Wish Upon-- My take on the movie with spoilers!

PLOT SUMMARY: When her father finds an ornate box while scavenging, Clare discovers it has the power to grant wishes, except, of course, it comes at a deadly price. 

Imagine having the chance to make wishes and have them all come true.

What’s the first wish that comes to your mind?

Now wait, there’s a string attached. You can make only seven wishes. All of them are guaranteed to come true. This is when your desires are bottle-necked. As humans we have so many desires, all of it to make our lives easier. Since we can only make a limited amount of wishes, a few of them will have to be crossed out to make a place for others that will enrich your life.

Okay, now that all the wishes have been listed down, here’s another catch: all your wishes will come true, BUT there’s a blood price.

Do you still want to make wishes? Are you that desperate to make them?

Apparently, Clare is desperate enough to not care.

WISH UPON Movie Plot 

Wish Upon begins with a woman throwing away a wrapped parcel in the garbage can. Then she goes into the house and hangs herself, in the presence of her little daughter.

Years later, Clare awakens from this very nightmare. It was no dream. Her mother had committed suicide in front of her. Her life is a complete mess. Her father scavenges dumpsters for things he hoards in the house, much to Clare’s embarrassment because he does that right across from her school.

Her school life is far worse. She’s bullied by the popular clique, but luckily she has two friends to lean on.

High school hasn’t changed much, it seems. The bratty girls, still call girls names and throw trash at them. But at least Clare is not a complete pushover and hits back at her bullies. However, she does pine for a boy who already has a girlfriend, who in turn is also one of her tormentors.

Clare’s father is the one who brings the ornate Chinese box into the house, even cleans it and props it right on her bed. Clare accidentally touches it and makes her first wish- for her bully to rot.

The wish comes true and her bully starts to rot. Unknown to Clare, the blood price is paid, her dog is killed.

As Clare makes more wishes, she gets to live in a mansion, has a boy fall in love with her. But in doing so, she starts to lose all the people who had loved her for who she was and not who she became.

Having all your wishes come true, apparently, changes and destroys the good in you.

WISH UPON Ending Explained with Spoilers! 

When all the facts are made known to Clare, she is unable to give up her life and keeps the box. Her sixth wish- to bring back her mother. The blood price? Her father.

Left with only one wish, she desperately asks to be sent back to before she found the box. The wish comes true and all should have been well had she simply destroyed it instead of giving it away to a friend to dump it into the river.

The blood price is paid once again. Clare is hit by a car and is instantly killed, and ironically, it is through her bully. Apparently, the evil spirit encased in the box is thought to possess the soul of the wish maker.

In the end, her friend contemplates throwing the box in the river. He can make seven wishes now. He doesn’t know the catastrophic events that had played out because he too was brought back in time.

The choice he makes will decide whether or not there will be a sequel.

Wish Upon is one of those movies that scares in a way that it mirrors the true conflicts processed in our minds.

Life is complicated, tough, heartbreaking. Imagine having the power to have all your problems solved? There is a price for everything and it was eye-opening to see Clare’s confusion and then her desperate reaction.

She does amend her mistakes at the very end, but it took not her friends’ lives, but the life of her father. That was what made her realize the despicable mistake she had made. It’s that kind of horror, where a person can be so desperate for a good life that they show no concern or remorse for others. It makes you gasp, really.

But Clare is human. Her character is relatable though her choices her poorly made.

Like her friend jokes in the movie: why not simply wish for world peace?

Scare Scale: 3/5