Thanks to its predecessor’s fleeting reign atop the domestic box office thanks to a combination of savvy timing and lack of other horror movies out that Halloween, the world is now being Satanically blessed with a new Ouija movie, Ouija: Origin Of Evil. And in keeping with the first movie’s distinct eau d’focus group, the trailer for the horror sequel conjures up (get it??) images of studio executives leaning back in their ridiculously expensive ergonomic chairs and saying, “Those Conjuring movies make a lot of money. Just do that.”
There’s the retro ’60s setting, for one, and the possessed little girl being bent backwards by some sort of unspeakable force, and the dusty phonograph playing Herman’s Hermits on repeat. It all seems damningly derivative, but with Mike Flanagan—who recently directed the buzzed-about home-invasion thriller Hush—at the helm, Ouija: Origin Of Evil might be able to transcend its corporate-mandated copycat routine and do something scary and unexpected. Either that, or Flanagan’s just killing time until he gets to direct a Halloween movie, which is fair.
Ouija: Origin Of Evil gently pushes into theaters on October 21.