2.5 stars

(released February 26)

In the never-ending search for properties to make into movies, Hollywood has occasionally turned to board games: Clue and Battleship spring to mind. Now it's the turn of the Ouija  board, the ostensible means to communicate with the dead, although this movie might not be considered a great advertisement for the product. Despite the classification, this is a relatively mild horror movie, the sort of "horror-in-training" movie teenagers might watch at a slumber party.

High school student Debbie (Shelley Hennig) dies, an apparent suicide, and her bereaved and shocked friends turn to her Ouija board to try to uncover the truth.  However, it is not Debbie they manage to contact, but another, far less friendly spirit who seems intent on murdering them all. Can they uncover what's behind this evil presence and defeat it?

There are a lot of "boo" scares,  some grotesque make-up, and a few deaths, but it is nowhere near as gory or shocking as many other examples of the genre. The young actors  are not bad and although the characterisations are rather thin,   there is a reasonable attempt to build atmosphere and have a story with a few twists and turns rather than just a neverending flow of blood. It is not the best of its genre, but not the worst, either.

There are no special features on the DVD. The Blu-ray has three (unpreviewed) featurettes.