Once upon a creepy time, Mike Flanagan wasn’t interested in making a horror sequel. The writer-director of the original spine-chilling features Absentia, Oculus, Hush, and Before I Wake described himself to Esquire in 2016 as “[having] an allergy to sequels and remakes in general.” Ouija, a 2014 movie from Universal Pictures, scored poorly with critics but turned an impressive enough profit to warrant a sequel (a worldwide gross of $103 million against a budget of just $5 million). Faced with a creative dilemma, Universal executives, collaborating with Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions (which had co-produced Flanagan’s Oculus), sought a filmmaker who could improve Ouija‘s missteps. Despite Flanagan’s disinterest, Blum promised him near-complete freedom on the project.
What resulted was Ouija: Origin of Evil, Flanagan’s fifth feature film and his first with a major studio. Free of limitations, Flanagan crafted a period piece strong enough to exist independently of its maligned predecessor. Frankly, it’s almost unfair — if not unsurprising — just how good Ouija: Origin of Evil is. It has no right to be. Critical consensus agreed: compared to Ouija‘s Rotten Tomatoes score of a measly 6%, Origin of Evil sits prettily at 84%. Leave it to Mike Flanagan to concoct a miracle out of a “prequel-as-sequel” to a terrible movie.
Why Is 2014’s ‘Ouija’ Movie About?
To understand why Flanagan’s creative discretion elevates Origin of Evil from a standard legacy sequel into a dynamic accomplishment, we must do exactly that: compare Origin against its predecessor’s limitations. The original Ouija, directed by Stiles White from a script by White and Juliet Snowden, follows a group of college students in the aftermath of a personal tragedy: a young woman, Debbie Galardi (Shelley Hennig), dies by suicide before Ouija‘s title card jump-scares onto the screen. The catastrophe devastates Debbie’s immediate social circle, especially her best friend, Laine Morris (Olivia Cooke in her pre-House of the Dragon days, and with a convincing American accent). Grief-stricken and confused, Laine convinces her friends to use the conspicuous Ouija board Laine found in Debbie’s bedroom to talk with Debbie’s spirit in a last-ditch effort at closure.
Any viewer with a passing knowledge of horror movies can guess that this reckless decision dooms the group. Laine’s skepticism about the supernatural vanishes as her friends die inexplicably one-by-one, and after she glimpses a ghostly figure called “Mother” through the Ouija board’s accompanying planchette. Laine investigates what fate befell the people who previously owned Debbie’s house. The answer, unsurprisingly, is nothing good.
What Makes ‘Ouija’ a Bad Horror Movie?
Sadly, Oujia commits one of the horror genre’s greatest sins: it’s boring. Such a declaration is subjective, and by no means is a predictable narrative beat an automatic strike against a story. Problems arise when each development feels blandly routine enough that one imagines a C-suite executive checking off a list of trope requirements. Ouija is both bland from start to finish and led by stock characters who lack defining personalities, an unfortunate combination that also means the film doesn’t offer horror’s primary requirement: suspense. Structurally, we could recite the plot in our sleep, and, simply put, we don’t care about these people. This oversight drains Ouija of any tension.
So does the film’s inciting incident, which undermines Ouija‘s potential instead of establishing it. Opening the movie with Debbie taking her life is a dramatic hook, but it’s a hook at the cost of any legitimate or lasting emotional consequences. Losing a loved one and the trauma that follows is a reliable motivator for characters to make desperate decisions — like, say, using a Ouija board. But even though the prologue positions Debbie and Laine as long-term friends, it’s sparse at best. After Debbie’s suicide, the script works overtime to earn audience investment, and the effort is retroactive and ineffective. The uninspired dialogue doesn’t help matters. Characters practically state the obvious for a living. Cooke’s performance is Ouija‘s one highlight; her sensitivity gives Laine a believable vulnerability despite how the script underserves a cast pushing their way through inauthentic lines.
Aside from a handful of shots with promising composition, Ouija‘s visual language also falls flat. The characters’ deaths suffer from the same stylistic affliction, a weakness that might ordinarily be chalked up to Ouija‘s PG-13 rating if it weren’t for Origin of Evil disproving that notion. Flanagan does more in Origin with just as little wiggle room (we’ll circle back to that). Even the jump scares are surprisingly minimal; when they do appear, not even a loud music stinger can prompt better than a yawn.
What Is ‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’ About?
Ouija: Origin of Evil succeeds where Ouija fails through filmmaking principles that happen to be Mike Flanagan’s strengths: his knack for rich, intriguing character work, building atmosphere through the edit, and bridging psychological horror with the supernatural. The film charges him with revealing the origins of the Zander family, the mother and daughters tied to Ouija‘s deadly hauntings. Flanagan’s in top form here: his primary cast consists of Elizabeth Reaser as Alice Zander and Annalise Basso and Lulu Wilson as her children Lina and Doris, respectively. Compared to Ouija‘s teenagers in peril trope, Origin of Evil expands the minor details Ouija provided about Alice, Lina, and Doris into a thoroughly unique scenario.
The three women run a séance scam to make money after Alice’s husband/the girls’ father died in a car accident. The business, such as it is, isn’t malicious. A grieving individual wants to communicate with a lost loved one, the Zanders activate the hidden rigged effects, and the individual leaves more healed than when they arrived. Even if their down-pat routine makes Alice uncomfortable, there’s only so much a widowed single mother can do in 1967. The money vanishes so fast when you’re feeding, clothing, and sending two daughters to school and contending with a foreclosed house.
So, when Lina plays with a Ouija board during a party, Alice begrudgingly incorporates the board into their smoke and mirrors show. Immediately, 9-year-old Doris hears voices. She thinks it’s her father; viewers know differently. The Zanders’ house isn’t haunted by just one clingy ghost but by dozens of tortured souls. A Nazi doctor conducted experiments and buried his victims’ skeletons in the basement walls. The trapped souls hear everything that happens in the Zanders’ house — as do the malevolent entities who possess Alice. Even the school’s kindly priest, Father Thomas (Henry Thomas), can’t help with that doozy.
Mike Flanagan Made ‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’ Entirely His Own
While promoting Ouija: Origin of Evil, Flanagan praised Universal and Jason Blum for their lack of interference. “The connections to the first movie weren’t as important to them as making a good movie,” he told Esquire. “If we hadn’t had that conversation right off the bat, I wouldn’t have pursued it at all. It was really kind of freeing, to step into a franchise without having to play by the rules that are established by the first picture.” That same year, Flanagan told Den of Geek: “I think Blum’s instincts are right-on in allowing somebody to come up with an amazing vision for the film before they get started, rather than saying ‘This is what our marketing department suggests’.”
One of Flanagan’s creative stipulations for this prequel-sequel was the period setting. To hone his focus, he took inspiration and based his approach on classics like The Exorcist (which is interesting given that he’s the next director to try to breathe new life into this dying franchise) and The Changeling. Cinematographer Michael Fimognari filmed with “antique lenses” and used in-camera zooms instead of Steadicams or dolly shots. In the editing bay, they mimicked a 1960s film reel’s visual imperfections and audio cues. Origin of Evil even opens with the classic Universal Pictures logo and a superimposed title card. With this film, “I wanted to recreate the feeling I had when I first discovered horror movies,” Flanagan revealed. In Origin of Evil, Mike Flanagan embraces his haunted house/demonic possession roots, but this time he’s backed by concentrated experience rather than a talented amateur’s instincts.
‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’ Has Everything That Makes Mike Flanagan Great
In less intuitive hands, such a loving pastiche might’ve lacked narrative structure. Ouija: Origin of Evil doesn’t lose the forest for the trees. It plays the vintage style straight without overwhelming to the point of distraction. Touches like the lived-in production design and warm-toned color grading enhance the film’s mood and give it a distinct identity. Looking at 21st-century horror, the movie shares sensibilities with The Conjuring as much as The Exorcist: ensuring audiences care about the imperiled characters as people and not as bodies primed for voyeuristic victimization. Creating quality characters was a principle Flanagan took especially seriously on Origin of Evil: “In its most basic expression, genre can just take archetypal characters, throw them in the woods, and kill them one at a time,” he said. “But it can’t make you care.”
What’s especially enjoyable about Origin of Evil is how, like most of his work, Mike Flanagan centers women protagonists at the story’s heart. A 9-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 40-something each grieves in different ways while approaching adult concerns as realistic as providing for a household and teenage experiences as universal as a first crush. Flanagan “really wanted to make a movie about a single mother and with three dynamic female leads.” He passes the proverbial test with flying colors. Alice, Lina, and Doris are all layered characters. Flanagan ensures this by lingering on moments like Alice silently calculating their slim finances and Lina’s breathless joy after her first kiss.
Cruel classmates mock Doris’ old uniform skirt, but she doesn’t hold their low income against her mother. Lina sneaks out to party, drink, and flirt, but she and Alice discuss matters a teenager shouldn’t have to grapple with. The Zanders’ situation is sympathetic beyond reproach without being pitying. During the dramatic finale, little details like Alice’s smeared mascara say as much as a character’s gut-wrenching sobs. Just like sacred horror textbooks like The Exorcist, Mike Flanagan prioritizing character before genre makes the audience’s empathy for the Zanders more potent and the characters’ fractured relationships more impactful.
Origin of Evil‘s PG-13 rating required that the normally gore-heavy Flanagan convey his scares with restraint. It was a welcome challenge. He told Esquire, “Gravity always kind of pulls me toward the more extreme side of things, so it’s nice to check yourself and say, ‘I want to go for maximum impact, but I’m going to need to accomplish that just with atmosphere and timing, instead of shock and gore’.” Origin of Evil doesn’t need blood and guts to be effective. The way Flanagan navigates around the rating’s limitations harkens back to the inventiveness of classic horror films like Psycho, and the nastier moments evoke infamously “was the MPA asleep to label this a PG?” movies like Poltergeist (another film Flanagan studied for Origin of Evil). The worst violence is psychological — Doris’ all-white eyes, a mouth sewn shut with flesh, a gooey black figure shoving its entire arm down Doris’ screaming mouth. The visuals are startling for their inherent wrongness. However, even understated Mike Flanagan violence has a purpose. Every unsettling moment erects scaffolding to support Origin of Evil‘s tragic “rocks fall, almost everyone dies” ending, and Flanagan pulls astonishingly realistic emotion from his performers.
‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’ Makes Mike Flanagan’s Exorcist Movie Even More Promising
It was announced just a few months ago that Flanagan would be directing a new Exorcist project. Surprisingly, Flanagan’s upcoming Exorcist project faces an almost identical conundrum as he had with Origin of Evil. 2023’s Exorcist: Believer scored poorly with critics and audiences. That one-two punch ended director David Gordon Green‘s plans to oversee a trilogy in the vein of Green’s modern Halloween sequels. After the catastrophic box-office performance and response to Believer, Gordon departed the production of the planned sequel, Deceiver, and Flanagan took over the reins. Flanagan’s movie will not be a direct sequel to Green’s flop, allowing the master of horror to execute a fresh and new take on the franchise. He told a FanExpo Canada audience how he felt about stepping into such a legendary horror series (which he studied while making Origin of Evil):
“The original
Exorcist
is a formative film for me. I’ve only once in my career felt this feeling of stepping into the shadow of a monolith.
I’m already nauseous every day about
The Exorcist
. When it came out, it was the scariest movie of all time at that time. Modern audiences don’t necessarily connect with the film the same way, so my mission for this is to try to make it the scariest movie of the time. If I can do that, then
I hope it will connect with people
.”
Flanagan’s goal to “connect with people” is already a positive sign that his creative instincts will prevail and potentially save this Exorcist trilogy from cinematic damnation. Origin of Evil isn’t a legacy sequel, but its success demonstrates how no known name is better suited to the Exorcist-sized task ahead of him than Flanagan. Ouija: Origin of Evil proves that Flanagan can produce a barnburner of a story out of less-than-stellar material. The movie shakes Ouija‘s idea down to its strongest essentials, revitalizes it with a character-first approach, and captures the style of the standard-setting horror titans that came before. Origin of Evil isn’t a prequel purely for marketing and continuity’s sake. It stands on its own.
It also marked a shift in his career not in content but in funding and public awareness. The movie combined his skills (already noted in the horror community) with Universal Pictures’ resources. The same year Origin of Evil hit theaters, Netflix released Hush. The Haunting of Hill House, Flanagan’s true breakout, followed two years later. The very title Ouija: Origin of Evil reads like an incongruent one-off in Flanagan’s resume and is anything but. This prequel-sequel to a very bad film was yet another banger in a history of bangers, replete with Flanagan’s trademarks that never feel stale but represent an evolving artist’s inclinations. Just like Absentia, Oculus, and The Haunting of Hill House, grief and loneliness are the true horrors at play, not a possessed girl whispering in someone’s ear. (That’s still terrifying, though.)
Ouija: Origin of Evil is available to stream on Netflix.
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