Review: 'Ouija' Starring Olivia Cooke, Daren Kagasoff and Douglas Smith

After doing rigorous testing (i.e., sitting through “Ouija”), we can now confirm that you can, in fact, jump out of your seat with fear and roll your eyes at the same time. The film is effectively scary, filled with plenty of jump moments and a few slow-burning scenes, but the scares aren’t enough to balance the poor writing and lack of imagination.

We can’t help but wonder what movie we would have gotten had a version from Marti Noxon (of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the underrated “Fright Night” remake) actually made it to the screen. She was attached to the script, but this Hasbro-produced film shuffled through a number of writers and filmmakers before finally landing on first-time director Stiles White, who wrote the script with Juliet Snowden. The pair had previously worked together on critical disasters “The Possession,” “Knowing” and “Boogeyman.” Instead of Noxon’s trademark wit that could have made a board game movie more watchable, we get an entirely serious film that...