“She’s gonna die. She’s gonna die. She’s gonna die,” the person next to me whispered right before a corpse dropped across the screen in the opening scene of this year’s new Halloween thriller. From the producer of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the producer of Insidious, Ouija opened in theaters on Friday.
Ouija’s plot is set in motion when a teenage girl, Debbie, breaks one of the fundamental rules of Ouija by playing alone after she discovers an old board in her attic. By playing the game, she makes a connection to the paranormal world, which, without surprise, ultimately leads to her death, an apparent suicide.
After Debbie’s death, her best friend, Laine, finds the Ouija board and, with her sister and three friends, attempts to connect with Debbie’s spirit. Once they begin the game, a ghost who introduces itself as “D” spells “Hi friend” on the board. Of course, the group thinks they’re speaking with Debbie, but after questioning the spirit, they find out that Debbie is not the person on the other side and that Debbie’s death was no suicide.
As I’m sure you can guess, the same spirit that killed Debbie haunts the five teens, and begins to kill them off as well. The surviving teens from the original group fear that they will all meet their demise, so Laine does some research to find out who the ghost is and why she’s tormenting them. She discovers that the spirit is a girl named Doris, and she meets with Doris’s living sister to find out what she has to do to end what Debbie started.
The group goes to Debbie’s house to settle things once and for all. Although, you can probably predict what happens next, I won’t spoil it for you.
Going into Ouija, I had high expectations due to the producers’ previous horror films. Although, I had a fun time watching the production with my two friends, overall, I was disappointed. Ouija was one of the most predictable movies I have ever seen, from beginning to end. Within the first five minutes, I could tell exactly which characters were going to die, and as the movie progressed, I could even determine the order of their imminent deaths. I can only think of one instance when something unexpected occurred.
Not only was the plot extremely predictable, but I was constantly annoyed because it seemed as though each character was doing the dumbest thing they could possibly be doing at any given moment. All scary movies have the cliché, “Let’s split up” plan, but is it not possible for at least one character to have the slightest bit of common sense? For a good majority of the movie, my friend and I were just making fun of each character’s blatantly foolish actions.
I will admit that there were many times throughout the movie when I jolted in my seat, but I can’t say that I was ever actually scared. The producers incorporated suspenseful music and loud noises at every turn that caused involuntary reactions the exact same way a jack-in-the-box would. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t consider a jack-in-the-box to be horrifying.
Overall, Ouija didn’t score very high on my scare-o-meter. Those looking for something truly terrifying might have better luck playing the actual game. Despite Ouija’s predictability and clichéd plot, however, my friends and I were still entertained, but only because we were laughing at the stupidity of each character’s actions.
