Wish Upon

A teenage girl (Joey King), unpopular in school and still scarred by her mother’s suicide 10 years before, finds a mysterious Chinese music box that promises to grant seven wishes—not noticing that for each wish there’s a “blood price” to be paid. So she makes a few frivolous, half-joking wishes; the first one kills her dog, then the box upgrades to offing humans in the usual parade of Rube Goldberg deathtraps. (Nobody ever just drops dead of a heart attack in movies like this.) Performances are earnest (Ryan Phillippe plays King’s father, Sherilyn Fenn a friendly neighbor; the rest are hungry unknowns), but nobody can keep the proceedings from becoming unintentionally hilarious. Written by Barbara Marshall and directed by John R. Leonetti—both efficiently but without distinction. J.L.