Oh how I had very high hopes for this movie. Honestly. I love these types of flicks because of the chills, and jumps they induce. Well, this movie didn’t present any chills, and things were extremely predictable. The only jumps were induced by the sharp noise increase at certain spots in a scene. Those noise increases could of woken the dead though.
This American remake of Filipino horror movie feels like a cheap student movie that got opportunity to be elevated to a mainstream Hollywood production. The actors do a decent job to maintain our interest in the script, but the story feels so predictable that after a while we are easily able to predict what will happen next and to not give it away to much, it all comes down to a consequence of what happens when you mingle with dark forces. The actors are all attractive which in someway, I suppose were casted to distract us from the predictable story. But I can see them getting more work and better acting challenges which this film did not offer.
It starts out like any horror film; at very beginning is the set up scene to let watchers see a brief reason for the rest of the film. Now the building of characters was decent, the best friend, lead actress distraught and seeking an answer of why the tragedy happened, then the rebellious sister, the boyfriend, and the B. Very typical high school cast of characters that are perfect for the film. Now starting out, this film looks and feels very promising, but that is not the case, the writer and director had all the tools for a good horror film, but didn’t use enough of it. People wanted to see more of a “beyond” “afterlife” feel of the film while “trying to contact the dead“. Instead what you get is detective work, with very few scares until the final scene, which really isn’t even scary, just a screaming woman ghost, then. It’s over.
Oujia is one of those films where you see the bad rating and watch it anyway, hoping it’ll at least amuse you. It doesn’t. Not even a little.