So You Don’t Have To; Horror: Wish Upon.
The movie opens with a mother (Elisabeth Röhm) throwing away something mysterious; I mean, whatever could it be? 🧐 Cut to a child walking in on said mother hanging in the attic. The girl is ✨the main character✨. For her birthday, her father gives her a nice Chinese music box. Roll the credits.
Anyway, she wishes for some normal teenage stuff, but word them in unique ways:
I Wish: “Darcie Chapman would just go rot,”
I mean, what a strange grouping of words. Obviously she could’ve just said she wished that she would leave her alone, but how scary is that? This movie really leans more towards the thriller part of the spectrum, with the plot not being that horror inducing. Also, Darcie ‘rots’ by contracting a real-life flesh eating virus, necrotizing fasciitis, which is rarely contagious. How the hell did this girl not feel the burst of blisters on her legs and face? Or notice them while she gets out of bed? All for the theatrics of her screaming in the bathroom. (TW: Flesh Eating Disease, disturbing photos) Also, the way her wounds look don’t really match up with the actual effects of the disease. Now I know the second photo looks way worse, but in the movie, Darcie’s condition is escalated to the stage to where her skin is, well, rotting. And her dog is… eaten alive by rats? I’m sorry, what? That’s just terrible writing. In what situation would a grown ass golden retriever be eaten alive by rats? The dog wasn’t even appearing to have been trapped.
Rating: 6/10. It was a great execution but not really worth the five minute high she has, or the death of Max, because another wish coming up that would probably had made Darcie not be a bitch anymore.
I Wish: “Paul would fall madly in love with me,”
Once again with this wording. She could have easily wished he returned her feelings or he would date her. BUT because she worded it the way she did, this music box ain’t skipping no beats, as she wishes for this, the camera pans over to her elderly uncle running himself a bath, to which he slips, and not once, but twice he hits his head on the tub, drowning and bleeding out in the tub. Paul shows Clare more and more attention, eventually breaking up with his girlfriend Lola, and dates Clare. The honeymoon phase ends very quickly when it’s revealed he’s been stalking her, showing her he’s taken pictures of her when she’s asleep, so she does what any sane woman would do in this situation: She dumps his ass. He falls down this rabbit hole to where if she doesn’t want him no one will, so he graphically cuts into his wrist. How crazy. Or maybe….mad?
Rating: 3/10. Girl, why? He ain’t even that cute. It’s not a one out of ten just because I can see where she’s coming from, but it’s still low because of the wording?! I mean this movie’s loosely based on the monkey’s paw.
I Wish: “Uncle August left me everything,”
She wishes that her recently deceased uncle left her everything in his will after her father says good riddance to the news. Upon wishing this, her neighbor Mrs.Deluca, who has been around since she was a child, starts having problems with her food disposal. Nothing happens when she tries to get it unjammed with her hand. This scene is hands down one of the most disturbing! Her ponytail gets caught, and it drags her just out of reach of the switch, and it scalps the poor woman until it snaps her neck in a distorted manner.
Rating: 5/10. Because of money, but also because of poor Mrs.Deluca.
After this Clare gets help from her classmate Ryan who’s cousin deciphers ancient Chinese, realizing her wishes come with consequences.
I Wish: “My dad wouldn’t be so embarrassing,”
To which her father has a whole personality shift. He plays his saxophone again — something he hasn’t done since his wife died. Unbeknownst to the main characters, Gina finally found out what those symbols mean! The wishes come with a blood price. As she tries to call her cousin, she drops her phone from what seems like stories high off the ground. As she’s walking around her loft, the thunder spooks her, and she slips and is impaled by a bull statue through the eye.
Ryan figures this out and confronts Clare asking is she’s made any wishes, and that his cousin is dead. She denies making any wishes.
Rating: 7/10. Because parents are sometimes meant to be embarrassing.
I Wish: “I was the most popular girl in school,”
This would have solved her Darcie problem honestly. If she’s the most popular girl in the schools, then Darcie would be nice to her. And now that I’m writing this a lot of her wishes could have solved her Darcie problem: her father no longer being embarrassing, no bullying because he’s no longer a dumpster diver, she becoming wealthy, no longer a ‘loser’ in Darcies eyes, and this wish. But now that she’s popular, her friends feel abandoned and are upset with her but eventually forgive her and they group up for the senior scavenge. After taking the fifth photo needed for the hunt, Meredith goes to find a monster, and when she does, Clares father gets a blowout, causing him to almost get ran over by two cars racing down the street.
Who’s gonna die? Bestie or Saxy Dad? After Meredith finds the monster, she gets into the elevator which she didn’t use to go up but, as she is in there, Clare confesses she didn’t trash the music box, because if she does all the wishes are reversed. June is pissed as Clare gets a call from Meredith. The camera then pans back to her father who’s under his car looking for a lug nut and is almost crushed. He accidentally knocks the spare tire into oncoming traffic. The camera cuts back to Clare as the tire is about to hit his face. The elevator doors open and just as Meredith is about to get out, it falls to her death. And June rightfully blames Clare for her death.
Ryan tells Clare when she makes her last wish, the box will take her soul. The next day the music box is gone, and all of Clares wishes are reversed. What could have happened to it? As she's walking through the hallway, June has the box in her locker (Why the hell would you not trash it you were telling Clare to do throughout this whole movie.) Clare is livid, telling June she needs to give it back right now.
Through her words, Clare accidentally shoves June down the stairs, but she doesn’t die. Ryan tells her to give him the box, but she goes all crazy eyes and threatens to use a wish on him.
Rating: 0/10. I would not wish this, because you’re the ‘it’ person to someone already, popularity is a facade. And definitely not worth the consequences.
Instead of using her sixth wish to wish her dad never found the music box, she does this:
I Wish: “My Mother Never Committed Suicide,”
This one is the most depressing wish in my opinion
Shortly after, her mother knocks on the door and she and two little girls walk in telling Clare happy birthday. Clare tells her she missed her. As she is done eating cake and opening presents, she goes upstairs and notices the music box in one of her mother’s paintings, and connects it to her suicide. The box plays music, and she looks outside where her dad is holding down a ladder while his friend is up there with a chainsaw. How could this go wrong? As she yells for her father, he lets go of the ladder, causing the chainsaw to fatally injure her father.
Rating: 9/10. It’s as high as it is because I can understand where she’s coming from, but it’s not a 10/10 because one parent’s life for another.
So it was technically all her fault. I mean, this whole movie is her fault. As this happens, she makes her seventh and final wish.
I Wish: “I could go back to the day my dad found you,”
She wakes up screaming, exactly how she did after the opening scene of the mother’s suicide. She goes with her father and finds the box first, heading to school. When she gets there, she gives it to Ryan to bury before kissing him. As she walks away, Darcie ‘accidentally’ hits her with her car.Here the camera zooms all the way into Clare’s eye and the music stops.
Rating: 8/10. It’s not higher because of what she did. She should have made this wish three wishes ago and just threw the damn box away.
She didn’t have to die, but bitch was selfish. She made two more wishes after being told the box would, and I cannot stress this enough: the box will take her SOUL.
She deserved everything that happened to her.
Overall Rating: 7/10 just because I liked most of it, but some scenes were just unbearable to watch.
Thank you for reading this review and remember:
Be careful what you wish for!
