You've seen Ouija House many times before, under different titles. A group of young people arrive at a house in the country. The house has a dark, supernatural history. The young people scoff at such stuff. They open a portal, and evil supernatural attacks begin.

In this case, they use a Ouija board. In Nocturne, they used a deck of tarot cards. In The Unwilling, it was a puzzle box. There are too many similar horror films to list.

The young people try to escape the evil house in a car. They drive away, but find themselves returning. They are trapped in a portal, or maybe a warp in the space-time continuum! Whatever. Same thing happened in The Unwilling.

The main cast's performance is very flat and boring. Not horrible, but none of these actors have any charisma or presence. They're just going through the motions.

The bigger names (and better actors) have only brief appearances. Tiffany Shepis and Tara Reid are barely in this film. The have just one quick scene at the start. Dee Wallace has a few scenes, not many. Ditto Chris Mulkey.

The main characters are really stupid, even by horror film standards. Five of them are in an isolated house at night. Samantha goes upstairs. Laurie then looks for Samantha, but can't find her.

"I can't find Samantha," says Laurie.

"Oh, she must have gone off for a walk," Nick replies.

"That was rude," says Laurie.

Really? The five of them are alone, at night, in an isolated house, in the middle of the woods. One of them disappears, and Nick casually suggests "She must have gone off for a walk."

More stupidity. Tina draws a Ouija board on her stomach. They use a stone for a planchette. Then some spirit entity moves the stone away from the letters on her stomach, up toward her mouth. I'm thinking, this is no good. There are no letters on her face. Why is the spirit moving the stone toward Tina's vulnerable throat, mouth, eyes, etc.

Sure enough, the spirit shoves the stone into Tina's mouth, choking her. The other three idiots kept their fingers on the stone as it crept toward Tina's mouth. Nobody thought to grab the stone and pull it away. Any horror fan could see what was happening, but not these idiots.

Apart from being stupid and flatly acted, the characters are also annoying, spouting the usual clichés and vapid lines common to badly written horror film characters.

Ouija House also dragged. I kept looking at the clock, and was amazed at how little time had expired.

The body count is on the low side. Not much gore. Many deaths are offscreen.

Review copyright by Thomas M. Sipos

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