A likeable but somewhat dorky teenager gets a mysterious package in the mail with a note saying it bestows three wishes, but as he makes his wishes for a cheerleader's affections reality, it seems the Grim Reaper takes payment out on his classmates.

A perky little flick that is more than it seems, but at the same time just doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. The cast is likeable and well-played and that's the real strength here, the weakness being the meandering pace and weak script. Just the same, I kind of enjoyed it in an afterschool-special kind of way.

The problem is, as I said, the pacing is so slow that at times you wonder if there's a plot at all. I'm not talking about a slow-build to excellance, it's a slow-build to mediocrity and that doesn't do much to impress. It's just unreasonably slow paced.

However, I liked the characters enough to care what happened, so I stuck it out. Most the kills were off-camera, but a couple were pretty impressive. It was clear that the target audience is the young-teen I Know What You Did Last Summer crowd, and to them this should be just what the mad doctor ordered. Light-hearted humor, high-school drama and the usual crew of stereotypes are all here in abundance.

There were some plot-holes that were mildly huge, but overlookable considering the point of the flick and the intended audience. My main complaint is if this were a vignette in a short-story movie, or an episode of Masters of Horror or the like, it would have been really good. As it was, however, it felt like forty minutes of story stretched out way too long.

4 out of 10 ancient magic bullcocks