Ouija (2014) - Movie Review (Spoilers)

My boyfriend and I recently watched Ouija after seeing it being advertised so heavily pretty much everywhere in London. I only saw the promotional posters before watching this movie, and didn't watch the trailer or read anything about it online. My initial impression was that this movie would be based around Ouija boards and spiritual entities, and hopefully scary!

Ouija Poster

The opening of the movie was definitely promising, with the lead character, Laine (Olivia Cooke, The Quiet Ones) and friend Debbie (Shelley Hennig, The Secret Circle) playing with a Ouija board as children. We then fast forward to present day where Debbie is playing with the Ouija board by herself but strange things occur and she tried to burn the board and planchette. She calls Laine over to her house, but even though obviously distressed, she turns Laine away. As soon as she steps into the house, she hears noises and the cooker turns on by itself. Debbie then goes to her room, where she finds the board and planchette. As she picks up the planchette and looks through the eyehole, her eyes turn white and as if possessed, drags the fairy lights in her room and hangs herself with it.

When Laine and friends hear about this event, they decide to use Laine's Ouija board to try and reach out to her. As Laine is the housekeeper whilst Debbie's parents are away, they decide to do this in the house. A spirit, who they think is Debbie, spells out 'Hi Friend' before the lights go out. Unnerved, the group decides to leave, but the 'Hi Friend' message follows them and they decide to go back to Debbie's house to reach out to Debbie again. This time, they find out the spirit they were communicating with was never Debbie, but instead someone with initials DZ. Laine looks through the planchette to see a little girl with her mouth stitched shut, who quickly warns them to run as 'Mother' is coming.

After one person in the group is killed, Laine decides to find out who DZ is. They venture into the attic, where Debbie originally found the Ouija board. Inside, Laine identifies DZ as Doris, a little girl who went missing. After visiting Doris' sister (Lin Shaye, Insidious) in a mental institute, Laine discovers that Doris' mother delved into communication with spirits, and used Doris as a channel. She eventually sewed Doris' mouth shut to end the spirits channeling themselves through Doris. Doris' sister convinced Laine that in order to stop the mother's spirit from murdering more of the group, Laine must cut the threads keeping Doris' mouth shut and hope that Doris can defeat her mother.

Laine and friends return to the house again, and after a brief battle with 'Mother', Laine finds Doris' corpse and succeeds in cutting the threads. Unfortunately, Pete, Debbie's boyfriend is later killed. Laine confronts Doris' sister, only to find that 'Mother' was trying to protect them, and that Doris and her sister were the evil ones. After consulting Laine's grandmother, they come to the conclusion that they must burn Doris' corpse. Eventually, they achieve this with the help of Debbie's spirit, although only Laine and her sister survived. The film ends with the sisters going home, only to find the planchette in Laine's room.

Overall, the movie was ok. The beginning was the highlight of the whole movie, but disappoints increasingly fast after the death of Debbie as it revolves its plotline in an already saturated spiritual haunting market. Apart from the odd jump scares, nothing really creeps you out in this movie. Even the parts where characters are having their mouths sewn shut by spirits is, well, meh. It's definitely a one time see, and not for horror seekers.

Rating: 3/10

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