The Most Dangerous Phrase in Horror...
Be careful what you wish for is a common phrase in horror geared toward young adults and children specifically. It’s an important lesson to learn in some respects, make sure you really want or need something before you make a deal to get it. Also to always read the fine print ahead of time before you make any sort of agreement. Overall, just knowing what you’re getting into can help you a lot through life, so we try to instill this early on. Now where horror involving wishes is a rather small category indeed, as most people do not wish for things except to get out of this situation in that genre, they do make up a good amount of moral allegorical style of horror so they are certainly worth a bit of exploration. So today we are going to look at the two major subtypes of wishes in horror and the various morals we get from them.
And now "Into the Woods" prologue is in your head. You're welcome musical fans.
The first subtype we are going to tackle is the “Monkey’s Paw” story. Based off of an old tale by W. W. Jacobs in 1902 about a paw of a monkey that will give you three cursed wishes, it often is an enchanted object that will give you wishes, but they will never be the wish you want. In the original story, a friend from India is persuaded to give to a friend of his an enchanted, mummified monkey’s paw that was designed to “show that fate ruled people’s lives and those who interfered with it did so in sorrow”. The paw gives three wishes, the first giving the family 200 pounds but at the cost of their only son dying in a machine accident at work, the second bringing back the son from the dead but he has come back as a monster, and the last being implied to be the father wishing the son dead, knowing that his wish will just hurt his wife twofold: they are without a son and wishes. All item wish stories tend to follow this formula set, most notably last year’s “Wish Upon” which instead uses a Chinese music box. In that story, you get seven wishes and while you will get what you wished for, someone has to die in order for the wish to work. It’s a new take on an old formula, and unfortunately, most reviews state it to be a bad take unless you like your horror to be unintentionally hilarious.
The other subtype is the equally common “Deal with the Devil” story. It is where someone makes a deal with some sort of being, often with magical powers, yet the prize you gain within this deal often either does not equal the cost or there were unknown costs to this bargain. The type of creature bargained with is often determined by location where the story plays out. Most western versions of the tale will deal with the Christian Devil or some other demon that offers to grant your desire for your soul. Often this desire is corrupted, not giving the person what they wanted or needed, to the point of regret for paying a huge price for nothing. In the Middle East and muslim folklore, you have Djinn, where we get our word Genie from. While movies such as Aladdin or Wishmaster portray it to make it seem that is all of what Djinn do, they are actually spirits mentioned in the Quran that were created from smokeless fire, that have powerful abilities and also have free will, unlike angels. In the Quran, Satan was actually a Djinn instead of an angel, who was angry at God for having them bow before Adam for he was “made of lowly clay” instead of fire like the Djinn were. In either case, Djinn horror tales are often very similar to the ideas from Christian devil tales. You can summon them to ask for favors, but it is often at the cost of your soul being damned to hell.
With these sort of tales, the themes and ideas are rather similar, even if there are variations on the tales. Often, the consequences of such a wish fall into three categories: you got what you wanted, not what you needed, you didn’t ask the other person, or unforeseen consequences. The first one is simply the wish that involves asking for something you want (like true love), but getting instead something that was not what you needed (say a chance to gain better relationship skills). In these sort of wishes, depending on the tale the results are either hilarious (having a puppy start following you home) or terrifying (gaining a stalker who wishes to be with you forever). Not a good outcome for the person either way.
Second involves what happens when you make a wish for another person. I think the anime Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magicka explained this best with the subplot of Sayaka. She wished to heal a friend of hers from a car accident that made it impossible for him to play his violin, yet he never knew she was the one that caused the miracle to happen. Therefore, when he went off and dated her other friend, instead of being with her, the wish backfired, horribly as what she really wanted was appreciation for getting him back on his feet, and for him to love her. He didn’t ask for the wish, yet she gave it without his knowledge and therefore, she is unhappy that he was ungrateful.
The last is a common thread that links the whole idea of corrupted wishes: unforeseen consequences. You may wish for something, but you don’t think about what may happen because of that wish. Sure you may wish for money and power, but you don’t think of how it makes it impossible to walk outside without being hassled and how it makes those closest to you wanting all sorts of help with their own money problems. There are various ways a wish can fall apart, and how these stories end depends on the level of horror the tale is giving, yet for our genre, they lead to death, dismemberment, or sorrow on behalf of the person making the wishes.
So what are you favorite wish moments? I always was fond of Goosebumps “Be Careful What you Wish for…” as it really was the first time I ran into the trope as a kid. Also, the idea of yelling “buzz off” and everyone turning into flies was kind of terrifying but hilarious. Tell me your favorite wishes gone wrong story below and I will see you next Food Thursday.
