I MINED the joke depths of using a board game as the inspiration for a horror movie back when the original Ouija came out [âSpirit Bored,â Film, Oct 22, 2014], but fortunately, itâs a rich tapestry. With the sequel, Ouija: Origin of Evil, the stage is now set for a veritable bonanza of BOARD GAME HORROR FILMS. This followup loosely plays off the originalâpeople use ouija board, then dieâbut sets the action in Los Angeles 1967, so just think of the mid-century possibilities! Tiddlywinks (âYouâll tiddlywink your pants with fright!). Parcheesi (âThe confusion of how to play will befuddle and terrify!). Or Mystery Date (âLike most mystery dates, thereâs a high likelihood youâre in danger!â). This mine is deep.
While 2014âs Ouija was a forgettable foray that built its flimsy house of spirits on jump scares and teenagersâ casual dropping of such Victorian terms as âplanchette,â Origin of Evil is a smarter bit of demonic possession. A single mom (Elizabeth Reaser) struggles to pay the bills with her fortune-telling business until she buys Hasbroâs ouija board game, which provides her with a cottage industry of ghostly proportions (nice marketing!). But thanks to ouija, her youngest daughter, the creepy Doris (Lulu Wilson), starts seeing every dead thing under the sun. Murder and jump scares ensue.
What director Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Hush) gets right in Origin of Evil is a near immediate abandoning of the ouija board plot device. Sure, the childrenâs game brings us a houseful of mean ghosts, but those spirits are the stars, not ouija boardâs nondescript surface. Weâre spared 1,287 different enactments of spelling out words in favor of watching eerie, possessed Doris terrorize her older sisterâs boyfriend before crawling up the wall like a nine-year-old blonde spider. I mean, donât get me wrongâI like spelling words, but Iâd much rather watch some Bad Seed kid be creepy as fuck. And she is. And the rest of the cast (including Henry Thomas as a concerned Catholic priest!) is pretty great in this tidy little horror flick. Now let us pledge to watch all future entries in the series. Iâm most excited about the upcoming Trouble (âBeware the slice and dice of the Pop-O-Matic bubble!).