OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL (6 out of 10) Directed by Mike Flanagan; Written by Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard; Starring Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso, Lulu Wilson and Henry Thomas; Rated PG-13 disturbing images, terror and thematic elements; 99 minutes; In wide release October 21, 2016.
There has been a dearth of horror movies leading up to Halloween, and the announcement of “Ouija: Origin of Evil” didn’t do much to excite anyone who saw the wretched first one. Even with a new crew attached, not many were looking forward to this film, let alone excited for it. The good news is that it’s head and shoulders above the original with some decent storytelling effects along with genuinely creepy moments. If only it didn’t take forever to get to the scares before completely going off the rails.
Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser) is a single mother raising her daughters, Paulina and Doris (Annalise Basso and Lulu Wilson, respectively) in Los Angeles during the late 60s. Her main source of income is reading people’s palms and telling their fortunes, usually to set her customers minds at rest due to the passing of loved ones. Of course, the whispering and moaning spirits that come to speak are played by her daughters until one day when Alice brings a Ouija board home to work into the act. Doris is immediately drawn to it. and it unlocks a power inside her allowing her to actually talk to denizens of the spirit realm, namely her father. Paulina begins to notice that something darker is taking place and enlists the help of their school principal, Father Tom (Henry Thomas), to investigate what is happening to her sister before the malevolent spirits are able to lash out and destroy her family.
One of the most important things a horror movie needs is the correct tone, and “Origin of Evil” absolutely nails it. Not only does it take place in 1967, but the way the film was shot makes it appear it was also filmed in that time period. From the opening, old school “Universal” credits to the darker, somewhat sepia tone that was added in makes it feel like a movie from decades ago. The director also threw in the old school “cigarette burns” into the upper corners of the film to mark where the projectionist would change reels in the correct place so that the audience wouldn’t notice. Little touches like that probably won’t mean much to most audiences, but film nerds will love it.
The Zanders themselves are also the perfect kind of target for an evil spirit because they’re all people you can actually root for. While Pauline is a clichéd teenager and Doris can get slightly annoying with her childhood naiveté, they are all essentially good people, which makes it all the more horrible when Doris starts to succumb to the evil in the house.
And when she does, damn, is it creepy! Maybe it’s just me, but possessed little kids give me the willies, and “Origin of Evil” has no problem using this to wonderful effect. When the film decides to let loose in the last 20 minutes or so, there is no shortage of spine tingling scares or jumps derived from the littlest member of the cast.
Now if only that had been spread throughout the entire movie. Yes, the ending is quite scary, but if it seems to take forever to get there, that’s because it does. Not much happens in that first hour, and a lot of what does feels like padding that makes a shorter movie feel much longer than its 99-minute runtime.
There’s also the problem that the actual story runs out of steam as the action accelerates until suddenly it’s just jumping from one scare to the next with no explanation for what’s taking place. I don’t expect horror movies to be completely logical, but there should be a thread of reasoning to be found somewhere about.
The very last moments are also quite predictable, but at least it doesn’t have the same clichéd and tired ending that most films of this kind inevitably allow to take place.
“Origin of Evil” isn’t going to be the movie everyone wants to re watch every Halloween, and some people may not like it at all. It’s kind of the like the candy corn of horror movies in that you’ll eat if it’s there, but only a few people are going to be excited to take it home when they finally see it on the shelf. But even if you don’t like candy corn, hey, at least it’s candy.
6 out of 10