Ouija: Origin of Evil

The second half of the year has been pretty sad for horror movies, which is terrible when considering the Fall movie season should be the perfect time to get your scares on. "Lights Out" and, perhaps, "Don't Breathe" were the best entries after July, but since then weak release after weak release has turned out to be dead and buried before horror fans could even say "boo."

So it was exciting to see that the prequel to the critically bashed "Ouija" looked promising from the start. A new time period, a good lead actress, and a well-respected horror director were brought together to breathe some life back into the Parker Bros. game that now has it's very own film franchise.

Alas, it seems that director Michael Flanagan works better when he's on a tiny budget and on his own. Both "Absentia" and "Hush" are terrifically scary, contained thrillers that have become quite popular on streaming services. It's when he works within the studio system that his films seem to be loaded with generic scares and recycled clich�s.

In September his "Before I Wake" was so quietly released it barely made a blip anywhere. Not really a horror movie, it had some interesting ideas that played more like a dramatic fantasy then horror. But "Oculus" and now "Ouija: Origin of Evil" are proving that you can take the horror away from a horror director if you have too many cooks in the proverbial studio kitchen.

"Ouija: Origin of Evil" starts cleverly enough. It is 1967 Los Angeles, and Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser) is running a scam psychic business out of her old home. Along with her teenage daughter Paulina (Annalise Basso) and her nine-year old daughter Doris (Lulu Wilson), the three fool a number of clients into believing they are speaking to their dead relatives. Mom tries to reason they are giving closure and peace to their clients, but everyone knows better. It is not until she buys a Ouija Board to add to her practice that things start to actually get real... a little too real.

Doris is most curious about the board, so she starts to play with it alone, which is one of the biggest no-nos in the instructions. Before she knows what's happening, she is speaking to a spirit she believes to be her deceased father. Lo and behold, she is not. She's speaking to something much darker and scarier.

Paulina seems to recognize something isn't quite right with her darling sister, so she enlists the help of her school's priest Father Tom (Henry Thomas). After some non-belief on his part, Doris starts writing scary things in other languages, so he pretty much gets convinced the family might need some help. And with Doris acting weirder and weirder, it can't come soon enough.

The rest of the movie should remain unspoiled -- not because anything terribly interesting or original happens, but because otherwise there would be no point in watching it. The problems lie with Flanagan, who attempts to scare his audience by using repetitive jump scares created by impossibly loud sound effects or by cutting to something scary that doesn't even have a reason for happening. When you find out the truth about the house and what's happening to Doris, you realize there is almost no reason for half of the scary things that she does. None of it makes any logical sense, and is just there in an attempt to frighten. The problem is, unless you are easily startled, it's doesn't.

Sadly, the first half hour of the film does a great job in setting up the characters and giving them some emotional life and weight. There's even a great scene with four characters playing with a Ouija board that ends with a truly hilarious moment. In a way, there is almost the sense that this could be funny and scary in the vein of the original "Poltergeist." Sadly, it isn't.

The bones of the story are barely compelling, and when it's all said and done you really don't care. You do wonder how Doris can scamper on the ceiling because, again, she's not possessed by a spider, so the reason behind it is elusive. The same goes for the scene when the covers are ripped off Paulina's bed. First of all, how many times have we seen this sequence? And secondly, what would make a ghost feel the need to do that? It's nonsensical, and horror audiences aren't stupid. They're getting tired of the clich�s. They want really smart horror films. Which is why indie horror is doing it best, and studios really need to start taking notes.

I guess we know where the origin of evil really is: It's with the junior execs who give really terrible studio notes forcing good directors to make bad choices.