Ouija Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Ouija Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown January 24, 2015

Killer board games aren't exactly the stuff of nightmares, and Ouija doesn't make much of an attempt to elevate their scare factor. Instead, haunting and possession becomes the name of the game, as the filmmakers stalk from horror movie to horror movie, "claiming" (some will call it borrowing, others stealing) familiar elements at every stop. Witchboard. The Exorcist. Insidious. Scream. Final Destination. Paranormal Activity. The Conjuring. Bunshinsaba. So many more. Ouija is like a horror highlight reel peppered with teen drama lifted straight off the CW. The performances are weak, the dialogue weaker, the story laughable, the deluge of tropes unbearable, the frights non-existent, the atmosphere lacking and the final ghostly minutes a horrible bore. Short version: Jumanji is creepier.

How far would you go to make contact with someone you lost? From the producers of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Insidious comes a supernatural thriller in which a group of friends must confront their most terrifying fears when they unwittingly release a dark power from the other side. What starts as a game soon unleashes an evil they must race to stop. The film stars Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel), Douglas Smith (Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters), Bianco Santos (The Fosters), and Daren Kagasoff (The Secret Life of the American Teenager).

"From the producers of Insert Popular Films." It's the theatrical trailer equivalent of a kid cleaning his room by shoving toys under his bed, and 99 times out of 100, it means nothing. It's as hollow and disingenuous a statement as any trailer blurb in rotation. Designed to lure in audiences and increase box office returns, it's also sexier than the truth, or in the case of Ouija, flashing "from the writers of The Possession" on the screen. Co-writer Stiles White takes on directorial duties this time around, but apparently only to the film's detriment. Ouija is somehow far less intriguing, plausible and effective than The Possession, if you can believe it, hedging its bets on flimsy teen angst and generic grief while constructing a genre pic bound by blood to every supernatural cliché imaginable.

Rather than explore new ground or deliver a terrifying, twisted take on Jumanji, Stiles and co-writer Juliet Snowden settle for a by-the-book haunting in the vein of The Ring, where an ordinary object leads to hell on earth for those who partake, and can only be stopped by an exposition-laden clue hunt that digs up the past and lays angry spirits to rest. The rest is almost a chore, both for the filmmakers and the audience. Every step is a predictable step, and even at 89 minutes, Ouija struggles to fill out its runtime. Add to that the paint-by-numbers horror cinematography, a heap of gotcha! jolts, and a lazy ghost story that wouldn't stir up chills over a campfire, much less in a feature film, and you have a dead on arrival bomb. Naturally, though, that "bomb" still raked in $95 million, nineteen times its budget. Whether Stiles and Snowden return for Ouija 2 is irrelevant. A sequel is practically guaranteed.

Ouija Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Guilty pleasure or waste of shelf space, whatever your opinion of Ouija, there's little to criticize when it comes to Universal's 1080p/AVC-encoded video presentation. Colors are strong, contrast consistent and black levels deep and satisfying. Some noise and crush frequent the shadows (each a product of the original photography, nothing more), but otherwise delineation is quite good. Detail is excellent, with crisp, clean edge definition, precisely resolved fine textures and revealing close-ups, none of which are hindered by compression anomalies, banding or other issues. I was surprised, having expected much less, but Ouija's encode delivers. I don't have any complaints.

Ouija Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is impressive, even though the film's sound design favors outbursts and cheap jolts that undermine the lossless mix's more commendable traits. Dialogue is intelligible and smartly prioritized, without anything in the way of lost lines, and effects move about the soundfield with ease. Directionality is precise, pans are smooth, and the go-to horror tricks and treats are effective. LFE output is also weighty and assertive (despite a rather blunt, over-eager approach to low-end support) and rear speaker activity is aggressive and engaging (though, again, the track tends to attack rather than indulge in subtler ambience). All told, Ouija's DTS-HD MA mix isn't exactly remarkable but it's more than capable of handling everything the film demands of it.

Ouija Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Spirit Board: An Evolution (HD, 4 minutes): A brief history of the Ouija board with Ouija producer Bennett Schneir, director/co-writer Stiles White, co-writer Juliet Snowden, associate clinical professor of medicine Lee Kagan and talking boards collector/historian (yep, that's a thing) Robert Murch, complete with an onslaught of film clips.
• Adapting the Fear (HD, 4 minutes): This rapidfire EPK finds the cast and filmmakers discussing the process and challenges of bringing the board game to horror-movie life.
• Icon of the Unknown (HD, 4 minutes): Another expendable talking heads featurette.

Ouija Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ouija is uninventive genre drivel, so focused on concocting a coherent plot that it forgets to be anything that we haven't seen before a hundred times over. Everything from the writing to the performances to the scares fall woefully short, and there isn't much in the way of a saving grace... unless you count Universal's Blu-ray release, that is. The film at least earns a terrific AV presentation, although its supplemental package is sorely lacking. My advice? Give it a rent if you can't resist. Otherwise, save your money for better horror fare.