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“Boo!” Your younger sister yells, in a tragic attempt to startle you as your turn a corner in your house.

“Ah!” You say. “You really got me there!” Your voice cracks as you try to hide your sarcasm. However, your fake and overall pathetic attempt at enthusiasm must have worked as your sister runs away laughing about how she finally scared you.

This is pretty much how frightening the new movie; Ouija Origin of Evil is. I have to give it some credit though, because it’s trying really hard… It really is. Directed by Mike Flanagan, this prequel had the potential to trample all the other horror films this fall. However, instead of an action-packed, seat-jumping thriller, I found myself watching a pitiful attempt at yet another studio trying to make the same over-used, cliche horror movie plot enjoyable. And — yup, you guessed it — it didn’t work.

Going into this movie, I was familiar with Mike Flanagan’s work, and I really enjoyed one of his other horror films — Oculus, which was everything a horror movie should strive to be. I am also of a fan of Universal Studio’s work; so, you would think that I would’ve had my hopes up. However, I saw the first movie — Ouija — back in 2014 and was overall extremely disappointed — as were most people. So knowing that this movie is a prequel to the tragic Ouija, but also being a fan of the director’s and the studio’s work, I had mixed feelings going into the theatre and wasn’t sure what to expect.

The movie’s plot is centered around a family where the mom has a fake fortune telling business to make some money after her husband’s death. Things then start to fall apart once she buys an Ouija board to continue her scam. Although this seems like an interesting and unique plot, the cliches start to appear once the Ouija board enters the scene. It was hard to take the movie even slightly seriously with the amount of cheesy priest jokes and predictable and extremely repetitive jump scares around every corner. Once the illusion of horror is broken, it is hard to repair it. Sadly in Ouija The Origin of Evil the facade was shattered to pieces within the first 15 minutes and after that, I was itching to get out of the theatre.

In addition, this film has absolutely nothing to do with the original Ouija other than there being an Ouija board in both… It’s like saying Thor and Bob the Builder are related because there are hammers in both movies. I’d honestly rather watch only those two movies for the rest of my life than sit through another minute of Ouija the Origin of Evil.

I’m not going to lie, the first few jump scares did get me; but, as we have learned through many other horror film’s mistakes, jump scares are only one aspect to a good scream. One thing in particular that this movie is missing is the eeriness and mysteriousness. That should be the foundation of a horror movie and everything else should be built on top of that. Without this, the jumpscares are even more predictable and even less scary which is noticeable throughout the film. Me writing, filming, producing and editing a movie with only my left pinky toe could be better than this entire movie. I’m ready. Put me in coach.

However, not everything was terrible. Actress Lulu Wilson who plays the main little girl, Doris, in the movie is probably the only enjoyable aspect of the film. Little girls in horror films are always intriguing to watch and also make the movie much more frightening in general. Lulu did a phenomenal job and could probably make any bad film turn into a semi-decent one just through her acting.

All in all, Ouija the Origin of Evil is a go-to movie if you’re looking for another classically disappointing and not-at-all-scary cliche horror film. Watching this movie is like watching a little boy lose his baseball game. You give him a; “you’ll get them next time!” out of pity even though you’re sure they’ll lose again, but you can’t be too upset about it because they tried their best. They really did.