Review: ‘Ouija’ From The Editor

MPAA rating: PG-13 for disturbing violent content, frightening horror images, thematic material.

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Playing: In general release.

Ouija centers on the story of two grown women who, in their childhood, counted Hasbro game Ouija among their many diversions.

When Laine (Olivia Cooke) and Debbie (Shelley Hennig) reunite and dig out the dusty board game, the game becomes more sinister than they remember. Before long, the dormant powers of the board are awoken and their deepest darkest fears are laid bare and exposed in this Michael Bay-produced horror film directed by Stiles White.

Nothing very spirited happens in Ouija, a deadly dull and overly familiar movie about summoning ghosts that draws upon nearly every horror movie cliché. (* out of four; rated PG-13; opens Thursday night in select cities and Friday nationwide.)

Even if the Ouija board accessory is shoehorned into the picture, you’ve seen this movie before. Many times. It’s essentially the story of evil spirits emanating from a dead person in a haunted house and terrorizing teenagers.

Laine (Olivia Cooke) and Debbie (Shelley Hennig) are lifelong best friends. Some of their childhood time involved playing with a Ouija board. Whose didn’t?

A thousand dull scenes later, Laine, her boyfriend (Daren Kagasoff), sister (Ana Coto) and two pals (Bianca Santos, Douglas Smith) fatally investigate in Debbie’s big, creaky house with the old timey-looking board discovered in her attic. The ghost scenario that this boring, CW-ready, “Scooby-Doo” gang uncovers isn’t nearly as shocking as the blasé attitude they have toward friends dying off or that some know to call the game’s circular-windowed arrow a “planchette.”

Whether it’s a rule that people in board game adaptations have to read the instructions aloud, “Ouija” is only a mystery as a promotional tool. If you’re not scared, you won’t buy one. And if you are, why would you?