Review of Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) by Flipje — 11 May 2022

I was impressed with The Haunting of Hill House, with Mike Flanagan at the helm. And I thought, I love the first two Conjuring films, as I felt they were directed with heart by James Wan, and I figured, hey, what Flanagan did for his series could be similar to Wan working in a film format. Not quite.

If you are getting into Flanagan's oeuvre, I would say this might be a misfire. The premise seems fun enough, psychic scam artist family ends up getting in quite deep when the supernatural actually creeps into their lives. But the other aspects of the story, namely the father who passed on and the history of the house are barely fleshed out to give the ending any substance or payoff. If this house the trio is occupying is supposedly cursed, or adds an element of horror, it might have worked with more foreshadowing and backstory. Instead, the reason we learn that horrible things are happening is because, oops, the three characters were doing ouija on a cemetery, that is, bodies are buried on the property and so... it's against the ouija board rules. Sure, it might explain things and yet it doesn't. On the plus side, all the leads are great and you are invested in their story until they become disposable for the evil to take over and then, with the ending, I shrugged feeling more cheated by the clumsy script. As the climax began to hit its stride, I'll admit, I checked out. Character arcs were fumbled. Some moments didn't feel earned or meaningful. The whole thing, again, is a misfire. They are some nice scares here but I keep returning to the Conjuring films not only for the scares and creepiness but also the well-crafted script and the characters. Here, the characters are fine, the script nose dives near the end.