Movies
[Review] ‘Ouija’ Is Downright Insulting
Ouija is the equivalent of a teen boy pooping on the spirit board before his kid sister’s sleepover, then giggling in the corner as they come in and go, “Hey, you see that shit?” The directorial debut of writer Stiles White (The Possession, Boogeyman), Ouija is easily the most hopeless Hollywood horror film I’ve seen since The Apparition. It’s relentlessly insulting to its audience, inherently insulting to its own script, and ultimately insulting to the human race.
Attempting to summarize the plot is senseless. The characters never follow any kind of rational instinct or even seem to be affected by the prior scene. All you need to know is that an attractive girl named Debbie (Shelley Hennig) is mysteriously killed while messing around with a Ouija board. Her friends (Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Douglas Smith, etc.), overwrought with grief, inexplicably break into her house to attempt to communicate with her through a Ouija board. What they wind up contacting is a dormant spirit with wicked tendencies who breaks through and starts screwing with their lives. I would too, if I was a spirit and these shitty kids disturbed my afterlife.
How does the group of friends attempt to solve their problem? The Ouija board. When that doesn’t work, they try the Ouija board. Things get incomprehensibly worse, so they try the Ouija board. When Olivia Cooke is exhausted of means to further grieve for her friend, she tries the Ouija board (only after it’s blatantly laid out numerous times that you are never to use the board alone – that’s like, one of the “rules” that are lazily put forth in the film). And then, the Ouija board.
The most frustrating part is that nothing cool ever happens during all of the Ouija board scenes. There’s like 30 of them, yet they’re all void of creativity! Remember in Paranormal Activity when the Ouija board bursts into flames? That was just a subtle, cheap effect but it looked wicked cool. Nothing cool ever happens in Ouija despite having a perfectly good outlet for crazy, weird shit to happen in almost every scene (and a budget in the millions). The only decent bit they have involves gazing through the planchette, which allows you to see the spirit, but all that’s played for is tawdry jump scares you could bet the farm on. Every single scare is lazy and predictable.
Who do we blame for this? This sorry state of big release horror? You can’t even make Ouija part of that discussion because it seems to be completely content ignoring the past decade of horror. Ouija builds upon nothing. It attempts nothing original. It takes “the rules” laid out in Scream to a whole new level of retardation. I was convinced I blacked out in between scenes because they never seemed to correlate with the previous ones. My eyes got a helluva workout as they rolled and rolled and rolled…
Does Ouija do anything right? Well, it certainly looks good. First time cinematographer David Emmerichs (whose camera & electrical credits on IMDB run very, very deep) does a fantastic job framing the story. There’s nothing flashy or particularly stylistic, but it’s a very deliberate, sharp work that Emmerichs puts forth. Bravo for at least making this turd digestible.
Other than that, Ouija is everything you hate about modern horror. It’s third-rate, lazy, and intellectually abusive to genre fans. And this is our big Halloween release this year? That’s a damn shame.
Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 psychological horror movie Possession is getting a remake from Smile writer/director Parker Finn, and Deadline reports that The Batman actor Paul Dano has joined the cast.
No word at this time on character details, though.
The original film starred Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill as a married couple in Cold War-era West Berlin whose relationship spirals into a supernatural nightmare. In Finn’s update, Margaret Qualley and Callum Turner will star as the turbulent couple in Finn’s Possession, and Adjani has officially given her blessing on Qualley’s casting.
Parker Finn is writing and directing the new take on Possession.
He’s also producing alongside Jonathan Fass via Bad Feeling, along with Roy Lee and Andrew Childs via Vertigo, and Robert Pattinson. Marc Bienstock is serving as exec producer.
Our own Brian Keiper celebrated Possession‘s 40th anniversary here on BD back in 2021, writing: “Few movies depict emotional turmoil as effectively and daringly as Andrzej Zulawksi’s Possession. It is a challenging and sometimes inscrutable film, both for the mind and the emotions. Zulawski struggles through a number of deep issues throughout the course of the film; issues that speak to some of humanity’s deepest pains and fears. In many ways it is about loss— loss of political ideals, loss of faith, and loss of innocence. But most of all, Possession is about the fear, pain, and anger that comes from the loss of a marriage.”
This will mark Dano’s first horror role. The actor previously appeared in sci-fi hits Looper and Okja.
Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill in Possession
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