Ouija (2014)

Directed by Stiles White. Starring Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Douglas Smith, Bianca Santos, Lin Shaye, Shelley Hennig, Vivis Colombetti. [PG-13]

A bunch of young folks (who else?) meddle with powerful forces (what else?) they shouldn’t, and there’s hell to pay. The vessel of their impending doom? A Ouija board, which is used to contact a sinister presence beyond the grave who keeps possessing and killing those young folks one by one. Solve the mystery, stop the evil, save themselves, got it. At first, I felt like I was watching a film made by people who had watched a lot of horror movies and knew all the tried-but-true tropes and scare techniques and were attempting a step-by-step facsimile without anything fresh or new whatsoever to offer. Later, I revised that opinion to where I felt like I was watching a film made by people who had watched a lot of horror movies but had no idea what made the decent ones work, and every jolt was the byproduct of very stupid planning and execution half-formed from a memory of a much better sequence elsewhere. I might have laughed at the whole thing if I wasn’t already putting forth so much effort just to stay awake and pay attention to the paper-thin yet convoluted “mystery” behind the cursed game. A movie based on Chutes and Ladders would probably have better scares—hey, wobbly ladders aren’t to be fooled with! There’s even a supporting role for Lin Shaye (added during re-shoots), who’s become more synonymous with 2010s fright flicks than her frequent collabos with the Farrelly brothers. Sequel: Ouija: Origin of Evil.

22/100