Their Independents’ Day (2016) hit the market on June 7th so it would be all set up to ride the swell from Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) which came out June 24th. Their Atlantic Rim: Resurrection (2018) was put out on February 15th, just a few weeks before the March 23rd release of Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018).
One of the masters of this practice is The Asylum studio. Its sole purpose being to ride the wave created by whatever giant Hollywood epic it copies. Traditionally, the mockbuster title is rushed to market a few weeks before the real movie’s release date. Also known as knockbusters or “drafting opportunities” (in the racing sense, not architecturally speaking - sorry, Eric), these movies tend to be micro-budget projects thrown together in record time and then given titles that sound similar to legitimately huge movies. Welcome to the wonderful world of mockbusters. I doubt they were talking about these movies, though. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” or so the saying goes.
Instead, we are granted with another generic ghost story.1/2 out of ★★★★★ Beware the “mockbuster”: landmine of the cinematic landscape. Ouija Seance: The Final Game could have made something of itself and stuck out amongst the sea of Ouija movies. Creativity tends to be at its height when directors must scramble to craft the perfect scare with whatever they have. Horror is often at its best when it's done on a cheap budget.
#OUIJA SEANCE MOVIE#
Given the vast history of horror movies and all of the techniques that have been established up until this point, it feels inexcusable to make a movie this abysmal. Ouija Seance is bewilderingly bad bad directing, bad writing, bad lighting, horrific special effects, and some pretty lousy acting from the rest of the cast.
The movie also had a pretty neat opening shot. Katharina Sporrer is a pretty solid actress given the material and Holly Mumford is adequate as Sarah’s stereotypical bubbly roommate. Frankly, there is very little to be said about this movie that is positive. It's far too easy to point out all of the flaws of Ouija Seance. I understand that The Movie Sleuth prides it's self on delivering spoiler-free reviews and I will continue to adhere to that policy as a contributing writer, but for just this one time, spoiler alert: that girl on the poster is not even in the movie. Also, I could not help but notice that there is a creepy Samara type girl crawling toward you for the promotional poster. The actual titular seance only lasts for about ten seconds of the entire film and I really don't know what “The Final Game” is supposed to be. The house, of course, is linked to some spooky stuff and cryptic high jinks ensue when Sarah stumbles upon that token Hasbro board game. She along with her roommate, roommate’s boyfriend, and a guy that Sarah may or may not be seeing are segwayed to her family’s old house in the middle of the forest. The film stars Katharina Sporrer as Sarah, a college student studying art restoration abroad in Italy. It brings nothing new to the table rather than milking the teet of the ouija board movie genre and fails hard at the absolute most important rule of horror movies in general: it's just not scary. This is a haunted house/middle-of-the-woods/”no-one-around-to-hear-you-scream-except-for-maybe-the-creepy-guy-that-walks-around-carrying-an-ax” horror film that we have all seen a million times before. The plot, whatever that may be, is imbecilic and dense in addition to being generic and convoluted. Ouija Seance: The Final Game very well may be the holy grail of bad ouija movies. It would seem that so long as people keep believing this and those boards keep selling, ouija movies will still be made no matter how terrible they are. Despite the fact that there is scientific evidence disproving any kind of supernatural elements being the main force behind the board game, people still believe that ouija boards are a device used to communicate with the spirit world. There are at least three other movies out there that have the word ‘ouija’ in the title and about a hundred others that feature the use of ouija board as a major plot device.
It is rather astounding how a Hasbro board game that can be purchased at just about any commercial big-box store could inspire an entire sub-genre of horror.
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