tek's rating: ½

Ouija: Origin of Evil (PG-13)
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This is a prequel to Ouija. It came out in 2016, but I didn't see it until 2025. It was better received by critics than the first movie, and I have to say I agree. Actually, by the time I watched this, I didn't remember much about the original (even though it had only been a matter of months since I watched it), but I can tell I liked this one more because the rating I decided to give it happens to be higher than the rating I gave the first movie. Obviously. Anyway, I thought this one definitely had some decent scares, and overall just a decent story and decent characters. Nothing too amazing, but I think it's a solid horror film.

In 1967, a woman named Alice Zander works as a fake medium, with the help of her teenage daughter, Lina, and younger daughter, Doris. Alice eventually starts using a Ouija board in her work, after Lina had been busted for using one with a few friends. While Alice initially intends to covertly manipulate the game's planchette, Doris soon uses the board to try to contact her late father, Roger. Instead, she unwittingly conjures an evil spirit which eventually takes possession of her. She starts behaving strangely, and when Lina sees her writing a journal in Polish, she takes the pages to her Catholic school's principal, Father Tom Hogan. He gets one of the school's teachers to translate the writing, and becomes concerned. He visits the Zander family to tell them what the writing actually was. I won't spoil that, but it's incredibly disturbing. And... things only get scarier from that point on. I don't want to reveal any more of the plot, but I will say the movie's ending is not happy. And then there's a post-credits scene that ties into the first movie.

Actually, watching this movie kind of made me want to rewatch the first movie, just to see how much I might like it knowing the full backstory, now. But I don't know if I'll ever do that. (Chance are if I ever do, I will have forgotten a lot about this movie, anyway.) I do think Doris, under the influence of the evil spirit, made a great creepy kid, and there's plenty of other creepy stuff in the film. And I guess I can't really think of anything else to say.


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