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Ouija (White, 2014)
(Forewarning: unmarked spoilers, but it's not like you can't predict them.)
Here I was, giving The Conjuring crap for being unoriginal.
The movie follows five morons who, after their friend Debbie strangles herself with some christmas lights, decide to communicate with her via a Ouija board. Naturally, it goes wrong and they accidentally awake a demon or some ****.
I mostly came off this movie disappointed. I've seen demon possession movies, countless times. For some reason, this has become the scariest thing ever to horror movie makers, so they continue to keep ripping each other off, trying to find another dumb way to start the demon possession/killings. But I believe this one takes the cake.
See, in the opening it shows Debbie looking through the planchette, getting possessed, and killing herself. Fair enough, but in later scenes it shows the group getting possessed completely randomly. One of them even gets possessed while flossing their teeth, for some reason. It doesn't establish any concrete rules, which makes it really difficult to get scared if it just does what it wants.
This is a very big problem. If it can just kill them whenever it wants, why doesn't it? Why does it immediately kill four of them very easily, but then decide to let the remaining few burn up her body? Why does it decide to kill the main character's sister slowly, instead of possessing her immediately and finishing the job really quickly? Why does Debbie randomly show up when Laine and DZ are struggling with the board?
These questions may sound like nitpicks, but really they're serious problems. If you can't even set up situations correctly, why should I even pay money to see your movie?
The one saving grace is that the acting is decent enough, and the themes it stole from Insidious are interesting. There's also a few jumpscares that, yes, made me jump. I suppose from a pure viewer's point of view, it accomplishes its job of being at least a little scary. Heck, a sequel on its way, so someone must have liked it.
But to me, I always felt that horror can be more then what its become. This overt reliance of jumpscares and cliches instead of unique ideas and actual horror is very disconcerting.
See it if you hate Ouija boards, but don't see it if you're expecting anything good.
Selected Quote:
Sarah Morris: Hey Liz, it's ok it's just a game.
Ouija (White, 2014)
(Forewarning: unmarked spoilers, but it's not like you can't predict them.)
Here I was, giving The Conjuring crap for being unoriginal.
The movie follows five morons who, after their friend Debbie strangles herself with some christmas lights, decide to communicate with her via a Ouija board. Naturally, it goes wrong and they accidentally awake a demon or some ****.
I mostly came off this movie disappointed. I've seen demon possession movies, countless times. For some reason, this has become the scariest thing ever to horror movie makers, so they continue to keep ripping each other off, trying to find another dumb way to start the demon possession/killings. But I believe this one takes the cake.
See, in the opening it shows Debbie looking through the planchette, getting possessed, and killing herself. Fair enough, but in later scenes it shows the group getting possessed completely randomly. One of them even gets possessed while flossing their teeth, for some reason. It doesn't establish any concrete rules, which makes it really difficult to get scared if it just does what it wants.
This is a very big problem. If it can just kill them whenever it wants, why doesn't it? Why does it immediately kill four of them very easily, but then decide to let the remaining few burn up her body? Why does it decide to kill the main character's sister slowly, instead of possessing her immediately and finishing the job really quickly? Why does Debbie randomly show up when Laine and DZ are struggling with the board?
These questions may sound like nitpicks, but really they're serious problems. If you can't even set up situations correctly, why should I even pay money to see your movie?
The one saving grace is that the acting is decent enough, and the themes it stole from Insidious are interesting. There's also a few jumpscares that, yes, made me jump. I suppose from a pure viewer's point of view, it accomplishes its job of being at least a little scary. Heck, a sequel on its way, so someone must have liked it.
But to me, I always felt that horror can be more then what its become. This overt reliance of jumpscares and cliches instead of unique ideas and actual horror is very disconcerting.
See it if you hate Ouija boards, but don't see it if you're expecting anything good.
Selected Quote:
Sarah Morris: Hey Liz, it's ok it's just a game.