Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: October 24, 2014
Rating: PG-13
Director: Stiles White
Laine and Debbie are best friends who loved playing with a Ouija board when they were kids. Once they got older, Laine stopped playing. Cut to the present day and Debbie playing with one of the boards by herself. After getting a message she doesn't like, she tosses it in the fireplace and goes outside to see Laine. Though Laine wants to hang out, Debbie convinces her to leave. When she goes back inside, she sees the same board on her bed. After picking up the planchette and looking through it, her eyes turn completely white. Debbie picks up a row of twinkle lights and hangs herself from the chandelier in her home.
Laine naturally isn't happy with this turn of events. She goes from planning a camping trip with her boyfriend Trevor to her best friend's funeral. While cleaning out her friend's room and checking on the house for the girl's parents, she finds the Ouija board. Hoping to talk with Debbie one last time, she convinces Trevor, her sister Sarah, Debbie's boyfriend Pete, and their friend Isabelle to come back to the house and use the board.
It doesn't take long before the board moves to the letter D, which convinces Laine that Debbie wants to make contact. The board also spells out, "hi friend," which freaks them out to the point where they all leave the house. Over the next few days, they all find the "hi friend" message left for them. Trevor finds in a tunnel, Pete sees it carved in his desk, etc. Isabelle has the worst experience, when she sees it written in the frost on her car window before a hand in the car reaches out for her.
When the group heads back to the house for another séance, Laine realizes that the spirit they contacted is not Debbie. After looking through the planchette, she sees the disturbing ghost of a little girl with her mouth stitched up urging her to look in the opposite direction. Laine turns and sees an older woman running at her. Though no one is sure what is going on, it's clear that there is something dark and deadly in their former friend's home.
Last summer we saw a trailer for Ouija back at the drive in theater. Since then, both myself and my roommate wanted to see it. Now that I have, I'm definitely glad that I never bothered to see it in the theater. This is one of those generic horror films that has little going for it with the exception of Lin Shaye. Shaye pops up as a woman who spent some of her early years living in Debbie's house. I don't want to give it away, but she does a pretty good job of playing a woman who is sweet and a little crazy with a sinister side.
The rest of the cast is fairly meh. Olivia Cooke, who does a damn good job on Bates Motel, is just another pretty girl in a standard horror flick. I kept waiting for a moment that would make me jump or some type of scare, but nothing ever came.
The sad thing is that there were so many moments that could have been scary. There's the guy walking through a tunnel with no one around for miles, the pretty girl walking to her car alone late at night. The intensity could have built to a big scare, but instead, nothing happened. I wish I could recommend Ouija for at least one viewing, but even me, who loves bad horror flicks from the 90s, can't do it.
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