When you have a movie about Ouija, the odds of it being good are super slim to none. There’s just not much you can do with this demonic board game and of course the whole premise tends to revolve around a bunch of annoying characters deciding to play it because they’re bored. Not a particularly good idea and things tend to spiral from there. This one does not try to shake up that formula in any way which is too bad. It’ll not go down in history as one of the all time greats.

The movie starts with Alice doing a spooky seance for an old man who wants to know if his wife would approve him doing a pretty bad transaction. Alice may not have powers but she does know how to scam people along with the help of her two daughters Lina and Doris. Ultimately the scam doesn’t go too well as they scare him a bit too much and Alice ends up not accepting his money. Ever since her husband died, she has had to take drastic measures in order to take care of her family and one of these measures was to become a professional scammer. She has everything set up around the house and she even decides to buy a Ouija board. The problem is that it comes with a free demon and this thing is now messing with Doris. Doris is now exhibiting supernatural powers but also becoming more sinister and violent. Can Alice do anything about this?

The two girls go to school where we have Father Tom at the ready so at least he has some spiritual defenses but unfortunately as it would usually appear, his powers aren’t as good as the villains. He’s basically defenseless when it counts. It’s too bad because he is a nice guy and definitely the best character in the film. He does his best to keep everyone in check and also doesn’t break his vows to start a romance with Alice who can seem a little desperate at times. He stays true to himself but ultimately isn’t a huge factor.

Alice is doing her best but at the end of the day I can’t cut her much slack for the scamming. Scamming is really a serious thing. It is one of those crimes that preys on the weak and that makes it even more dishonorable. It also takes her a long while to get with the program that these changes to Doris are pretty bad and have to be stopped.

Lina learns this earlier but in general is also a huge troublemaker so I wouldn’t say that she is a great character or anything like that. My first big gripe with her is how she keeps causing a ton of trouble and breaking the rules when she already knows that her mom is in a tough spot. The least she could do is be on her best behavior but instead she’s constantly flirting with a boy from school, breaking curfew, sneaking out the back, drinking alcohol, etc. Her rebellious phase came in a very big way and it’s definitely disappointing.

Then we have Doris who is super easy for the demon to manipulate. The instant she was talking about invisible friends and stuff the other characters should have shut it down but the sad thing is that it all would have been futile anyway. No matter what she could have done, the demon would have still overpowered her anyway. I will say that the movie does a pretty good job with the CG though. Whenever Doris is possessed she opens her mouth like a huge yawn but they really stretch it out. Think like when Goku was yelling while being crushed by Vegeta. Her mouth gets absolutely huge. Then you also have the possessed eyes although that’s more standard.

The movie’s effects were surprisingly good. I also liked the demon’s design. It looked like a fierce threat and something completely other worldly. That’s about the extent of the credit I can give to the film though. Beyond that like I said it’s just your average horror title. The humans are absolutely outmatched, the demon doesn’t really have much of a weakness, and so there’s nothing to really get invested in. When you know that all of the characters are completely doomed then that takes some of the enjoyment out of the whole thing.

With more likable characters you could at least try something but again, they were all super annoying. That one guy who was trying after Lina was just way too much the whole time so you don’t feel as bad for him as you could have. The whole whispering into the ear trick that the demon does is also a bit on the silly side. Alice’s husband has the idea to staple the villain’s mouth shut but that’s not even a good plan because it involves you needing to be strong enough to overcome the demon in the first place. You need incredible amounts of plot armor for that to even come close to working so it’s barely even a plan at all.

Why can’t he just possess an object or a person and help fight the demon? He is apparently good enough to mess with a little doll so he can affect the real world to a small extent. He’s just got to do a whole lot better than that. I also think Tom should have called the Vatican to send an exorcist over as soon as he knew that something was wrong with the daughter. How much more proof do you need once she is writing in other languages and acting so crazy? He decides to go to the house first and let them know…which is a terrible idea. He knows that she has supernatural powers now so how would that possibly help?

Overall, Ouija definitely has a swing and a miss here. It wasn’t a particularly enjoyable film and one of these days they need to have the heroes fight back a little more. Of course that would mean not having the demon possess a little kid this time. I feel like it usually tends to be the kids but if you pick an adult then we can have some fights. Give the demon some form of a weakness or limitation so that the fights can matter as well. As long as we’re stuck in this cycle, the films will continue to stumble their way to the finish line.

Overall 2/10