I performed a seance alone in my room last night. I rested my long index and middle fingers across a heart-shaped planchette, cleared my mind, and sought assistance from the nearest paranormal entity that would talk to me.
In a deep, trance-like focus, I asked the spirit world about life, love, and the future. One by one, the answers to all of my most intimate questions were spelled out across a board inscribed with the ISO Latin alphabet. Fortunately, all of the spirits spoke English. It was really working! I continued my inquisition. I began to digest and accept what the world would have in store for me. Sensing an urgency from the spirits to move on, I asked them one final question to culminate my ghostly ritual.
“What is the worst scary movie of all time, including the past, present and future?”
The wooden viewfinder laid dormant for a full minute. I was convinced the spirits left me because they were not privy to divulge the name of such an atrocity of film.
Then, slowly, the answer started to reveal itself.
O –
U-
I-
J-
A.
Ouija? It couldn’t be. How could the very instrument I was using to communicate with these soothsayers also be cinema’s most putrid creation!?
Then I watched the movie.
As a young girl, I was fascinated by the Ouija board. I’m sure, just like me, many 11 or 12 year old girls attended sleepovers where this infamous game was cautiously played. Was your friend moving the planchette or was it something far more sinister? In my experience, we asked things like “Does so and so like me?” or “What is the first initial of the man I will marry?” Innocent enough, but historically Ouija is a game shrouded in mystery and legitimately feared by some religions and cultures. An excellent horror movie COULD be made out of the Ouija board’s premise – but this one is NOT it.
The film begins with a pretty decent opening scene. Then it all goes to shit. With the amount of effort shown, it feels like the actors lost a bet to appear in this movie. All of them are good looking enough to belong in season 3 of a guilty pleasure tv show intended for teenagers. The characters are merely parodies of every teen slasher movie you’ve ever seen.
The story becomes so laughably stupid that I literally can’t wait for it to be over. The only thing more terrifying than actually making contact with a dead person through a board game is being forced to watch this god awful movie. “Keep telling yourself it’s just a game,” the tagline reads. But really it should say, “Keep telling yourself this movie is going to end.”
NERDCROPOLIS 