Ouija: Origin of Evil (Blu-ray)
Ted Hentschke
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Directed by Mike Flanagan
Starring Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso, Lulu Wilson, and Henry Thomas
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Rated PG-13
You can rank, “Wow, I’m super excited about the new Ouija!” up there on the list of things I never thought I’d say. For a while, it seemed like Ouija: Origin of Evil was the film that couldn’t stop gathering positive buzz. It was announced that modern horror darling director Mike Flanagan would be directing it, and that the film would tell an entirely new story in the form of a prequel. Well I guess calling it an, “entirely new story,” is a bit of misnomer (this is the “Origin of Evil,” after all), but it disassociated itself enough with the original that people had hope it wouldn’t follow suit. As early screenings were had and the reviews came in positive, I was more and more confident that Flanagan had worked some magic to make the series good. I didn’t manage to see it in theaters mostly due to being broke, so I let myself get amped on good vibes for the inevitable Blu-ray release.
Well crap, I think I went and got my expectations too high. There’s another thing I never thought I’d be saying. “Yep, I was just too gosh darned excited for the prequel to Ouija, the PG-13 teen horror flick with a 7% Rotten Tomatoes score.” For the record, I didn’t hate the original Ouija. I thought it was a pretty standard and effective teen horror film, good for awkward first dates and some shrill shrieks with your gal pals. So maybe I didn’t like it because my memories of the original weren’t so bitter and vile. I just found Ouija: Origin of Evil to be a similarly safe, standard teen horror flick.
Now before you lose your mind and tell me that I have no idea how to judge quality, I do think that Ouija: Origin of Evil is better than Ouija. I just don’t think it’s a fantastically new or innovative film. From the possessed little girl to the gaping mouth spooky ghost stuff, this all felt pretty standard. Hell, it even fit a teen romance into its spooky little girl film. Not exactly breaking new grounds.
For 90% of the film, the plot could have been copy pasted from a screenwriting handbook. I want to play a little game here. Even if you’ve seen Ouija: Origin of Evil, try to pretend I’m talking about a new film.
*OBVIOUS SPOILER ALERT*
So you have a family of fake mediums, two girls working with their mother to try and convince people their dead family members are talking to them. Now, what is the safe route? Of course, these aren’t greedy hucksters, but caring people who want to help grieving families find closure. And what is the safest motivation for wanting to do that? Of course, the poor dad is dead, and they want to try to give people the closure they don’t have.
Now, this is a movie about an evil Ouija board (you can’t have Ouija without a Ouija board). So after they bring the oracular party game into their house, who’s the best candidate for getting possessed? Of course, the spooky little girl! Girls are supposed to be cute and innocent, but this one is all demon-y now. Spooooooky. Seeing as how this little girl now has the power to legitimately talk to the dead, what should the first act of the newly encountered spirit be? It can’t be something bad, or else the family won’t struggle internally about if this is a blessing or a curse. Well how about it miraculously solves their financial problems? That can quickly be shoved in the plot!
And the steps just stay in line from there. The mom wants to use the spooky girl, part for financial gain but mostly to commune with her dead husband. She somehow doesn’t notice her daughter writing essays in Polish or walking around at night, but the teenage sister does. This leads to a divide in the home between mother and teenage daughter, because plots need conflict. With her mother unwilling to listen to reason, the girl goes to her principal, who is conveniently A) a priest, B) has a dead wife they can use to test the little girl’s powers, and C) knows a nun that speaks Polish. We call that a script writing hat trick!
It’s only at this point that unpredictable stuff starts to happen, and it’s all shoved in the last 20 minutes. It’s shotgunned in so hard that none of it feels natural. Turns out that the ghost is actually a bunch of ghosts (even though it appears as one mouthless spirit?), that were tortured horribly by a Nazi doctor. The girl’s possession is kind of an amalgamation of all of the spirits’ collective pain. It’s pretty ill defined, but gets points for being original. We get all of this information in a note that the ghost for some reason felt the need write down. It’s literally read to us by the priest in a hushed tone while the ghost murders the disposable love interest teen in the next room. Really, couldn’t come up with a better way to explain the ghost story than literally read it off of a piece of paper? What happened to show, not tell?
As this is a prequel, the movie has to tie into Ouija somehow. One of the biggest compliments I heard was that this movie made the original better with the new plot continuity. This might be the statement I disagree with the most. The entire sewing her mouth shut thing felt incredibly forced, even for an element they had to force in for prequel reasons. The whole revelation comes randomly when the teenage daughter has a vision of her dad sewing her favorite doll’s mouth shut. So… can they just all see ghosts now? Also, how did the ghost literally carry her to her room? I thought the ghosts were acting through the little girl. Oh well, at this point you’re just supposed to go with it.
*SPOILERS OVER*
Maybe I’m missing the mark by debating the plot contrivances of a prequel to Ouija. Given how much my fellow critics loved this film, I feel the need to. I mean hell, even our review here at Dread Central gave the theatrical release a 4 out of 5. Even if we’re just talking about the scares, I didn’t find them exceptional. The overreliance on CGI just makes everything feel goofy. I haven’t really found the gaping ghost mouth scary since Grave Encounters. Out of focus ghosts leering in the distance is always a good spook, but nothing more than just filler for the real scares. Scares that just never really delivered. I appreciate the ghost not killing people with random psychic powers, but the whispering evil into their ears until their eyes turn white was pretty lame.
There were some elements that raised it above your standard Hollywood ghost film. The use of cue marks and other effects to make the digital footage look more like film was a nice touch. The attention to detail in terms of the setting and time period show that Flanagan really cares about what he’s doing. The performances were all good, with Annalise Basso standing out for her ability to show some restrained emotions. Child actors can always kill a movie, but Lulu Wilson did a good enough job of playing a cute/creepy possessed child.
I’ve trashed on this movie pretty hard up until now, but I’d like to reiterate that I don’t think this is a bad movie. It’s just unremarkable. Other than being better than the original, what exactly is Ouija: Origin of Evil’s claim to fame? For the kind of reception this got, I’d expect this to break some kind of new ground. When Insidious: Chapter 3 came out and blew everyone’s expectations, it was because the film was terrifying, heartfelt, and new. It wasn’t because the previous just sucked so bad that it was good by comparison.
So just try to pretend that Ouija: Origin of Evil exists alone. It’s really not THAT big of a stretch to assume people didn’t watch Ouija. As a standalone film, it just isn’t remarkable. Safe and standard films can still be done well, and to its credit Origin of Evil is a perfectly acceptable PG-13 ghost story. Maybe I’m just looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps I should be applauding Flanagan for taking a widely reviled film and making a tolerable franchise out of it. At the end of the film, I looked at my cat and said, “that was it?” I can’t ignore that.
As for special features, these are also pretty anemic. There were the as to be expected Feature Commentary/Deleted Scenes, which are the equivalent to the wheels and handlebars of the Blu-ray special features bike. Aside from that were three disposable featurettes, the first being another stock standard generic “The Making of.” There was another one about how they managed to cast a child actor that didn’t suck, and a third totally forgettable vignette on the house they used. Even if you’re a big fan, there’s very little to see here.
Special Features:
- Deleted Scenes
- The Making of Ouija: Origin of Evil
- Home is where the Horror is
- The Girl Behind Doris
- Feature Commentary with Director/Co-Writer/Editor Mike Flanagan
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Film
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Special Features
Categorized:Reviews
