Wish Upon will make you wish you had payed for a better movie.

When a teenage girl discovers a magic wish-granting box, she dreams big (but not big enough to wish for, say world peace or the cure for cancer) and becomes the most popular girl in school overnight. Naturally, consequences ensue. Gruesome, predictable, only mildly disturbing consequences.

Clare, our main character, rises from a dismal childhood and seems to have become a fairly sensible kid, however she still falls into a spiral of shallow and overwhelmingly selfish wishes. What could have been an interesting concept ends up pulling the audience into a trite morality lesson on greediness.

For a movie aimed at teens, Wish Upon portrays its teenage protagonist as a vapid, unsurprising individual who makes poor choices in the name of self service. Even if you could blame this on the fallibility of teenage decision making, it makes it impossible to root for two dimensional Clare and her static constituents.

A horror movie in theory, and theory alone, the film relies on cheap gore and rudimentary plot devices to spook its audience. The result might unsettle a very weak stomach, but mostly it just lends itself to plenty of unintentionally laughable moments.

We won’t even begin to discuss the gaping plot holes or painfully obvious solutions to Clare’s wish-box rabbit hole. It’s the kind of movie that will have you yearning to yell advice to those on screen, which is perhaps the only way you could make this flick a bearable form of entertainment.

What’s in the box? A shambolic show not worth the price of admission.