Review: 'Ouija' is a Mess of Horror Faux Pas

Emily Theytaz ‘17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

Every kid has messed around with a Ouija board at least once in his or her life. It’s what you pull out when you and your 6th grade best girl friends feel like being brave and then freak out when you talk to someone’s dead grandma. It does not however, make for a good movie plot.
The film begins with the apparent suicide of Debbie (Teen Wolf’s Shelley Hennig). Her best friend Laine (Bates Motel’s Olivia Cooke) is unable to cope with Debbie’s death and doesn’t believe that she would kill herself. She finds an old Ouija board that they used to play with when they were kids in Debbie’s room and gathers their group of friends to try and contact her.  Of course that doesn’t go as planned and instead of talking to Debbie, they unleash an angry spirit who begins to terrorize and pick off the friends. A poorly executed back and forth occurs and we end on an unfinished note.

The film starts off well, giving a few good scares and jumps along the way but quickly becomes redundant. The acting starts to seem eye roll-worthy if you acknowledge the fact that that every single person in the lead cast has been in a bad teen TV show. Shelley Hennig is a Teen Wolf alum, Daren Kagasoff reps the Secret Life of The American Teenager, and Matthew Settle hails from Gossip Girl. The scares become less scary and more frustratingly cliché; the times when the movie could have ended turn out to be yet another ‘plot twist’ that needs to be resolved.
It’s hard to get creative when it comes to new horror movie ideas so it’s understandable that filmmakers would try and make a movie based on a toy that’s sold at Toys “R” Us, but when your film is more cliché than the Geico ‘Horror Movie: It’s What You Do’ commercial you know you have a problem.
Overall Grade: C+

Watch The Trailer: