More uninspiring than the board game

Ouija

English (A) **

Director: Stiles White

Cast: Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Bianca A Santos, Douglas Smith, Shelly Hennig

Ouija (pronounced “wee-jee”), is a board game through which one can supposedly summon deceased spirits.

A few rules are never to play the game alone, or in a graveyard. Laine (Cooke) finds that her childhood friend Debbie (Hennig) has committed suicide, after playing ouija.

Laine refuses to believe this, and calls her boyfriend (Kagasoff), her sister Sarah (Coto) and friends Isabelle (Santos) and Pete (Smith) to seek answers by calling Debbie’s spirit. Turns out that Debbie had played solo, so the group decides to play it safe in a house. 

What follows is staple fare that one gets to see in most horror flicks – a gas stove that ignites, doors open and shut, lights flash, the result that Ouija is a blend of House on Haunted Hill (1999), Final Destination (2000) and not so smart teens from I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997).

The device of using a talking board as a medium to create dread flops, notwithstanding some jump scares that fail to frighten, save for a chilling séance scene and an innovative use for dental floss. A bad script and repetitive dialogues make Ouija more boring than ouija. Watch Jumanji (1995) instead.