Ouija: Origin of Evil Review
Hey there everyone! Sometime finding time to see new movies is difficult for Sickle and I. getting out of hell, finding monetary funds in order to pay for tickets. You would think that a Demon and serial killer wouldn’t have issues with it but alas we don’t get to see new films that often. Recently I found the time to see Ouija: Origin of Evil. I was excited for this film for a two reasons.
The director is Mike Flanagan. He also directed films such as Hush, Oculus, and a personal favorite of ours around here, Absentia.
It was promoted on the NoSleep Podcast. If you don’t know what this is, go check them out here and see their Ouija promotion! Mike and his wife Kate Seigel are also in this awesome episode here if you are looking for something amazing and spooky to listen too!
Ever since the first Ouija movie was released in 2014 there seemed to have been a bout of other films with exceeding long names based on the Ouija board. Turns out there is only a few and I am losing my mind by continuously skipping past them on Netflix. As far as I remember the original Ouija wasn’t really anything to write home about. It may seem confusing to say the original Ouija because the Ouija movie released in 2014 seems to have little to do with Origin of Evil, besides one of the characters sharing the same name as an old lady in the 2014 film. This tie-in at the end is alright, but the film didn’t really need it because I thought it was fantastic.
The film follows a mother, Alice, and her two daughters, Lina and Doris. The girls assist with her mother’s not- so-on-the-level medium job by creating atmosphere between their normal school based lives. This all changes when Lina has her fist run-in with the original Ouija, the Wonderful Talking Board game. Then shit gets real when the family doesn’t follow the rules for the game. Very simple set of rules:
Don’t play alone. Which Alice does almost immediately and Doris does on the daily.
Don’t Play in a Graveyard. Did you know most creepy places in houses can double as graveyards when you have a bunch of bodies you need to hide!!
Always Say Goodbye. Not quite sure why this is so hard but it is Standard Operation Procedure for people to get up and leave the board without saying Goodbye in this film.
One of the things that Origin of Evil did a bit too much of if you asked me was use CG effects for Doris, the non-2014 film tie-in daughter. Despite their need to use CG more than necessary they still managed to get some pretty creepy scenes out of it. The preview scene where Doris is being bent over backwards is also creepier than the preview leads us to believe. This movie does a great job of not just jump-scaring us, but also presenting an environment for unsettling things to happen. Frequently the CG was used to make Doris look just unnatural. So I cannot give the filmmakers to much guff about using CG, but you know we here at S&E love practice effects.
My personal opinion even as a demon is there is some crazy stuff out there so messing with things that supposedly talk to that crazy stuff is not my idea of fun. Why Hasbro ever came up with this game I will never understand. This film does a great job off completely solidifying my distaste for this product/board game. This in turn means I really liked it a lot. You will notice this review didn’t cover much of the story and that is because I really think you should see it. The story is pretty good and I don’t want to spoil it too much. Suffice it to say that this film was a great story combined with creepy and unsettling visuals. Def see this film if you want a scary movie for the holidays.
Horror Qualifier: 7/10
Horror Quality: 8/10
Film Quality: 7/10