MovieChat Forums > Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) Discussion > Another film much better than its preque...

Another film much better than its prequel

posted 7 years ago by spurtle467 (1498)
4 replies | jump to latest

I'm usually very staunch about not giving modern horror movies the time of day, but this one did reasonably well and managed to salvage an incredibly lame franchise out of that first movie. I'd say under the circumstances it did about as well as it could. Everything was more improved from the plot, the acting, the pacing, and the way the scares played out, although it needed to calm down at the end when it got into cheap and lazy horror cliches. At least it looked like care and attention had been put into it, unlike the first.

There were some effective scenes there, such as the girl talking about strangulation, and the moment you realised the girl had died by calling out to her daddy (they unfortunately overplayed this straight after with the mum dying) and it largely knew when to show and when not to show, until the end when it upped the ante with the wall climbing and scary faces etc., trying to be more like the original and tie in with that. It may have been better had it completely disassociated itself with that movie.

A solid 6 out of 10.

[–] Stratego (29179) 5 years ago

I don't think this movie was any better than the first movie except for the cinematography and the acting. Yes, the 60s setting was interesting (although not correct) and there was more of a story. However, it was drawn out too much with unnecessary scenes unrelated to the plot. And like the first movie it had hardly any suspense and scares. At the end all logic went out of the window and it turned into every other possession movie. It was just boring.

[–] spurtle467 (1498) 5 years ago

No I don't agree and the critical consensus seems to be of the same opinion. The original has a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the sequel has an 82% rating. I'm not sure I'd rate the sequel that high myself but that is a huge difference between a film and its sequel, maybe even the highest on that site? For me it's one of the rare occasions when you can say, hand on heart without any doubt, a sequel trumps its predecessor.

I agree that the ending got a wee bit silly. It's still better than the ending of the first movie, which was incredible lame the way her friend turned up out of the blue to help her out, when it makes it seem like she could have done that at any other point of the movie.

[–] Stratego (29179) 5 years ago

I don't care at all what the critical consensus is. I find both ratings ridiculous. I've seen way worse movies than the first one and much better movies than the second one. They're both not worth my time and they both fail at being effective horror movies.

Yes, the ending in the first movie was stupid, but the dad showing up out of nowhere to help was also nonsense, as was a lot else in the final act. Like I said, the sequel only trumps the original in cinematography and acting. And perhaps a less generic story (but good god, did it have boring drawn out scenes unrelated to the plot). Oh yeah, the CGI in the movie was also awful and totally unnecessary.

[–] BrunoAntony (1198) 5 years ago

I mean, "Ouja: Origin of Evil" was directed by Mike Flanagan, who is regarded as one of the best American horror directors working today for "Absentia", "Oculus", "Hush", "Gerald's Game", and "The Haunting of Hill House". Stephen King loves him.

Whereas the first "Ouja" was the directorial debut of some random dude who still hasn't made another film.