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(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary y solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the kind of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“A single mother moves her daughters into her late grandmother's farmhouse, hoping for a fresh start. After finding an old Ouija board, strange events begin to escalate, and a presence emerges that won't let them leave.”
From the world of ultra-ultra-ultra-low budget productions today comes Ouija Hell House, a surprisingly tame Horror indie that, sadly, never quite knows what it wants to be. The vast majority of the effort is one of those often-derided ‘found footage’ flicks – of which I’m still a pretty big fan – while that tapestry is stitched together with conventional film storytelling of a mother and her two daughters. Theirs is a family in the midst of a crisis – one from which they’ll not recover – and writer/director Calvin Morie McCarthy does them no favors in introducing a plethora of spectral shenanigans that just might have been little more than flights of fancy brought upon by toxic gases.
Or was it?
A struggling single mother, Danielle (played by Laura Hunter) is doing what she can to raise her two daughters. Michelle (Hailey Saintfield) has been kicked out of school over her possible involvement with her roommate’s drug overdose; and Sierra (Victoria Hunter) remains a bit of a mute, a recluse who’d rather spend her time recording life as she sees it behind the lens of a video camera. But when they relocate to the old family homestead out on the farm, the trio inadvertent open a spectral can of worms when they summon an evil demon who’ll upend their focus on reality. Before the week is through, these three women will find themselves tasked to their psychological limits and even turning on one another in the process.
Now, it isn’t as if Ouija Hell House has a bad foundation. The number of Horrors and Thrillers that have started from the point of the broken nuclear family is without measure, and there are even smaller elements of these fractured relationships which play into a great many plots in surprising effective ways. Furthermore, McCarthy’s script does make great use of its trinity-style dynamic – mother versus oldest daughter versus youngest daughter – in such a manner that there was some authentic steps taken to get this chiller into a shape that audiences could accept as real. Still, it grows increasingly difficult for viewers to bond with the ladies as the director spends an inordinate amount of time with long, protracted takes rendered in found footage as Sierra explores both the house and property to ridiculous lengths.
Additionally, it might be worth noting that – clocking in at roughly 70-minutes run-time – Ouija Hell House isn’t long enough to be considered alongside a traditional film feature. If Sierra’s investigations were trimmed to accessible sequences, I suspect one would lose about twenty-to-thirty minutes of footage; and this House would go from a full domicile to something more akin a narrative apartment. As a short film, what little substance there is in here might work more efficiently – maybe even as one chapter in a broader anthology-style picture – but as it is there just isn’t enough to maintain focus on these three ladies. None of them are strong enough as characters to hoist this dark and gloomy tale to appreciable heights; and I would up feeling bad for the actresses as they truly weren’t given much to do and even less to react to.
This doesn’t mean that the work is a complete waste of time. Yes, it’s overlong; and, stylistically, it’s a bit overwrought. McCarthy could’ve given them a bit more – it isn’t as if the women appear incapable of handling more story – but there’s still a late-breaking twist which pushes the whole shebang into that ‘did it or did it not happen’ category, an insult given how little suspension of disbelief is required here. I’m not opposed to a twist: I’m only against twists that appear too damned convenient – which this one does – so chalk this one up as perhaps a learning exercise for those involved, audience included.
Ouija Hell House (2026) was produced by 7th Street Productions. The film is presently available for digital rental or purchase. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I can assure readers that the provided sights and sounds are adequate, at best: there’s an odd variance between some of the digital footage – some is extraordinarily high definition while other sequences seem awfully grainy and occasionally out-of-focus. It isn’t a terrible job, but it does leave a lot to the imagination. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? As I viewed this one entirely via streaming, there were no special features to consider.
Alas … this one is Hard To Recommended.
It isn’t as if the ideas behind Ouija Hell House are flawed. Horror pictures have always had interesting takes on broken family relationship, and I suspect that will always be the case. Chiefly, the problems start when writer/director McCarthy can’t seem to find a narrative center much less one style to spin this mildly-creepy web: is it a conventional story about a family gone bad, or is it a shaky-cam found footage flick left behind after they’re all dead and gone? The blend and the dire laconic pacing kill almost even the traditional jump scares – what few there are – making this House one not quite worth the mortgage.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Breaking Glass Pictures provided me with complimentary streaming access to Ouija: Hell House by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ