OUIJA:ORIGINOF EVIL
★★★★★
FROMFEBRUARY 8 /RATEDM/DIRECTORMIKE
FLANAGAN/CASTANNALISE BASSO,ELIZABETH
REASER, LULU WILSON, HENRY THOMAS
Possession is 9/10 of the law
THE BANEOF ANY
paranormal horrormovieis
showingtoo much. Almost by
deinition, theparanormal is most
potent when we don’t fully
understand it; the urgetoexplain
exactly what’s happening is like turning on the
light in a dark room — it’s suddenly not so
scaryanymore. Theprequel to 2014’s
underwhelmingOuija is a better movie all
round, but does most of its best work early on.
Lulu Wilson shows off the
symbol for Star Trek: Illuminati.I SMILE BACK
★★★★★
FROM NOW / RATED MA15+SARAH SILVERMAN GOES all-in for this
wrenching look at depression and addiction
— it’s an amazing performance, but the
film’s not quite up to the same standard.
It’s a brutal indictment of suburban life, as
Laney (Silverman), suffering from chronic
depression, is tormented by smug friends of
her husband and bureaucratic school
officials, and wracked by fear that to love
anything or anyone is to invite loss into your
life. Her response is to self-medicate with
booze and drugs and screwing around. But
it all feels a bit voyeuristic, both emotionally
and literally (like watching Silverman
diddling herself in her young daughter’s
bedroom). It feels less like an exploration
of Laney’s pain and personal history than
the morbid fascination of watching a car
wreck in slow motion.
EXTRAS None. TIM KEENAMERICAN HERO
★★★★★
FROM NOW / RATED MA15+THIS “STONER CHRONICLE” would be a
12-minute short movie if you cut out all
the scenes of Stephen Dorff getting
drunk and high. It’s not boring — it evokes
the humid hedonism of New Orleans, and
meanders along in amiably aimless
fashion. But for a movie about a man with
superpowers, almost nothing happens.
For Mel (Dorff) and Lucille (Eddie Griffin),
life is an endless loop of parties and
low-level street hustling. And, oh by the
way, Mel can move objects with his mind.
Writer/director Nick Love sets very few
rules about Mel’s telekinesis — at one
point moving small objects causes his
pulse to skyrocket, in another he flings
cars around easily. But for long stretches,
it’s simply about Mel getting wasted,
recovering, and getting wasted again.
Drug-hazed fun, if you don’t overthink it.
EXTRAS None. MICHAEL BROOKERSet in 1967, it directly references the irst lick; if
you’ve seen Ouija you’ll have a head-start
iguring out who lives and who dies. This time
around, director Mike Flanagan (Oculus) starts
out generating some genuine goosebumpy
raised-hair creepiness as Alice (Elizabeth Reaser),
who runs a harmless psychic scam business from
her front room, brings a Ouija board into the
house, and her two daughters start playing with
it. At irst the unsettling phenomena are all at the
edges of the frame, and are all the more eerie for
it. But it starts to unwind once the otherworldly
villain of the piece is revealed in all its gimp-like
glory: the subtle creepiness is mostly replaced
with CGI, and by the inal reel, it takes jump
scares to regain anything like the horror of the
irst half. Taking many cues straight from the
Exorcist playbook (blonde poppet Lulu Wilson is
the possessed girl, Henry “Elliott From ET”
Thomas is in full Father Karras mode as the
square-jawed priest) it delivers its share of
terrors, but could have delivered more by
showing less.
EXTRAS Deleted scenes, featurettes, commentary.
RICH YEAGER