doesn't fall far from the tree, taking after her mom who "was a good woman but she had a rough child­hood, … secrets too big to live with." Clare has a sensitive artistic side like her mom's, which combined with a child­hood trauma and a slight frame, makes her a target for bullying. Max is a big dog now. Her dad Jonathan Ryan Phillippe is a suave jazz sax player with a sideline of dumpster diving. He would have made a real catch in his day. The dumpster diving was fun when Clare was little, but now her dad is a source of embarrassment among Clare's schoolmates. One day Jonathan finds a clamshell music box among the detritus—presided over by a gargoyle. Belated research will prove it to be a Chinese wish pot managed by a demon Chinese: Yao Guai that grants its holder seven wishes coming with a non-optional "blood price." After the 7th wish the Yao Guai claims its holder's soul. This particular pot had a tragic beginning, but its subsequent owners led prosperous lives—what remained of them—surrounded by lots of death.This puts one in mind of Prov. 26:27 "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him", now bastardized into, "What goes around comes around", or in pc terms messing with a level playing field. Rolling a stone uphill with affirmative action is what causes it to roll back down, and the pit is dug to handi­cap the competition. Who could blame those owners for capitalizing on their "leveling" device to give them­selves a playing field more to their liking, collateral damage notwithstanding?Jonathan gives it to Clare as an early birthday present. Lacking the maturity of the previous owners, she makes various droll requests concerned with her status among her high school crowd. If you count coming down with a disfiguring disease and falling madly in love, there are plenty of hits and falls associated with Clare's wishes. Double whammies are not out of the question, either, where there is both a hit *and* a fall. A hanging, for instance, involves a fall from one's support, then the knot of the hang­man's noose striking the back of the cranium to knock out the soon-to-be-deceased before the rope breaks his neck. An auto-pedestrian accident may start with the struck person being launched through the air to fall upon some­thing. At any rate the sound of a falling body is 'swish' and a hit *upon* is like the *Upon* in the cute title. When Clare turns 18, her wishes turn more mature.The setting looks genuine Ohio where I once lived. The actors are all good, down to the dog, and the principal Clare is photogenic, easy to look at. The plot is consistent and strangely relevant to real life. The music from the box sounds western, but the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation in the Chinese class was spot on as they did their drills starting with the teacher's name. "Wish Upon" was not overly gory, relying more on suspense and imagination to get to the audience. It's short at 1 1/2 hours, but if you stay past the end, there may be an extra scene. This is an altogether well-crafted film and earns my highest marks. Unfortunately, it hasn't been heavily hyped, so horror lovers may miss a good one if they wait too long. It's clever enough to deserve more than one viewing to catch what you missed the first time.

diving as a hobby. One day, he finds a mysterious Chinese music box as a gift. It says that it grants seven wishes, so she wishes her school bully would rot away. Sure enough, the bully's skin begins to decompose. She wishes her crush will fall madly in love with her. She wishes to be the most popular girl in school. All this begins to come true, but at a terrible price; someone that Clare loves dies whenever a wish is made. Will she be able to stop the madness? I highly recommend WISH UPON!!!

popcorn in hand. Wish Upon is a movie you will never forget, and you will wish upon a star the movie isn't available on DVD tomorrow.

will play out even when you can guess what's coming. The likable cast is headed by Joey King - you can see her grow up in horror movies is the right kind of actress for this role - cute and likable. Ryan Phillippe plays her dumpster diving Dad. Nice to see Sherilyn Fenn again as a neighbor.A notch above the Final Destination series. This should be this summer's hit horror flick.

whispering their greatest desires to the heavens. Those wishes are usually for good things and, if a wish seems to have come true, it usually means good things have happened. But along with the universal human habit of wishing, comes the proverbial admonition to be careful what you wish for. Sometimes a wish granted can create unforeseen problems that the wisher then wishes he or she could just wish away. The advertising for "Wish Upon" carries a reminder of that traditional warning and the movie makes the point that, whether you're wishing on a star or a mysterious wooden box, the seemingly innocuous act of making a wish, can make you wish you hadn't. Clare Shannon Joey King is a typical teenager with typical wishes. She's awkward and wishes she weren't. She has a crush on a classmate Mitchell Slaggert who doesn't notice her and she wishes he would. She doesn't have much money and she wishes she did. Her father embarrasses her and she wishes he didn't. And she has even more serious problems like the memory of seeing her mother hang herself years earlier , problems she'd love to be able to wish away, but can't. Or can she? When Clare's father, Jonathan Ryan Phillippe , who seems to make his living by salvaging what other people throw away think, a modern day "Sanford and Son" , brings her home a wooden box with Chinese writing on it, Clare just may have the solution to all her problems sitting right on her bed. Then again, maybe not.Clare is learning Chinese in school and, while she can't read all the writing on the box, she can make out something about the box granting seven wishes. Not really believing that the box's promise is real, but really wishing it were, she touches it and makes a hypothetical wish that a school bully "would just go rot". When Clare's tormentor suddenly comes down with a flesh-eating infection, Clare is amazed at the "coincidence". She doesn't necessarily believe that her wish was responsible or that the box caused her classmate's unusual illness, but she makes some more wishes… you know… just in case. What Clare definitely doesn't yet fathom is that a series of freak accidents and tragic deaths in her town are somehow connected to her wishes. To understand that means being able to read the rest of the writing on the box and learning about its mysterious origins, things that her classmate, Ki Hong Lee Ryan Hui can help her out with. But even when she understands what's happening and why, she has to decide whether to listen to her best friends Sydney and Shannon Meredith McNeil and June Acosta who tell her to get rid of the box, or heed the ominous warning the box has for those who take such an action. "Wish Upon" is one of the best thrillers of mid 2017. Sure, it's unrealistic, but show me a thriller that isn't. And, yes, it's kind of simplistic, but therein lies its appeal. Screenwriter Barbara Marshall "Viral", TV's "Terra Nova" creates a solid mythology to under-gird the film's premise and does a great job of connecting the dots of her various plot points, while staying within the limits she establishes for her story. Director John R. Leonetti "Annabelle", "The Butterfly Effect 2" keeps the script real regarding the behavior of an ordinary teenage girl caught up in some extraordinary circumstances , builds tension at key moments and gives us some disturbing and bloody fulfillment of the box's warnings, while not relying on an unnecessary amount of gore. The acting is even pretty good for a horror movie, especially from the film's central character, played by rising young star Joey King. This movie combines typical teenage dreams with the nightmare of the "Final Destination" films and what Movie Fans get is one creepy, scary and brain-teasing good time which brings home the warning in the film's tagline. "A-"

performance of Joey King. It was completely convincing and I hope her future jobs were as good as this one, or even better.The story, although some may find it as a cliché, it is very well managed and eventually you will forget that there were other films that had a similar story-line before. The script is well done and entertaining.And now, about what I'm putting as the title for this review, the movie isn't necessarily a horror movie with jump-scares and gore throughout; it is a film that leaves you an important lesson: If you find an strange object on a strange and unusual place, would be better if you don't touch it...Thank you for reading!

really good. You can completely believe in the decisions her character makes. Phillipe is less douche bag then I've ever seen him and Sherilyn Fenn is still kicking which is fun to see.The writing is really bang on for this type of movie other than the girl who says "hot sauce" and other stupid things that sound more like someone trying to parody bad dialogue. Same thing goes for the characters. I found most of their actions understandable. In reality people can and do make bad decisions. There's nothing here that makes you throw up your arms and say "Ah Come on! Nobody would do that!" That's a real deal breaker in a lot of horror movies.In short, the perfect horror for fans of fun horror in the Final Destination vein.