In the 1960s a mother and her two daughters create sham séances to try and make ends meet since her husband passed away. When a Ouija board is bought into the family home as an intended prop the family falls foul of the malevolent spirits channelled through the game.

When the first Ouija launched in 2014 I found it a frustrating watch as although competently crafted it slipped a little too neatly into the groove of cliché and pandered to the quiet, quiet, BANG crowd. While Blumhouse.com is labelled as a “celebration of all things scary”, their cinematic output too often substitutes a creeping sense of dread and atmospheric build up, for cheap shocks and moments that startle. This prequel does an admirable job of developing an emotional foundation for the characters but runs afoul of the tropes that bog down the Paranormal Activity, Sinister and Insidious franchises.

That being said, Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso and Lulu Wilson do a fantastic job of making this scarred and sorrowful family believable, and it’s the sense of loss and desperation that they convey that puts this movie leaps and bounds over its predecessor. Henry Thomas’ Father Tom has more dimensionality to his role than many priests in modern horror and evokes Father Karras from The Exorcist. There’s a slow build over the first half of the movie that threatens to make for an interesting story. Likeable characters in relatable situations and a measured pace ratchet up the tension until it all comes crashing down when the spooky ghosts start behaving in an obnoxious and perfunctory way.

There are nightmare sequences that tread a path well worn by other, better movies. We have a gaping plot niggle a mile wide when we’re first introduced to the Ouija board that is never addressed and the potential for an interesting plot development in the big reveal that gets thrown out of the window in favour of a more perplexing one. As with the Slasher sub-genre that came before, I think there’s a generation of film viewers who know the formula, who know where to cast their eyes in the frame, who are attuned to the rhythm of these modern sucker-punch-jump movies and that’s when the monster loses its bite.

This is a great looking horror with a brilliant sound mix but one with few surprises that will only fleetingly play on your nerves. All in all, a positive step-up from its predecessor, Ouija: Origin of Evil contains some great, emotional performances but eschews atmosphere for jump scares in its final third which is indicative of where supernatural Horror cinema is at today. As a series that’s showing signs of improvement I’m actually looking forward to where the studio takes the inevitable sequel as I hope this upward trajectory continues.

Ouija: Origin of Evil opens today.

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