I think Ouija is my favorite board game; not to brag, but I’ve never lost at it. Of course, you wouldn’t expect such natural acumen, but I combine a nimble wit, cunning tactical assessment and complete inability to understand the rules of the game to my favor.
The dead are kinda ingrates, huh? No, no, I’ve been thinkin’ about this a lot. Ok, you died. Biggest problem with being dead when you didn’t finish your memoirs is nobody’s there to take dictation. So here comes some innocent teen … “lah-dee-dah-dee-dah, I’m hot. I think I’ll contact the dead. Yay!” And what do you do? Kill her? Kill her boyfriend? Kill her family? Kill her dog? WTF, Deaddy Kruger? How does that help? Oh, sure, you’ve made some converts, but why would they want to play with you? You were getting plenty of attention before you got all …homicidal. Jerk.
The curious teen is Debbie (Shelley Hennig). She makes the error of using Ouija without a license and pays the price five minutes in. Her actions, of course, attract a team of idiot teens to investigate. An idiot plot doesn’t hurt, either. As the dialogue was left to the viewer in the transition, this viewer made up some: “Oh, hi Laine. It would seem our daughter is dead of a curious suicide. We’re gonna leave town indefinitely. You were Debbie’s best friend, so would you watch our house? Please don’t bother locking up or taking care of anything and if you break something, just leave it; I’m sure it will be ok.”
So Laine (Olivia Cooke) comes over to check up on the house, and pretty soon she and her li’l pals are holding teenage séances. ♪Teenage séances, don’t do it! ♫ (A Ouija board is, essentially, a “Clairvoyance for Dummies” instrument. Pronounced “Wee-Gee,” it’s just a board with a bunch of letters and an old-fashioned wireless mouse to point to the letters. Ouija is played by gathering a bunch of gullible people, having them all touch the arrow/mouse at the same time and while the most gullible asks questions of the living-challenged, the biggest 
douche at the table moves the mouse to various letters in response while claiming, “I’m not doing it!”) This is a movie, so naturally the dead are speaking and really messing with a good thing. Empty house, parents don’t care, shouldn’t you guys be having sex or doing drugs or something? Geez. Teens these days. Anyway, now I’m not advocating for teen sex or drug abuse, but when it comes to talking to the evil dead or having irresponsible teen forays, you’re unlikely to die from the latter. Just sayin’.
Oh, my standards for horror are so low these days. Ouija was predictable, formulaic, stupid, and showed not a whit of decent acting, BUT it did have a few good scares and let’s face it, what the Hell do you go to horror movies for? So, believe me, I’m surprised as anybody to see an almost passing rating on this thing. In a dreadful era of horror, however, Ouija is among the better offerings.
Ouija is certainly on my top 25 list all time of movies that rhyme with their MPAA rating … unfortunately falling slightly behind “Squeegee,” the classic tale of a down-and-out businessman desperate to make it back to the top one windshield at a time (starring Bob Hoskins).
As long as we’ve made a commitment to board games, can we combine Ouija and Battleship? Maybe we can summon the ghost of Taylor Kitsch’s career and ask it, “Why suicide?” Better yet, we can exorcise the demon Battleship and banish it permanently to the ninth circle of Hell, row D, column 5, where it can easily be identified and destroyed once and for all.
Familiar territory is tread
When ghosts reciprocate what they’ve bled
Let’s change this game
With minimal blame
Yahtzee rarely summons the dead
Rated PG-13, 89 Minutes
D: Stiles White. You know, if you’re gonna be named after a character in a Michael J. Fox movie, it beats “Biff.”
W: Juliet Snowden, Stiles White
Genre: Hey dead, how’s it going?
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The ungrateful dead
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: People who think rolling a die or spinning a spinner has exactly the same chance of contacting the dead as using a Ouija board.
