Ouija [2]: Origin of Evil (2016) [Blu-ray]
Horror | Thriller

Tagline: No telling what you'll see.

It was never just a game. Inviting audiences again into the lore of the spirit board, Ouija: Origin of Evil tells a terrifying new tale in 1967 Los Angeles. A widowed mother and her two daughters add a new stunt to bolster their seance scam business and unwittingly invite authentic evil into their home. When the youngest daughter is overtaken by the merciless spirit, this small family confronts unthinkable fears to save her and send her possessor back to the other side.

Storyline: In 1967 Los Angeles, a widowed mother and her 2 daughters add a new stunt to bolster their seance scam business, inviting an evil presence into their home.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, January 9, 2017 How many Horror movies have released in the past few years with poster art featuring someone in a night gown floating and contorted in some nearly impossible Yoga position? It seems to be modern Horror's crutch, and an easy one at that given the obsession with possession, exorcism, dark secrets, and demons. Ouija: Origin of Evil, the follow-up prequel to 2014's Ouija, doesn't seem to promise much creativity by making the "floating contortionist" a centerpiece of its advertising campaign, doubly problematic given the original film's decidedly negative reviews. It has "bad sequel" written all over it, another Horror-factory movie preying on base human emotions while audiences pray for a better movie to come out of the shadows. Well, surprisingly, prayers answered, sort of. Ouija: Origin of Evil hardly rewrites formula or even proves to be any kind of memorable motion picture experience, but it's a capable origins story with a few good ideas, several quality performances, and a nice balance between atmosphere, story-driven terror, and jump scares. There are a few crutches and several groan-inducing moments, but the film stands a bit apart from the crowd if only for its insistence on doing things right, a combination of by-the-book and off-the-beaten-path formulations that make for a serviceably entertaining little movie that offers a glimmer of hope for the franchise and the modern Horror genre-at-large.

Los Angeles, 1967. Alice (Elizabeth Reaser) has recently lost her husband. She's behind on her bills, and her at-home seance business just isn't allowing her to make ends meet, even as her daughters Lina (Annalise Basso) and Doris (Lulu Wilson) help her work her magic and manipulate the clients, and the real world, behind-the-scenes. One evening, when Lina sneaks out of her bedroom to visit a friend's house after-hours, she finds herself enjoying a round with a ouija board. She convinces her mother to pick one up for the business, but it's Doris who finds herself drawn towards it. Through it, Doris believes she's in communication with her late father. She's told to search the basement for the financial answers to the family's prayers. But the spirit begins to consumer her, control her, manipulate her, using her as a vessel to perform other tasks, even pen documents in a foreign language. Doris' strange behavior catches Lina's eye, who brings it to the attention of a priest who works at her school, Father Hogan (Henry Thomas). He helps guide the family towards the truth of what's happening with the ouija board, throughout the house, and inside Doris.

Ouija: Origin of Evil begins promisingly simply by throwing an older Universal logo up in front of the movie, battered and deteriorated and beautiful with age, hearkening back to the era around which this movie takes place. A few "cigarette burn" effects are thrown in, too. The movie proper was shot on video, however, which doesn't exactly jive with the few bones that the movie throws to film fans, but whatever. What matters is that the movie holds its own, crafting a positive atmosphere, often accentuated by the simple sound of a ticking clock, a rhythmic heartbeat that brings the house to life in a way that scripted words or exposition could not achieve. A few jump scares and some "frightening" images -- the usual stuff, like distorted figures, glossed-over eyes, and mouths in some way sealed shut, sometimes with floss and sometimes with a smeary digital effect -- dot the movie, too, but credit Writer/Director Mike Flanagan (Oculus) with refusing to limp through the movie on genre crutches and instead taking the time to tell and explore a story that's not just a delivery vehicle for sudden jolts of manufactured terror.

Indeed, scares evolve from the narrative, even if they're largely indistinguishable from similar scares in other similar modern Horror pictures. They all evolve from the narrative, a narrative that begins with the classic slow-drip reveals to a full-blown ending of mayhem and terror and several unexpected twists and turns as they pertain to both story exposition and character fates. It does well to tie together the usual spirt world mumbo-jumbo with some tangible elements that give the story a meaty backbone rather than build it on a flimsy jello mold of consumable materials. Even as the story isn't necessarily a revelation for the genre, the filmmakers have paid careful mind to make sure it's at least believable in context, though certainly implausible (if not impossible) by any exterior standards. The bottom line is that it works well for what it is, a movie that has nothing to offer other than an honest go at bringing some kind of much-needed life into a failing genre. It's just good enough to keep the viewer interested, even if it's merely along for the ride in the backseat behind better like films like Insidious and nowhere near as good as the finer throwback-style Horror flicks of recent vintage, like It Follows.

Ouija: Origin of Evil is hardly a work of art, but it's a decent little Horror film, better by some measure than its predecessor and even better than many like-minded films turned out from the contemporary genre factory. It still adheres to many of the basic permutations, but it's done a bit better than most in terms of style, structure, characterization, and attention to narrative detail. It won't rewrite the book, but it's a nice little chapter in it. Universal's Blu-ray release of Ouija: Origin of Evil features quality video and high end audio. An average allotment of extra content is included. Worth a look.

Trivia:________

[CSW] -2.5- Ouija: Origin of Evil. (2016) is a prequel to the movie Ouija (2014). This movie is an improvement from the 1st Ouija movie. It is scarier and more entertaining. The jump scares are scary in this film and the character development is good. As a film I enjoyed this movie. Origin of Evil is not one of the best horror films and only worth renting. This movie is better but still only worth renting. I had given it a lot higher score at the 90% mark but it went downhill fast after that. There are a lot of thing that tie the prequel to the original, however the first one is so bad that unless you rent them both and watch them back to back you won't remember enough of the first one to make the connections. I did a little research and found this spoiler explanation, (Ouija2 to Ouija1 Connections), that I think SHOULD be watched BEFORE renting both films and watching them back to back. There is a post credits scene so you can fast forward through the credits to get to it at the end of them (one of the nice thing about rentals).
[V4.0-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box



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