun to watch, however.

Should You Watch It?

If you like movies like this (read: awful movies) Wish Upon is a great time. You will laugh heartily, and your time will not be wasted. If you do not like terrible movies, just go ahead and pretend this review never happened, and avoid this film like the plague. But you JUST might have fun. Invite some friends over, make some drinks, and have a good time.

Miscellany:

- This movie had a 16 million dollar budget. It grossed 14 million domestically. I don't know where they spent all of that money. Like... it doesn't look or feel like a movie that cost that much money.
- Currently boasts a whopping 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Jerry O'Connell is in this movie.