We are heavily into that pre Halloween period so expect a rash of horror film releases. One to stay away from or else you might be cursed with seven years of bad luck is Stiles White’s debut film Ouija. Trust me, it is that bad.
Debbie (Shelley Henning – from television’s Teen Wolf) and Laine (Olivia Cooke – from television’s Bates Motel) have been friends since they were children. So when Debbie commits suicide it really throws Laine. She wonders if she could have done something to stop her best friend from taking her own life. This wondering leads to her turning to the Ouija board, a game they used to play as kids, to seek some answers.
Enlisting her rebellious sister Sarah (Ana Coto), her boyfriend Trevor (Daren Kagasoff – from television’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager), Debbie’s boyfriend Pete (Douglas Smith – from television’s Big Love) and friend Isabelle (Bianca A. Santos) for a Ouija session one night at Debbie’s house they manage to contact some spirit trying to communicate with them which they believe to be their departed friend. Soon they discover that the spirit they have summoned is something else entirely and they are going to have to destroy it or they will all be killed.
The most important thing a horror film has to be is scary. This one is not even in the ballpark. It is so slow in the beginning that no tension is built up so there was little if any jumping at the preview screening I attended. Usually when you take in a horror film, a good one, there is a kind of electricity in the air due to tension, jumpiness and nervousness. There was no nervous giggling or whispering because you are nervous or screaming because the film managed to scare the bejesus out of you. Precious little imagination results in nary a scare.
Just like the mess that was Battleship this makes me almost not like the game anymore. Ouija is a game made by Hasbro and I find it hard to believe that a film of this poor quality is going to move copies of it off the shelves.