Wish Upon

2017 · United States · 90 min

Director: John R. Leonetti
Screenplay: Barbara Marshall
Producer: Sherryl Clark
Music: Tomandandy
Editing: Peck Prior

What the critics say

20 % Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews32 Metacritic /100

Cast

Sydney Park

Kevin Hanchard

Ki-hong Lee

Shannon Purser

Mitchell Slaggert

Josephine Langford

What it is about

Clare Shannon is a seventeen-year-old high school outsider, haunted by the memory of her mother's suicide, which she witnessed as a small child. Her father, Jonathan, a former musician who hoards and salvages objects from dumpsters, finds an old Chinese music box and gives it to her for her birthday. Clare soon realizes the box grants wishes, but she is slow to grasp that each one carries a cost. With help from classmate Ryan Hui and his cousin Gina, she tries to decode the symbols carved into the box before its consequences reach the people around her. The story blends teen drama with supernatural horror in the tradition of cursed-object tales.

How it was made

Barbara Marshall's screenplay appeared on the 2015 Black List, an annual survey of well-regarded unproduced scripts. In July 2016 it was announced that John R. Leonetti would direct, with Sherryl Clark producing through her company Busted Shark Productions. Joey King was cast in the lead in August 2016, and Ki Hong Lee joined in November. Principal photography began that month in Toronto. Leonetti, who had previously worked with King, aimed for a naturalistic look rather than the heavily stylized aesthetic common in recent horror, shooting digitally at high resolution. The film is loosely inspired by W. W. Jacobs' short story The Monkey's Paw, though its development moves well beyond that source.

Reception and legacy

Wish Upon opened in United States theaters on July 14, 2017, distributed by Broad Green Pictures and Orion Pictures. Its box office was modest, with roughly $13.6 million worldwide against a budget of about $12 million. Critics were overwhelmingly negative: the film holds a 28% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 31 reviews, and a Metacritic score of 29 out of 100. Reviewers pointed to a lack of originality and effective scares, though some suggested it might work as midnight entertainment. It earned no notable awards, and its place in film history is modest, though it belongs to a long line of cursed-object stories that horror has returned to repeatedly.