Ouija: origins of evil – a review

A young mother with two daughters earns some extra money by playing a medium. One day she buys a prop for her next performance: a Ouija board. When her daughter gets her hands on the toy the family finds that there is a dark danger wanting to communicate.

I guess I’m starting to get a thing for horror-sequels. I don’t know but something tells me that the last  few years or so the sequels in this particular genre are getting better and better.

Now this time ‘round there’s a big elephant in the room: I haven’t seen part one (Ouija). The reviews were bad and I sort of stopped buying DVD’s at the time. So, in short, I went into the movie theater completely blank!

I don’t know whether seeing the first part would help me appreciate this sequel more or not. Anyway, I liked it!

Is it a good movie? Yes! There are some great effects and scares in this one. The acting is good, the camera is at the right place at the right time. But the script (as always to me) was lacking quite a bit.

I guess, if you watch enough movies like I do, you start to make little puzzles in your mind: “I would use that shot, from that movie in that movie. I would use that movie’s jumpscare here and that unnerving scene from that other movie there". Et cetera.

Sufficient to say, in my personal mental cinema I’ve got plenty of perfect (to me) supernatural thriller-genre movies comprised of different movies.

And that’s what Ouija: origins of evil is to me: another collection of (great) scares that helps my mind to build the perfect horror-movie in my mind.

In short: Ouija 2 is great in a lot of ways but ultimately rather forgettable!

Story

To bring out my personal point of interest first (if you read this blog you’ll know I’m a sucker for:): story. Which is actually rather great. It’s simple but effective. The biggest problem with a lot of supernatural movies is that they muddle the plot by adding storyline after storyline. Here it’s tremendously simple: little girl is getting possessed and ‘we’ all know it!

The problems arise with some of the ‘twists and turns’. For instance: a character dies rather brutally and the whole mourning sequences lasts only ten second and then that character is forgotten (this could also be editing). They don’t even try to save him/hem or check if the body was truly dead.

This destroys any ‘connecting’-scene that came before. Which is a shame because the bonding between characters is handled quite openly. This movie allows the viewers to care for the characters. So to shut off all this bonding with an uninterested death is hurting the movie instead of elevating it.

BTW - a big shout out for the ‘Strangling-monologue’! Brilliantly written, acted and shot. Too bad it was downplayed several scenes later.

BTW 2 - I've seen a scene where a trickster-boy punishes himself before but for the life of me I can’t remember the movie. There was something like this in the movie Revolver - I know that.

Another ‘connecting’-issue has to do with something that bothers me in a lot of horror-movies: ‘If the ghosts are victims...why are they vile?’ I think this is the ‘rule of thumb’ to discriminate the bad horror-movie from the good. In the Shining, the Conjuring, the Ring,  House on haunted hill every ghost has an agenda that suited his or her  cause. In the Shining the ‘good’ ghosts only stood by saying: “lovely party isn’t it?”. In the Ring: Samara wanted: “Everyone to suffer!”.

This motive is weak in Ouija: Origins of evil. Too weak to my taste. Even though it has a very interesting history behind it. I guess I would call it a missed opportunity.

Also the priest’s ‘logic’ wasn’t very logical in the story. Loved the character and his relationship with the mother though.

The scares

Not a lot of jump scares in this one (a blessing). But, instead, a nice take on the suspense of things. A magical board game and some ghosts – a recipe for disaster.

I must admit, I found this movie to be a bit too PG-13 at times (some blood would have been welcome). But nothing too distracting.

Though one of the final scenes of the movie did leave me with the lingering question: ‘What’s wrong with duct tape?’ 

But, overall, seeing this creepy girl running around walls and ceilings or, simply, popping up here and there was delicious to watch. That little girl (Lulu Wilson) has a talent for being creepy.

How the movie was made

I can be clear on this one: perfect. The acting, directing and camera are all top notch. But I think this is one of those movies that –to me- proves the point I’ve been preaching for so long: ‘you can make a bad movie out of a great story. But you can’t (to me) make a great movie out of a weak story.” And even though the this story is simple some of the choices throughout lessens its effect.

Ouija: origins of evil is a great movie on many levels. But this movie fails on the narrative level and, as such, pulls down the scares (the aforementioned corpse) and the logic of it all. The movie viewer wants one single thing: to be satisfied. The various visual effects and the acting certainly help in that regard. But, unfortunately the lack of a more interlocking story prevents this movie to be perfect. Visually and ‘scare-wise’ it’s great...but it drops the ball a bit too often.