In short: The Ouija Experiment 2: Theatre of Death (2015)

aka The Ouija Resurrection

Oh, how meta! Turns out, in the world of The Ouija Experiment 2, the first film was only a movie, so the film brings back three of the first film’s main actors, now playing themselves. Now I can’t keep Swisyzinna, Justin Armstrong and Eric Window anonymous anymore, but it’s their own damn fault. Anyway, our heroes – such as they are – have just taken part in the “world premiere” of their film in a shabby movie theatre in some god-forsaken Texas town. In what is difficult not to read as an act of ever so slight wish fulfilment, the audience is really excited about the film. But wait, there’s more!

In the next few days, the supposedly haunted cinema will be turned into a haunted house attraction to promote the film, with the high point an extra special haunted tour behind locked doors for lucky winner Michelle Joy (Sally Greenland) and two invitees of her choosing – her gay best friend and the local mildly psychic goth girl.

Alas, Window farts around with the original ouija board from the first movie while trying to impress a local bimbo and of course does not say goodbye, which invites in the local incest ghost who proceeds to first kill the actors and then anyone else it can get its claws on. There’s also a bit of “darn those backwoods” people horror thrown in in the end, but let’s not go there, particularly since that part of the film gives us an overlong expositional speech of highly dubious merit.

You know when I said about the first film that I found myself somewhat charmed by it because it clearly tried very hard, as well as by the existence of some decent scares? That pretty much holds for the second Ouija Experiment too. The film is a bit more ambitious with its attempts at meta horror but that never really amounts to much more than a handful of scenes that wink at the audience in a not too penetrant way. The cinema is certainly a spookier place than the first film’s apartments/bungalows/wherever you American people live, lending itself well enough to this second film’s eschewing of POV horror for more standard filmmaking.

The acting’s still pretty bad – though the actors from the first film have improved a bit – and the humour goofy in a somewhat charming manner, while the horror sequences go from fun to aggressively annoying and back again. As a whole, I enjoyed the film more than it probably deserves. Maybe because it – as well as its predecessor – feels to me like the direct to video version of the goofier side of 70s and 80s local filmmaking, or because I kinda like its particular type of silliness, or perhaps just because I can’t help but root for a sequel that doesn’t just repeat its predecessor beat for beat.

In short: The Ouija Experiment (2011)

A bunch of idiots plays around with a Ouija board. One among their number is the obligatory film student (actor names are withheld to protect the guilty), so it’s time for some hot POV horror action. Thanks to various somewhat hilarious soap operatics, our protagonists repeatedly forget to end their séance sessions on the board with a goodbye, so ghosts good and evil are having their way with them. It’ll also turn out our protagonists have chosen a pretty bad place to contact the spirit world.

For the first two thirds of its running time, Israel Luna’s The Ouija Experiment is pretty dreadful: the script is as obvious as it is slow in getting going, the characters are annoying as hell thanks to dubious writing decisions, jokes land with the dull thud of lost souls, the best among the actors on screen could politely be described as “not very good”, and the ghosts make noises like a PlayStation 1 era video game monster. However, it’s a strangely compelling and companionable dreadfulness, with everyone in front of and behind the camera clearly giving their respective bests in a more or less enthusiastic manner. Only a tiny little budget and a lack of experience seem to be holding these people back, and I found myself somewhat charmed by the film’s honesty and a decided lack of pretension.

It sure helps that impression that Luna actually does manage to create some simple yet effective scares in the film’s final third or so. Obviously, there’s still nothing going on that’ll haunt anyone for years, but there’s enough happening in the third act to make up for some of the film’s failings. That’s more than I can say about many a microbudget horror piece. Even the dreaded final twist is pretty cool, and certainly realized well enough.