Director: Stiles White

Starring: Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto, Daren Kagasoff, Bianca Santos, Douglas Smith, Shelley Hennig.

Written by: Stiles White and Juilet Snowden

Running Time: 89 mins

Cert: 15

Release date: 31st October 2014

I don’t often leave cinemas angry but I certainly did after seeing Ouija. I know this will probably fall on deaf ears but please don’t waste your money on this vacuous, boring excuse for a horror. If you do, then more films like this will be made and less films like the truly excellent The Babadook will find less space in cinemas. Trust me when I say, worst horror of 2014. I’ve been more scared by episodes of Scooby Doo.

Debbie is a high school girl who is having “issues”. One night, after playing with a Ouija board, she dies under suspicious circumstances. Her friends, led by Laine, want answers as to why she died and so turn to the self-same game to call upon their dead friend. Believing it is her, they soon find that they have unlocked the same spirit that killed the young girl and it is still hungry for more, so Laine must find a way of stopping this monster before they all die.

Produced by our friend, Michael Bay, this is a travesty of a film and should be banned for breaching the trades description act. It is not, I repeat, NOT a horror. A horror is meant to shock you, send shivers down your spine, maybe even horrify you. The only horrific thing about this is how it got to the screen in the first place and why people would want to spend their money on it.

There is absolutely nothing to recommend this damp sponge of a film. The script is laughable, with every clichéd line in the book here. The tension is non-existent as we watch so-called “teenagers” sitting around a table moving a pointer with their hands (which is blatantly obvious). The thrills that are on show are plastered all over the trailers for the film so nothing shocks you. Even the usual lame excuse of going “BOO!” doesn’t work.

So how is it that The Babadook got it so right and this has got it so wrong? Easy! We don’t care about the characters. We have a group of adults playing teenagers that are so one-dimensional, we don’t care if they live or die. Even the actors playing the group look, quite frankly, bored of the whole thing and if they look bored, how should we feel? There is no urgency, no energy from the cast who deliver every line as if they are having an asthma attack, in the vein hope that this would mean they are scared.

Honestly, how can we respect a gang in which the lead male looks like he’s in his 30’s and his character name is Trevor! Such a heroic, strong name to have. If there is one thing in its favour, it’s certainly funnier than Sex Tape, although I get the impression it never set out to be.

Why should I feel so emotional about a film? Because I know there are far better films out there that are scarier, more intelligent and deserve a larger audience that struggles to even get released and yet films like this that lack any real thrills and are cynically released to a public that know no better. Instead of heading to the multiplex this Halloween and paying for low-grade tripe like this, search out for quality like The Babadook or, even better, stay at home, read through the endless lists of greatest horrors and check them out. They aren’t given the title great for nothing. This, however, would be an insult to even mix the word great with. Pathetic.

1/5