No ancient Chinese secret here: 'Wish Upon' is contrived and silly

The most innovative component of the contrived and silly teenage horror movie "Wish Upon" turns out to be the insults high school girls hurl at each other.

My favorite: "You're a selfish bowl of (B-word)-sauce!"

If only the plot and characters were as tartly amusing.

"Wish Upon" comes from cinematographer-turned-director John R. Leonetti, who, as the movie promos remind us, directed "Annabelle," the dull and generic 2014 prequel to James Wan's surprisingly effective supernatural tale "The Conjuring."

Leonetti's new movie resembles "The Monkey's Paw" and the "Final Destination" films much more than "Annabelle."

"Wish Upon" begins with an obligatory tragic back story, this one about a little girl named Clare, who witnesses her mother's suicide in the attic of their house (in Ohio, if those automobile license plates are accurate).

Twelve years later, Clare, now 17 and played by the pouty-lipped Joey King, still suffers from traumatic stress, as does her dad Jonathan (Ryan Phillippe), once a jazz saxophone player and teacher, now a local bum who rummages through the dumpsters around the high school looking for salvage.

Dad discovers an ornately carved, ancient Chinese box in the trash bin of a local scary place (you know it's scary because the unnerving score put us on alert). He gives it to Clare for her birthday.

Clare, fortuitously taking a class in Chinese, can make out the words "seven wishes" on the box. That sure beats the single wimpy wish on a birthday cake.

So, after being brutalized by the snooty "Populars" at school, Clare casually wishes her bullying class nemesis would simply rot (and she does).

She wishes Mitchell Slaggert's cool school stud would fall for her (and he does). She wishes she could inherit her rich, late uncle's estate (and she does, following the fastest-moving probate court action in legal history).

It takes three bizarre deaths - one involving "Twin Peaks" star Sherilyn Fenn, a pigtail and a garbage disposal - before Clare, clearly not a card-carrying MENSA member, catches on to the box's Chinese fine-print: Each wish carries a blood price, the death of someone connected to Clare, carried out in such restrained and uncreative ways that those "Final Destination" movies would reject them.

Clare's astute classmate and voice-of-reason Ryan (Ki Hong Lee) warns her about the addictive power of the box, but Clare can't resist it.

"It makes me feel special," she admits.

Barbara Marshall's cliche-laden screenplay shrewdly capitalizes on adolescent yearnings for acceptance, popularity, cool fashions, loyal besties and true love. But her supposedly scary horror film has been Annabelled by Leonetti's leaden, suspenseless direction.

Clare pleads with her nondescript gal pals Meredith (Sydney Park) and June (Shannon Purser) for help fighting the box.

"Throw it away! You'll feel much better!" June says.

Presumably, she wasn't referring to a ticket to see this movie.

“Wish Upon”

★ ½

Starring: Joey King, Ryan Phillippe, Ki Hong Lee, Sydney Park, Shannon Purser, Sherilyn Fenn

Directed by: John R. Leonetti

Other: A Broad Green Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for language, violence. 89 minutes