Ouija

Starring: Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Bianca A. Sanders, Douglas Smith, Shelley Hennig
Directed by: Stiles White
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Horror
2014

Times Seen:
Tim: 1


Summary: A group of friends is terrorized when one of them uses a Ouija board to summon a spirit.

Review:

Tim: I can't claim to have been very excited when I heard they were making a movie about a Ouija board. While I'm not generally a fan of turning board games into films, I do know that it can work- look at Clue as an example. There's a lot less story with a Ouija board, which is perhaps why this film feels completely redundant of dozens of other horror films. There was really nothing original or novel about this film- it's made up of dozens of horror movie cliches. You could probably guess just about everything that happens in this film with only the most rudimentary knowledge of the horror genre. In short, this movie is a forgettable affair.

I honestly don't like Ouija boards- I hate that kids treat them as toys. Trying to communicate with deceased beings isn't a game. So, for me, there was something inherently creepy about this movie. Any trepidation I might have had was dissipated very quickly. This is a horror movie without any real scares. Honestly, besides some jumping out scares, this is a surprisingly dull, not scary movie. Thankfully, it's short.

One of the biggest complaints is a common one in horror movies- there's really no character development. No one seems to care about trying to make us interested in these characters. I didn't know them or care about them. There's six main characters, so it's pretty obvious that most of them will die. As an example of how little care is given to these characters, I laughed out loud when one of them died towards the end and the others continued on like nothing had happened. I wanted to shout- "You just found out your friend died!" There's no acknowledgement or grief. The whole thing was quite absurd.

Now, there were a few (very few) decent moments. The scenes with the ouija board were surprisingly dull, but there was a decent moment here or there. I liked the use of "Hi Friend" as a shockingly sinister greeting. That was legitimately creepy. There was also a bit of a twist, although I saw it coming a mile away (and I rarely do that). Unfortunately, the positives are completely overwhelmed by the negatives.

Here's a quick rundown of the horror movie cliches- a group of young friends connect with a supernatural entity, which terrorizes them and kills them one-by-one. To survive, they find old pictures of a family that used to live in the house and must track down their story (via newspaper articles) to find out what happened to them. At one point, the main character visits someone in a mental hospital. They go up into a dusty attic and down into a scary basement. Honestly, this movie is just a collection of things we've seen dozens of times before.

It would have been nice to enjoy Ouija, but I was completely unable to. This is a really bad movie and a poor, halfhearted attempt at a horror film. I haven't been overly impressed with any of Hasbro's movies thus far, but this might be the worst one yet.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Not ever playing with a real ouija board, cause that's not cool