At a dimly-lit dining room table, three young women sit, talking to thin air. In front of them is the latest board game craze, which they are using to talk to the deceased. What these women do not realize is that the person they are speaking to is not who they think and this is no ordinary board game.

The horror film Ouija: Origin of Evil, rated PG-13, is about a family of three left broken by the loss of a loving husband and father, Roger, played by Michael Weaver. The mother in the storyline, Alice Zander, portrayed by Elisabeth Reaser, is a medium who makes her money by scamming customers into believing in the supernatural, with faked séances and ghostly noises that her two daughters, Lina and Doris, played by Annalise Basso and Lulu Wilson, help her with. One night, however, Alice’s eldest daughter, Lina, sneaks out to a party with friends, where she first experiences a Ouija board. The hostess of the party’s mother catches them and sends all the partygoers home, but as she is being driven home, Lina suggests for her mother to buy a Ouija board for her business. Alice decides to do just that, and brings it home with her the next day. This is where the action begins.

Oftentimes it is not just the plot that makes a movie worth seeing, but also the actors. Though I had never heard of any actors in this film before I actually went to see it, their portrayals of their characters had me truly believing in the plot. The costumes and set were also very historically accurate, with the setting being in the late 1960s. Things now considered old relics, like record players and gingham dresses, appeared frequently throughout the movie, and the use of all these things made the setting much more realistic to the audience.

Though the plot is often used in similar films, the movie still leaves the audience with bittersweet foreboding and desperate attempts to put all the pieces together before the ending. Perhaps the best part of the entire movie is when Father Tom, who preaches at Doris’ and Lina’s Catholic school and is played by Henry Thomas, comes over upon Lina’s insistence that Doris is not herself, and that she is in fact possessed. This part was my personal favorite because it made my stomach sink in delighted terror, and if I wasn’t already hooked on the film, I was then.

Told through twisting turns, chilling jump-scares and captivating character development, “Ouija: Origin of Evil” is one of the better horror movies to go see. Though some of the lines spoken by the characters are on the more stereotypical side, the plot is one that will leave viewers guessing until the last minute.