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Ouija: Origins of Evil Review

April 8, 2026·1 hr 10 min·5 clips

A family of fake spiritual mediums accidentally unleashes real evil when their 9-year-old daughter starts using a Ouija board.

1. Horror Movie Talk reviews Ouija Origins of Evil, a 2016 supernatural horror prequel directed by Mike Flanagan, set in 1960s Los Angeles about a fraudulent medium family whose youngest daughter becomes genuinely possessed. 2. Hosts Max Allen and Bryce Hansen co-host this episode; neither Sidney Lee appears in this installment. 3. The episode's central tension is reconciling Mike Flanagan's strong reputation — built on Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and Hush — with this film's generic execution. 4. Max awards 4 out of 10, calling the film 'extremely cookie cutter' and stating that 'if you've seen any of the Conjuring movies, you've seen this,' while crediting some creepy imagery and functional jump scares. 5. Bryce gives a 5 out of 10, describing it as 'a perfectly average horror movie' and defending the metric by noting average horror films can still be entertaining even without ambition. 6. Both hosts acknowledge they remembered the film as worse on first viewing and attribute the slight upward revision to greater familiarity with Flanagan's body of work. 7. Max notes the film was chosen by Patreon patrons voting, and that with around 20 voters it could easily be 'gamed' by a coordinated caucus. 8. A notable discovery: the background customer in an early scene is Kate Siegel, Mike Flanagan's wife and a lead in Haunting of Hill House, Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass, making her 2016 appearance here a Flanagan repertory early entry. 9. The hosts discuss Flanagan's stated longer cut of the film, with Max arguing the extra 40 minutes would have given characters more depth and delivered on the film's dark ending more convincingly. 10. The film's central plot involves nine-year-old Doris Palmer using a Ouija board she believes connects her to her deceased father, becoming genuinely possessed by a demon that enters her body hands-first through her mouth. 11. Max raises a narrative complaint about the fraud medium family: he doesn't find it believable that a loving, emotionally stable family would consistently commit fraud against grieving people and justify it as 'helping.' 12. The hosts discuss the film's backstory — a Nazi doctor performed experiments on Polish prisoners in the home's basement, trapping their souls — and Max questions whether the film unintentionally frames Polish Holocaust victims as the possessing evil force. 13. Bryce notes the film earned the first-ever fresh Rotten Tomatoes score for a Hasbro-branded property, besting Battleship, G.I. Joe, and the original Ouija. 14. A digression covers the Ouija trademark: Max explains Hasbro owns the Ouija name but it has become so genericized that dozens of B-movies use it freely, similar to how Amityville can't be copyrighted. 15. The priest character, played by Henry Thomas, is described as an effective performance — 'the mother and priest were great' — while the child actors receive consistent criticism for poor naturalistic performance. 16. A recurring comedy beat involves a YouTube video about Ouija board questions playing over Max's notes, prompting Bryce to impersonate the automated captions reading 'wega board' and 'wedgie board.' 17. The hosts debate whether a fraudulent medium who delivers genuinely useful emotional outcomes — telling a grieving client their loved one forgives them — is doing something ethically wrong, even if it's false. 18. The tone of the episode is fast-paced and comedic, with Bryce's live-streaming technical failure and the Ouija video interruptions providing running gag structure. 19. Horror fans who enjoyed Flanagan's later prestige work and are curious about his early filmography will find the episode's contextual discussion most useful. 20. Listeners who want a thorough plot recap or who haven't seen the Conjuring or Insidious franchises may lose context during the comparison-heavy review.

As heard by us

A patron-picked Ouija review that turns medium tricks and family strain into a sharp, funny listen.

This Horror Movie Talk episode covers Ouija: Origins of Evil with blunt judgment, dry riffing, and a clear interest in why the movie still works for some viewers.

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You want a patron-pick horror review of Ouija Origins of Evil that starts on the movie and drifts into medium scam talk.

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