Ouija

There used to be a time when movies like Ouija knew they were bad, and would have fun kidding themselves.  Not anymore.  This is a glum, deadly serious and deadly dull horror movie that won't elicit an audience response, except from the most easily excitable or startled teenagers.  It takes forever to get to the point, and when it finally does, it's not worth the wait.

The movie is about a bunch of teenagers who are given quick introductions, mess around with a Ouija board, start being haunted by an evil spirit that they accidentally summoned, and then get killed off until only the lead heroines are left.  The obvious question to this premise is, so what?  Go a step further and make the teenagers interesting, or maybe give them a sense of humor.  These kind of movies have been around for years, and unless you find a way to set yourself apart, you join the masses.  The young actors at the center of the film deserve better than what they've been given, and will hopefully go on to better things.  After all, Johnny Depp got his big break in a teenage horror movie, specifically the original A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Of course, that was a movie with real ideas and tension - two things that are not found here.

As the film opens, we meet best friends Laine (Olivia Cooke) and Debbie (Shelley Hennig).  Poor Debbie's been acting kind of distant lately, which worries Laine, but Debbie assures her friend that she's fine and makes plans for them to meet the next day.  Then Debbie unexpectedly and supposedly kills herself.  But, something doesn't quite match up.  The adults exit the movie early on with vague explanations (business trips, vacations, etc.), allowing Laine and her friends full access to Debbie's empty house, so they can poke around and look for clues.  They uncover a Ouija board, and eventually discover that Debbie was messing around with it during the days leading up to her death.  Laine thinks there might be a connection, so obviously the smart thing to do is to start messing around with it herself.

She gathers up her friends, which include her boyfriend Trevor (Daren Kagasoff), her sister Sarah (Ana Coto), Debbie's old boyfriend Pete (Douglas Smith) and good friend Isabelle (Bianca Santos).  They gather around the Ouija board and try to get in touch with Debbie's spirit.  At first, they think they've contacted her spirit when the lights start flickering, and the board spells out the message "hi, friends".  But then, everyone involved starts being followed and tormented by a malevolent ghost.  It starts out by leaving messages on the walls, car windows and desks for Laine and her friends, but it quickly moves up to more troubling paranormal activity when it starts killing them in ways that look like accidents or suicides.  Now Laine has to discover the truth about just who or what is haunting her friends and her, which involves some dusty attics and a hidden room in the basement of Debbie's house.

I found myself watching Ouija with weary resignation.  The pacing is completely off, as it takes far too long setting up the situation and introducing the characters.  The fact that it wastes so much time with its set up is surprising, as there's nothing here that requires a lengthy explanation.  Once the hauntings do kick in, they don't amount to much more than a gas stove turning on by itself, doors opening, and a chair being pushed away from a table.  The only moment that does get a reaction is a scene involving dental floss that I'm sure dentists everywhere will love.  Outside of that, nothing registers as being remotely interesting,  How can it, when it's all loud jolts and jump scares, and no real frights?  It's just another movie about dim-bulb teenagers going into dark places they really shouldn't.

Ouija might make a quick buck or two this weekend, then be forgotten once Halloween has passed.  If that's all the filmmakers were looking for, they've succeeded.  But wouldn't it have been smarter to try to make a truly scary movie that people would want to remember and possibly revisit?  Couldn't hurt, is all I'm saying.

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