Riaz Mamdani
Staff Writer
A proper horror movie should always haunt people like “Annabelle” and “Insidious 2”. However the film “Ouija” accomplishes none of this making it quite a travesty of a quality horror film.
The film “Ouija,” directed by Stiles White, fails to impress with a meddled script and a complete disregard for character development, in addition to an unsatisfactory cast. The film is also drastically hindered by a bland and predictable plot paired with a series confusing scenes.
“Ouija” begins with the mysterious death of Debbie Galardi (Shelley Hennig) an amiable teenager, followed by her grieving best friend Laine Morris’ (Olivia Cooke) attempt to communicate with her via a mysterious Ouija board found at Debbie’s house.
Laine gathers all her friends, and together they to go to Debbie’s creepy, deserted house for an ominous session with their deceased friends favorite toy. Little do they know that they have awoken an ancient angry spirt who will torment their lives.
One of the main disappointing aspects of the film is the poorly written script and unclear screenplay. The main portion of the film’s exposition was a combination of bland and stagnant dialogue between Laine and the rest of the cast which results in a weakly tied together film with no substantive scene quality whatsoever.
“Ouija” features a blatantly predictable plot with many unoriginal scenes clear through the repetitive appearances of scary dolls and haunted mirrors. Although horror films usually have that essence of predictability, “Ouija” is overboard with its conventional and ultimately disjoined scenes. “Ouija” is also weighed down by the many sporadic and confusing scenes witnessed through the unannounced return of Debbie, who was dead up until the moment, as well as the superficial interactions between Laine and the spirit’s mentally deranged sister.
In addition to the film’s troubled script, the complete disregard for character development by the film’s writers hinders the its success. White and his co-writer Juliet Snowen fail to find a balance between an engaging plot and proper character development. This off-balance is clear through the lack of proper character development of Laine, as she shows continuous stoic emotion throughout the film.
Paired with its confusing scenes, another one of “Ouija”’s issues is its disastrous selection of actors. Featuring a fairly new set of actors such as Anna Coto, Daren Kagasoff, and Bianca A. Santos, they all fail to display genuine emotion through their disinterest and apathy towards the events in the film
Ultimately, “Ouija” is an atrocious attempt at a horror film proving no genuine feeling of fright and horror. With its underdeveloped plot, bland characters, and meddled script, it fails to reach the already high stratum of other successful horror films.
“Ouija” is rated PG-13 and is now playing in theater nationwide.
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