The Story of Wish Upon revolves around a teenage girl, Clare (Joey King), receiving an ancient Chinese music box from her father as a gift. You soon realize the box will grant its owner seven wishes, but at a cost of bloodshed. The rest of the film attempts to show you the unraveling of her decisions and that your desires can eventually have a dark and evil side.

This movie takes place in a high school setting, which like a lot of other movies in the genre, is over the top and unrealistic. Her friends are the typical “out of the popular circle” trope, and her dad is always embarrassing and not good enough. Speaking of her dad, there are some hilarious and almost cringe-worthy scenes of him playing the saxophone. Yeah, I don’t know what the director was thinking.

But what I found the most damning to the flow of the movie is how unlikable the main character is. Clare lives in a cozy home with her dad who loves her, she has two best friends that are always there for her, and she has a guy who has a crush on her. But to Clare, that isn’t enough. What baffled me is that in spite of all the great things in her life, she decides to wish for all these material things to make her life extravagant, keeping in mind she realizes that people are suffering because of it. I feel as though if her situation was more dire or extreme, it would make more sense to the plot of the movie. It does not help either that Joey King’s performance, especially towards the end of the movie, made me laugh because of how over the top and ridiculous it was.

Let’s get to the horror side of the film. The deaths in this film are very typical, and censored to a PG-13 rating. The movie likes to  may you feel its tricking you in some instances, with how the death will happen, but it’s in such a by-the-books way that it never works. While I say how typical and weak they are, it’s still always fun to watch, especially with a full theater of people screaming out and hiding their eyes.

Overall, this movie is basically a teenage approved version of Final Destination with sprinkles of high school drama. It is absolutely a movie to watch on a streaming service later with friends to get a good laugh and see some over-the-top deaths. This felt like a horror movie of yesteryear, and I think Hollywood is slowly phasing out of these types of films. There is a new era of horror that is thoughtful and impacting, but if you are looking for a decent jump scare and well-tread high school situations, this might be for you.