Wednesday Review: Ouija: Origin of Evil

Two years ago the ship that was Ouija sank. The film turned enough of a profit to basically obligate the studio to make another one, but I seriously doubt that anyone expected anything of value to come out of this. So, I suppose we all assumed that they would simply dive down to the wreckage, and loot what treasure was left, or start fresh with a new story and christen a totally different ship the Ouija.

Instead, rising horror star Mike Flanagan apparently decided he was going to dive down into the wreckage with a bucket, and bail water until the ship was raised. To our shock, he succeeded, and we now have a Ouija movie that is in-continuity with the first, that is actually floating above the water. We’re so impressed that Flanagan actually pulled it off, that we don’t really care that it can’t do much except float barely above the water-line of mediocrity, and the film now sits with an RT rating of 80% to the original’s 7%.

I know that seems like an insanely complicated metaphor, but I spent so much time thinking it up that I had to use it. To get into the more serious reviewing, this is a movie with a lot of baggage, from both the original film, and Hasbro. That said, Flanagan works with what he has.

I’m also fairly certain there are some retcons here (although I have yet to subject myself to a second viewing of the first film). While this is the story of a medium’s daughter being possessed by an evil spirit as established in the first film, the medium was now a fake who finds herself beginning to believe. The context in which all of this happens has been radically changed. I believe the intention is to treat Lina, the older daughter of the medium who appeared as an old lady in the original film, as an unreliable narrator, and this as the “real” story. Although, honestly, it wouldn’t be hard to pass this version off as another wild tale spun by Lina.

The movie suffers mainly when it reminds us what it is. Some of the special effects seem to look bad precisely because they’re aping the awful effects of the first film. I strongly suspect that the man who made Oculus could have done better, if he didn’t have consistency to worry about. It also bugs me to think that a fake medium, who’s entire profession is based on showmanship, would buy an off-the-shelf Ouija board, rather than making her own custom talking board, but at some level this movie has to be a commercial.

On the up side, the movie has some fairly interesting ideas. In particular, it plays around what the idea of what possession really means, and the line between a real medium and a fake. If that sounds truly baffling, it’s because I honestly don’t want to spoil some of the major twists of the film for my readers.

Is this movie scary? It has it’s moments, but not as many of them as a movie made entirely by Flanagan likely would have had. I feel like he did everything he could with the material, but it’s still a toy-commercial horror movie and prequel to one of the worst movies in recent years. There’s only so much he could manage.

So, check it out on DVD. It’ll wait.

Wednesday Review: The Darkness

Jason Blum returns with another idiotic movie embodying everything I hate about his studio. The story is the generic tale of a family being attacked by demons. Rather than a traditional plot summary and review, I have literally decided to just make a list of things I hate about this movie:
1) The entire family in this movie seems to be defined exclusively by their dysfunctions. The son has autism (which the movie implies attracts spirits), the daughter is bulimic, the mother is an alcoholic, and the father had an affair. None of these characters seem to have any real identity outside of these traits, and only the autism plays any role in the plot.

2) While I'm a High Functioning Autistic, and have little experience with my Low Functioning counter-parts, the portrayal of young Michael seems inconsistent. There are plenty of scenes which make it clear that he's perfectly verbal, but when he says something unsettling his parents make no effort to get him to elaborate.

3) The demons attacking the family were apparently responsible for the destruction of the Anasazi civilization. However, the Anasazi trapped them in five stones. Did they destroy the civilization from inside the stones? If so, what was the point of trapping them? Had the damage already been done when they were trapped? I need some serious elaboration here.

4) When will Hollywood learn that you can either use the real legends and mythology of a real ethnic group, or you can just make up a fake ethnic group. Call me an SJW, but taking a real Native American group (albeit one that no longer exists) and claiming they believed your fictional mythology seems both racist, and stupid. I seriously doubt that the Anasazi believed that their gods turned evil, started abducting children, but were trapped by their shaman in five stones.

5) One scene references multiple people having been killed by these spirits, apparently after removing the stones from their cave. How did the stones get back?

6) When the family needs an exorcism they find a Hopi woman. This makes sense. I checked and the Hopi do appear to be one of the Tribes descended from the Anasazi. However, this woman addresses the spirits in Spanish, a language that was not spoken in the New World until hundreds of years after they had been locked away. Granted she may not speak the language of the Anasazi, but at least speaking to them in Hopi would be the correct language family. If the spirits can speak any language, why not address them in English?

...and the final, biggest problem I had with this movie was (opens the envelop):
7) Not one single moment in the entire film is actually scary, suspenseful, or frightening in any way!