Originally published October 25, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
Ouija. 2014
Directed by Stiles White.
Starring Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Bianca A. Santos, Douglas Smith and Shelley Hennig.
SYNOPSIS:
A group of friends must confront their most terrifying fears when they awaken the dark powers of an ancient spirit board.
What else can be said about the current state of mainstream that hasn’t already been said? You can probably copy and paste the majority of my review for Annabelle into this one for Ouija and my work would be done. The only thing setting Ouija apart from other horror films is the fact that it is based on the board game made popular by Hasbro; and I don’t know about you, but personally I find it depressing that Hollywood is now turning them into movies. Battleship was a piece of garbage, but hey, it made money, so who gives a s***. Sadly, Ouija will probably be a success too , so get ready for a Monopoly movie…
Putting my rant against Hollywood aside, Ouija is a terrible mess of a film for two reasons. First being is that the only way these filmmakers know how to attempt to scare people is by employing an endless barrage of jump scares. What’s that, somebody’s looking around a room? We better have a friend walk in AND PLAY A LOUD NOISE because by golly that could have been a demon! They aren’t even telegraphed in a way that hides them, and they occur so frequently you will be hearing the LOUD NOISES before anything even happens.
Ouija also has a horrible story with characters that are about as interesting as watching paint dry. They are also so stupid, that I’m going to go out on a limb and say that somehow an inanimate object like paint has more brain cells than the idiots that compromise this movie. Seriously, their reaction every time someone dies is to keep playing and dig deeper into the mystery, getting someone else killed – I use the term mystery very loosely by the way as I haven’t the slightest freaking clue what actually happened, considering it isn’t explained very well. It’s like standing in the middle of the street, getting hit by a car, and then doing the same exact thing only to wonder why you got hit by another car. I’m pretty sure real people would be dramatically effected and in a constant state of mourning if their friends kept dropping like flies.
Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise no one acts emotional though as the acting is downright atrocious as well, and is probably what really classifies the movie under the horror genre. I am not convinced that Ouija even has certified actors; the filmmakers showed up on the set forgetting about the whole casting process, and then decided to cast five teenagers from the nearest local high school. The most horrifying thing about Ouija is that these actors might pop up in another film. It’s not just the teenagers though, as there is a hilariously over-the-top scene with an elderly woman that would make Nicolas Cage and the bees scene from The Wicker Man blush. As a matter of fact, if those two ever get to do a movie together one day then Ouija‘s existence will be justified, because I might literally die laughing watching that movie.
And then there’s the climax of the film which is beyond stupid and illogical even for horror standards. Without spoiling it, all I will say is that if you ask a demon to play a game of Ouija, they absolutely cannot resist. It doesn’t matter what they are doing, they will drop everything to interact with humans, like they have just been gifted an advanced copy of Uncharted 4.
I swear, not one single person even tried to make a passable film. Here’s how bad Ouija is: Michael Bay is listed as a producer for the project, and I wholeheartedly think that this is the worst thing he has ever had his name attached to. Ouija is a disaster of a film; some kind of monster that embodies everything wrong with both modern horror and mainstream cinema.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film:★ / Movie: ★
Robert Kojder – An aficionado of film, wrestling, and gaming. He currently writes for Flickering Myth, We Got This Covered, and Wrestle Enigma. Follow me on Twitter.
