The Ouija board game from Hasbro inspired this paranormal horror movie series. The Ouija is a popular occult tool used to connect with the dead (with various online Ouija boards available now). The movies revolve around Ouija’s ability to open portals to other realms and allow evil spirits into our world.
The Ouija Movies from Blumhouse
The horror genre studio Blumhouse has been around since the 2000s. The Ouija movies belong with other Blumhouse classics such as Insidious and Paranormal Activity (the last PA story was not so good).
So, if you are wondering how to watch Ouija movies in order and how many there are, let’s clue you in.
Chronologically, there are 2 in the series. Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) is technically the prequel with the chilling backstory of the Ouija origins and takes place before Ouija (2014).
The Ouija Movies in Order
Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
The director of Ouija: Origin of Evil is Mike Flanagan, best known for his 2011 movie Absentia and more recently, The Haunting of Hill House and The Midnight Club.
Origin of Evil covers the backstory of Paulina Zander, a.k.a. Lina. Set in 1967, the Zanders family is grieving the death of their husband and father, Roger. Lina Zander (Annalise Basso) is the oldest daughter of Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser), a phony psychic whose readings are rife with deception. Lina and her younger sister, Doris (Lulu Wilson), stay hidden while performing special effects for their mother’s séances.
In this scenario, you have Alice worried about the house getting foreclosed, Doris bullied at school, and Lina with a crush on Mikey (Parker Mack). Meanwhile, Lina’s friends encourage her to ask Alice to use a Ouija in her séances. Here, we discover the three rules:
- Never play alone.
- Never play in a graveyard.
- Always say goodbye.
Based on this, Doris breaks the rules, becomes a conduit for the spirit world, and contacts a spirit named Marcus. Then along comes Father Tom (Henry Thomas), the high school principal. Father Tom pretends to visit for a reading to connect with his late wife, Gloria.
After the séance, he informs them that Doris did not communicate with Gloria. Instead, she contacted Marcus, a Polish immigrant kidnapped and experimented on, along with others, in their house basement by a cruel doctor (probably a Nazi – the Nazis treated the Poles almost as bad as they did the Jews) during World War II. Their Ghosts have been watching the family.
Meanwhile, Father Tom, Alice, and Lina set the Ouija on fire. But Doris manages to kill Mikey and Father Tom which is obscene because the Priest’s holiness would thwart any evil spirit easily but this is another topic. To stop the spirits from speaking, Lina sews Doris’ mouth shut and kills her instead. In a scary twist, the spirits possess Lina, and she stabs Alice.
Lina is committed to psychiatric treatment for her mother’s murder and sister’s disappearance. Later, she attempts to contact Doris but instead conjures an evil spirit.
In a post-credits scene from 2014, we see an old Lina, 47 years later, confined to an institution, visited by someone.
Ouija (2014)
The first scene of Ouija 2014 shows Debbie and Laine, two young girls, using the Ouija board. Debbie repeats the rules we already know.
A few years later, the girls are now grownups. In an eerie scene, Debbie (Shelley Henning) throws a Ouija into the fire. She has broken two rules and dies brutally. The foul play goes unnoticed; the death is deemed a suicide. But her friends want to know more.
So, Laine (Olivia Cooke), Pete (Douglas Smith), Trevor (Daren Kagasoff), Isabelle (Bianca Santos), and Laine’s sister Sarah (Ana Coto) use a Ouija board to contact Debbie. After their first séance, Laine and the others all report seeing the phrase “Hello friend” in separate incidents.
We quickly learn that the spirit is DZ, who we know to be Dorris Zander. Dorris warns them that her Mother’s spirit is evil, and lo and behold, Isabelle, gets killed.
Laine and Pete return to investigate Debbie’s home and discover a box of clues from the Zander family. Laine then visits Paulina Zander, played by the quintessential Lin Shaye, who tells her the Zander family saga.
Paulina persuades her to release Doris’s trapped spirit in the house. So, Laine and Sarah head back and free Doris, who then drives her mother’s spirit away with a scream.
Not a day later, Pete dies suspiciously like Debbie and Isabelle. Laine realizes Paulina cooperated with Doris and that Doris is the evil force, not Alice.
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Terrified now, the girls ask Nona, Laine’s grandma, who advises them to burn Doris’ body and the Ouija. Trevor dies too, but somehow the girls toss Dorris’s body and the Ouija into the fire.
Once back home, Sarah asks a pertinent question: if Doris was a conduit for many spirits, what happened to them? Later, Laine discovers that the planchette has strangely returned.
She scans through the glass, but we don’t see what she finds.
How to Watch
Origin of Evil is definitely where the story begins. With that said, watching Origin of Evil first will help you understand the plot twists in the first Ouija movie.
Still, the twists serve a purpose and deliver the film’s unpredictability. By watching Ouija: Origin of Evil first, you won’t be as surprised by the twists in Ouija. We’ll let you decide.
The Verdict: Never break the rules!
Although the Ouija movies aren’t the most thrilling, they offer scary goosebumps. But it is important going in to be prepared for the franchise and specifically knowing the Ouija movies in order and chronologically how you would want to watch them. So, bingeing is a good idea if you want to spend an evening of horror with friends, family, or even alone. And if you ever decide to play with a Ouija board, don’t forget the rules, or who knows, you will receive a message with a – Hi friend!
Last Updated on May 20, 2023.
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