Halloween is approaching, and that means it is the month of scary movie premieres. Ouija, the most recent horror movie premiere, was released into theater on October 24, 2014. The film stars the actors Olivia Cooke, Daren Kagasoff, Douglas Smith, and Bianca A. Santos.
In the movie, a young girl named Debbie, played by Shelley Hennig, is mysteriously killed after recording herself using an ancient Ouija board. A Ouija board is known as a spirit board that can talk to the dead. A Ouija board is usually marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9, and the words “yes”, “no”, and “hello”. Debbie’s disappearance leads her best friend Liane (Olivia Cooke) and their other close friends to investigate the ominous Ouija board. The friends must confront their greatest fears when they awaken the dark spirits responsible for Debbie’s death.
In North America, the film was released to 2,858 theaters and earned approximately 20,000,000 dollars on its opening weekend. Ouija was released in five foreign markets and earned 1.3 million dollars from these 234 foreign screens. The movie went number two in Malaysia ($545,000), number four in Taiwan ($331,000), number two in Singapore ($238,000), and number four in Poland ($137,000) in its opening weekend. The movie has received very negative reviews from critics. “Rotten Tomatoes” reports that only 10% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on 49 reviews with an average score of 3.2/10. The “Critics Consensus” reads, “Slowly, steadily, although no one seems to be moving in that direction, the Ouija planchette points to NO” (Rotten Tomatoes). Despite its bad critic reviews, Ouija went number one in the box office this past weekend. Ouija will most likely continue to attract moviegoers through the Halloween weekend.