Wong Lives! Movie Reviews: Movie Review: Ouija

Ouija (2014)

A group of friends must confront their most terrifying fears when they awaken the dark powers of an ancient spirit board. Short synopsis of Ouija taken from IMDb.com

This one looked silly for even a cheap seats ticket, and now that I've seen it as a Redbox rental, I'm glad my instincts haven't entirely failed me. Ouija, with the tagline "Keep telling yourself it's just a game," was tepid at best. If you want to skip the rest of this review and hear my pronouncement up front, than here it is: This isn't worth the time.

Now, to back up my judgement call, I point to the predictable scene that came quite early on in the film, where lead character's best friend sees the evil ghostie and then hangs herself with the Christmas light string. It was a decent shock scene, but in this day and age it felt a bit forced. As though the moneymakers had to put it in or not be taken seriously as making a "horror" film. Whatever happened to subtly?

In point of fact, I'd venture to say that twenty years ago, Ouija might have been a better film than it is today. Today, it suffers from re-using lots of old well-tred plot material and feeling superficial, full of silly teenage angst with little common sense ("Why do we do all the dumbs things we do," I wanted to ask the participants), and generally a near waste of an hour and a half. To spoil the ending, the villain ghost is really the little girl spirit and not the benevolent but scary-as-all-hell mommy spirit. Little girl spirit even does that trite scare face thing with her lips sown shut, which is nothing new in the horror genre and so only seems disturbing, but definitely not out-right frightening.

Shelley Hennig plays Debbie, the girl who should have been run out of town for being too dumb to survive this film. She gets this old Ouija board out of the attic, leaves a convenient video record of her finding it for her friends to discover later, decides to start playing around with it, and then tries burning the thing when she has decided that she's is in too deep. Of course, burning a Ouija board never works, and only makes the ghost mad enough to take over poor dumb Debbie's mind and cause her to try bungie cord jumping with Christmas lights wrapped around her neck. / Source: thefineartdiner.blogspot.com

The mother ghost is spooky enough herself, so why shouldn't we as an audience buy into the mis-direction that she's the badguy? Then there is the sister in the mental institute, who seems far too "with it" the first time we see her, and so her mental break and subsequent ranting on the follow-up meeting is no big surprise. Really, the film takes no unpredictable turns whatsoever, in my opinion. Even the oh-so-been there/done that scene with the friend who is flossing her teeth and then suddenly discovers her mouth has been sewn shut with the floss stuck in there was nothing that hasn't been touched on before (this film has a thing for oral hygiene, by the way... two sepearate scenes with differnet people flossing?).

Yes, the film does try. Yes, mirrors can be scary. And so can spooky basements. And pools at night. And Ouija boards. But you're not really trying that hard, are you? Just once I'd like to watch a film with a spooky fertility clinic. Or a spooky wig shop. Or a spooky petroleum distillation facility. You can make just about any place seem spooky when you cast it with the right mood setters - i.e.: dim lights, character is feeling isolated, odd noise or two that can't be explained, and the well-trod path of creepy music cues. But then again, what is a teenager doing in a petroleum distillation facility? Guys, maybe we need some new protagonists in our scary movies.

All in all, I'd say Ouija was just going through the motions, and it didn't merit anything more than an expected jump scare and a few eye rolls. Not even worth the buck and a half for a Redbox viewing.

The parting comment: