Another striking thing about Ouija: Origin of Evil is its almost complete lack of a score. Nondiagetic sound is what most jump scare movies use to telegraph their scares, but this movie maintains the same eerie silence from start to finish. Images courtesy Universal Pictures.
Ever since The Conjuring blew the lid off the horror genre by opening to $41 million in July 2013, studios have been devoting most of their scary movie resources into Blockbuster season. October, traditionally horror’s time to shine, has become something of a middle ground between early Oscar season and a dump months for processed horror sequels that weren’t good enough for a prime spot. With the options clearly being bottom of the barrel and so much out-of-theater competition for spooky entertainment, scary movies have seen a sharp decline in quality and audience satisfaction in recent years.
This is the climate Ouija: Origin of Evil is born into. The original movie released in October 2014 was hated by critics and audiences alike, but it turned its $5 million budget into quite a bit of money. Dollar signs speak much louder than critic scores, so another sequel nobody wanted to a movie nobody liked was in order.
But Ouija: Origin of Evil has one key difference from the standard October faire: it’s actually really, really good.
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