An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at 2014’s Ouija
When five friends use an Ouija board to reach out to their deceased friend, they accidentally make contact with an evil that may have been the cause to their friend’s death.
Detailed Plot:
The movie opens with two young girls, Debbie and Laine, preparing to play with an Ouija board. Laine is a bit hesitant about playing but because this isn’t a family movie Debbie forces her to play and recites the rules.
- You can never play alone
- You can’t play in a graveyard
- You have to say goodbye
If you checked out our Ouija: Origin of Evil review then you’ll notice these are the same rules and if you haven’t you can click here to read our explanation/review of Ouija: Origin of Evil.
Anyway the girls start and ask if there is a spirit with them and the planchette moves to Yes. Debbie tells Laine that if there really is a spirit then you can see them through the planchette.
Laine looks through and scans the room screaming when she sees a dark figure by their door but this turns out to be her sister, Sara. She yells at her to leave and then we fast forward about 10ish years. We see Debbie (played by Shelley Henning), now an adult, throwing an Ouija board into a fire and looking like she’s seen some shit.
She gets a call from Laine (played by Olivia Cooke) and we find out Debbie has been weird the past week because she played with the Ouija board, causing weird stuff to happen.
Later, Debbie is home alone eating when sees a door open on it’s own and then finds the back door open. Heading back into the kitchen, a burner on the stove turns on by itself and instead of hightailing out of there she continues to look around the house. Entering her room she finds the Ouija board on her bed still intact and unburned.
She looks through the planchette and her eyes gloss over into a kind of dull white I like to call, Possession Powder. We then see Debbie grabbing her Christmas lights and using them to hang herself which is just a good public service announcement to take down your Christmas lights.
We get the title card and we cut to Laine sitting in a diner when her boyfriend Trevor (played by Daren Kagasoff) comes along and tries to get her to join his guy-only camping trip. They’re interrupted by their friend Iz (played by Bianca Santos) who is trying to get them to join a party that night.
Before they can solidify plans Laine gets a message from her dad to get home. There, everyone is in tears and they tell her about Debbie’s “suicide”. We cut to the funeral where the friends and Laine’s sister Sara, (played by Ana Coto) are in disbelief that Debbie would take her own life.
Laine goes into Debbie’s room and sees the closet door open on it’s own, before she can investigate, Debbie’s mother comes in. We learn they are letting Laine watch the house for a few days while they leave, unable to be in the home.
A couple of days later, Laine and Trevor stop by the house to check up on it, Trevor heads around back to check the pool cover and finds it detached. Meanwhile Laine enters the home to water plants but is interrupted by some banging from Debbie’s room.
She enters the room and sees the same closet as the other day open. Entering it, she finds the planchette and the Ouija board. There’s a quick jump scare here when Trevor pops out from behind the door. Laine tells him all about the Ouija board and how she and Debbie used to play and pretend it was real.
There’s two quick scenes of the movie getting everyone together to use the Ouija board. The first is Laine at the diner convincing Trevor and Iz to use the Ouija board to try to talk to Debbie.
The second is as Laine is about to leave to meet with Trever and Iz, she catches Sara’s much older boyfriend waiting in a car outside. Apparently she has warned Sara to stay away from him in the past and since she can’t be trusted she forces Sara to come with her.
The four arrive at Debbie’s house and while Laine goes to get the Ouija board there’s a jump scare with Debbie’s boyfriend Pete (played by Douglas Smith) appearing in the dining room. What was he doing there? Why was he in the dark? Why didn’t he call out? Because shut up that’s why. He then joins the group for the séance.
After asking if there is a spirit with them the planchette moves to ‘Yes’ and then spells out “Hi Friend”. Laine asks who it is and the planchette lands on the “D”. Assuming it’s Debbie, the group starts to believe the Ouija board actually works and Laine asks multiple questions in quick succession as if the board didn’t have to answer everything letter by letter.
Importantly she asks why Laine killed herself but there’s a momentary interruption by some banging on the floor above. The group go back to the game and don’t follow up on the why Laine killed herself! It’s the most important question and they’re easily distracted and forget it.
They say goodbye despite not getting any answers and the power immediately goes out. Laine and Trevor go to investigate finding a burner lit in the kitchen while the other three debate amongst themselves about who was actually moving the planchette.
Pete hears a creaking and goes to find the source, seeing a hanging lamp by the stairs moving on it’s own. He sees a reflection of a woman in a nearby mirror and is then pushed into it by an unseen force. The rest of the group come running and they decide to leave but not before Laine takes the Ouija board with her.
The following day Laine’s grandmother, affectionately called Nona (played by Vivs Colombetti) spots the Ouija board in Laine’s room and yells at her for having it, telling her to get rid of it.
We cut to Trevor riding his bike through an underpass when he’s startled by a bunch of birds, he then notices the phrase “Hi Friend” written in chalk. Next we cut to Iz who sees the same phrase written in dust on her car before seeing a ghostly hand appear and smudge it from the inside.
Back with Laine, she’s watching a video explaining how Ouija boards actually work when she hears the front door open. Leaving her room, Sara pops out of her room and asks if it was her who opened the door.
They both confirm it wasn’t each other and stare at the front door from the staircase and see it slam shut. The two run into Laine’s room and then the closet when something bangs on Laine’s door.
Laine carefully opens the closet door and sees the phrase “Hi Friend” written on her computer before it shuts off on it’s own.
The five agree to perform another séance believing it may have been Debbie trying to reach out to them. That night, using the Ouija board, they ask if Debbie is with them when the chair at the far end of the table slides out on it’s own.
Pete asks if she remembers their first date when he took her to the lookout, the planchette slides to Yes but Pete reveals he never took Debbie to the lookout. Laine asks if the spirit they are communicating with is Debbie and the planchette slides to No.
They find out the spirit is named “DZ” and they never spoke to Debbie, it’s always been “DZ”. Laine picks up the planchette and scans the room, screaming when she sees DZ, a young girl with her mouth sewn shut.
Laine drops the planchette and it begins to move on it’s own, now controlled by DZ. She spells out “RUN” and instead of instantly running they wait long enough to see it spell out “SHE’S COMING”. Yet again, instead of running they actually ask “who is coming” and “DZ” spells out “MOTHER”.
Laine picks up the planchette, still not running away, and looks through it and sees Mother.
The board flips in the air and now the group finally runs out of the house. Outside, Sara flips out pointing out that Debbie used the board and is now dead. Laine tells them all they’re finished with it and will no longer use the board which seems a bit too late but okay.
The next night Laine finds a USB in one of Debbie’s possessions containing videos that show Debbie finding the Ouija board in her attic and playing alone, breaking the very first rule. We cut to Iz in her bathroom having a hallucination of her mouth sewn shut. Her eyes gloss over to Possession Powder and she’s lifted in the air, slamming her head down onto her sink killing her instantly.
The next day the group is made aware of Iz’s death leading Trevor to walk away from Laine blaming her for Iz and their impending deaths. Laine asks Pete to help her check Debbie’s attic for clues despite Laine being the only one who goes into the attic. While Pete is keeping a lookout(?) Laine finds a box of possessions belonging to the previous family who lived there.
Doing some research, they find old newspaper articles of the family that lived there previously, the Zanders, and discover DZ is Doris Zander, a young girl who went missing decades earlier. They also find out her older sister, Paulina, may still be alive after being put into a mental institution.
Laine heads to the institution and visits Paulina telling the staff that she is her niece. Paulina (played by Lin Shaye) gives an exposition dump telling us her mother was a medium who used Doris as a vessel for the spirits until one day she snapped and sewed Doris’s mouth shut. Her mother then killed Doris and Paulina killed her in retaliation, which is the reason she was admitted into the psychiatric hospital.
Paulina tells her the spirit hunting them will only get stronger and the only way to stop it is to head to the basement, find the secret room, find Doris’s body, and cut her mouth open. Once she does that Doris may be able to save them by fighting the spirit of her mother.
Laine, Trevor, Pete, and Sara all head to the house following Paulina’s instructions to find the hidden basement entrance behind a wall. Before they can go through, Trevor is attacked and pulled into a room. Pete runs after him and the two are cut off from the group. Laine rushes to the other side, finding the decayed body of Doris.
The Mother appears and is about to attack Laine but she manages to rip out the stitches first. Doris appears screaming, the force vaporizing the spirit of the Mother.
The four regroup and head home thinking the worst is over but there’s still twenty minutes left in this movie so that makes me think they’re wrong about that.
That night Pete gets home and sees Debbie’s spirit in his room. She transforms into Doris who screams at him causing him to become possessed. We cut to Laine being woken by her phone with messages from Trevor telling her Pete is dead.
The following day Laine goes back to see Paulina and tells her it didn’t work. She did everything she told her to do but another friend has died. Paulina then smiles.
Paulina reveals she lied, the spirit of her Mother wasn’t trying to kill them, it was trying to stop them from freeing Doris. Doris is actually the evil spirit and has been the one killing people, now that she’s free, she’s stronger than ever before.
Although the twist is well-acted by Lin Shaye it doesn’t make a lot of sense in the context of the movie. The Mother was actually trying to prevent them from using the Ouija board to talk with the real antagonist, her daughter, but why did she attack them? In her first appearance she lunges at them screaming. Which seems like a bad way to say “Hey, I’m the good guy.”
Also, what exactly is Doris’s plan? Paulina (Lin Shaye) explains it was in order for Doris to get stronger but Doris had no issue killing people outside of her home. How much stronger does she need to get and for what?
Both of these points are never addressed in the film so we can only speculate.
Laine and Sara go to visit Nona who tells them the only way to stop it would be to destroy the board and the body. If they would have asked her when Debbie first died this movie would have ended a lot sooner.
We cut to Trevor arriving at Debbie’s and getting called to the back near the pool by Sara. He calls out to both Sara and Laine as he enters the backyard but they don’t respond. He starts to understandably get creeped out and turns to leave but this thing decides to say hi first by launching him into the pool.
In the pool Trevor gets tangled in the pool cover and dies. Meanwhile the two girls arrive at the house assuming Trevor is inside somewhere. The two search the house until they find a soaking wet possessed Trevor who screams before vanishing.
Sara and Laine grab the Ouija board and head to the basement to burn it. Before they can toss it into the furnace Sara is pulled through the opening in the other room by Doris. Laine grabs the Ouija board and starts a game forcing Doris to leave Sara and start a game with Laine.
Doris pops up in front of Laine, grabbing her, preventing her from moving the planchette to “GOODBYE” and starts to possess her.
The spirit of Debbie appears and grabs Doris’s hand, freeing Laine from possession which gives her enough strength to move the planchette to “GOODBYE”
Meanwhile Sara has grabbed the body of Doris and tosses it into the furnace causing Doris to scream out in pain. This gives Laine the opportunity to grab the Ouija board and toss it into the furnace as well. A black smoke flies out of Doris’s mouth as her spirit is vaporized.
We cut to Laine and Sara at home wondering what happened to the dark spirits that escaped out of Doris. The film ends with Laine entering her room and finding the planchette sitting on her desk, she picks it up, looks through it and we cut to black.
Review:
Like many horror movies that focus more on random scares than creating scares from story, Ouija relies on a lot of forced jump scares. The acting and dialogue is a bit weird in the beginning of the movie sort of like the characters are being forced to be friends but it does get better as the film goes. Does it have a direct correlation with the friend’s group size diminishing because of deaths? Maybe.
The story is actually pretty good though it doesn’t really make sense at the end. For example why is Debbie the only spirit to reappear at the end? Why not other spirits that have been taken by the demon? When Demon Doris pulled Sara, why not kill her instantly? It took Laine a little while to start the game. Also Demon Doris’ design in the end is pretty funny and loses it’s dramatic tension.
Overall the movie is better than I thought it would be, mainly because I had heard it wasn’t good to begin with but it’s not that bad. Having watched the prequel beforehand actually does this movie a positive and a negative. The positive being the story is better and the negative being knowing that Ouija: Origin of Evil is the scarier and better film.
It’s best to watch Ouija: Origin of Evil first though as watching it second will ruin it’s story for you.
Cast IMBD