If you want to see a teen horror movie 7/10
If you want to see a good horror movie 3/10
As a teen horror movie the film hits the beats. It has the HS teen angst tropes. The nerd falling in love with the popular chick. The rock soundtrack that is the mark of early 2000s horror. The conflict of different cliques.
But as an overall film it kind of drags on. The basic premise "Unpopular kid is given a wish box and makes wishes" is played out with minimal concern for original treatment of the plot and the movie devolves into a typical slasher clone. The moral of the story is questionable and certainly didn't age well, but early 2000s teen movies tended to have that quality. Though here irreverence is replaced with an ambiguous moral message.
If I were to name the positives I'd say the acting is decent considering the plot and I enjoyed the lack of seriousness around the "twist ending."
The writers clearly knew not to take the teen horror trope too seriously. I just wish there was more hamming it up and less boring HS conversations.
If you want to see a good horror movie 3/10
As a teen horror movie the film hits the beats. It has the HS teen angst tropes. The nerd falling in love with the popular chick. The rock soundtrack that is the mark of early 2000s horror. The conflict of different cliques.
But as an overall film it kind of drags on. The basic premise "Unpopular kid is given a wish box and makes wishes" is played out with minimal concern for original treatment of the plot and the movie devolves into a typical slasher clone. The moral of the story is questionable and certainly didn't age well, but early 2000s teen movies tended to have that quality. Though here irreverence is replaced with an ambiguous moral message.
If I were to name the positives I'd say the acting is decent considering the plot and I enjoyed the lack of seriousness around the "twist ending."
The writers clearly knew not to take the teen horror trope too seriously. I just wish there was more hamming it up and less boring HS conversations.