Netflix And Chill: Ouija: Origin Of Evil (2016)

I had heard that this prequel to Ouija was actually quite a good horror movie but I just couldn't bring myself to give it a watch before now. Yes, it was directed by Mike Flanagan, who also co-wrote the script with Jeff Howard, but it was a prequel to Ouija, which was just crap. I should have had faith, in both the people who advised me that I would enjoy this film and the talent of Flanagan (who hasn't done anything yet that I have really disliked).

Set in the 1960s, this is the tale of a widow (Lina Zander, played by Annalise Basso) and her two daughters (Alice, played by Elizabeth Reaser, and Doris, played by Lulu Wilson). Lina offers readings to people in order to make money, helped by her daughters (who hide away and help to create the effects that show contact has been made with the spirit world), and it looks like they can add to the whole performance when they find an old Ouija board. Unfortunately, they break a number of the golden rules, which lets an evil force into their lives, communicating to everyone through young Doris.

There are a number of jump scares here, and a number of absolutely predictable moments (one or two repeated from the first film), but Flanagan also knows how to just creep viewers out. Once the opening act of the movie is done, with characters established and the Ouija board made use of, things start to get freaky very quickly. And the scares are all the better because of being grounded in a film that feels close enough to something from at least a few decades ago. This may not be a 100% accurate period film but there are enough touches, from the opening credits to the appearance of the film (even including added "cigarette burns" for extra authenticity), to make it feel like something you would have caught in the early days of VHS.

The performances are all excellent, with Basso, Reaser, and Wilson wonderful in their individual turns and also as a strained family unit, and there's a fine supporting turn from Henry Thomas, playing a priest/teacher who helps the family figure out just how bad things are for them. Parker Mack may be the least of the central cast members, playing the young man, Mikey, who is forging a relationship with Alice, but he is also good in his role.

A couple of visual tricks may be overdone, although the white-eyed and gaping-mouthed look never stops being scary to me, and there's obviously the fact that those who watched the first film will know how things should play out, but none of that stops Ouija: Origin Of Evil being a surprisingly brilliant mainstream horror that manages to hit the beats that it has to while also providing a few hair-raising surprises along the way.

Although you can watch this, and enjoy it, by itself, I still grudgingly encourage others to watch the first film first, if only to give you more appreciation when you then see how Flanagan and Howard tied things together here.

8/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Bonus Review: Ouija (2014)

Thank goodness for movies like Ouija, because sometimes I want to rattle off a review with little thought and/or effort. This kind of film, that seems to have taken no thought or effort to make, encourages me to do that. Putting too much energy into this review would be ridiculous, considering the laziness shown onscreen.

After a prologue that sets up the rules of playing with a Ouija board, the film moves forward to the here and now. Debbie (Shelley Hennig) is looking quite nervy. It seems to be due to the Ouija board that she throws in the fire. It's not long until the board reappears, leading to a death that upsets the rest of the cast, all of them completely interchangeable rent-a-teens. Everyone decides to do the sensible thing, of course. Yes, they all use the Ouija board to contact the spirit of their recently-deceased friend, but they end up instead allowing an evil force to have some chatty time with them. And then more deaths start to occur.

Stiles White and Juliet Snowden did a good job recently with their script for The Possession. It was slick horror for the masses, but it was nicely put together. Unfortunately, they also wrote the screenplay for Boogeyman, which this is more in line with. Boogeyman is, in fact, the slightly better film. The weak screenplay is hampered further by the unimaginative direction from White, trying out the big chair for the first time. Jump scares are predictable and unearned, shots of anyone around the Ouija board are as dull as ditchwater, and the one decent scene in the whole film feels as if it's ripping off Final Destination.

Although I'm pretty dismissive of the entire cast - Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Bianca A. Santos, and a few others - I'm not blaming them for the dull mess that unfolds during the 80+ minutes. They are, after all, just doing their job. Okay, they don't do very well, but they don't exactly have the best material to work with. And when Lin Shaye appears, the whole thing starts to feel like one big joke at the expense of audiences who have bought enough tickets over the years to show that horror films can often provide a decent return on very little investment. Not that Shaye does anything wrong. She just happens to have appeared in some of the better horror movies in the past couple of years, and is now placed slap bang in the middle of one of the worst.

The only thing that Ouija is good for is allowing itself to be held up as an example of all the worst traits of mainstream horror movies from America. No intelligence in the script whatsoever, no originality, no charm or charisma found in any of the leads, and no reason to care about what happens to any of the characters. All you end up with are some jumps and half-decent CGI.

Perhaps it was a deliberate move to make this film so dull. Perhaps the original tagline was - "Ouija - you'll be board to death". Sadly, I doubt the film-makers would even be that imaginative.

3/10

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