Written and directed by Masaya Kato
Starring Ariel Sekiya, Miharu Chiba, Eigi Kodaka
Runtime: 1 hour 18 minutes
Languages: Japanese, English
Currently on Amazon Prime, Blu-Ray on October 19

by Audrey Callerstrom, Associate Editor and Staff Writer

Shortly after I had volunteered to review Ouija Japan I was like

At first I thought that Ouija Japan was a continuation of Ouija (2014) and Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016). Origin of Evil was a high note for the franchise, bringing Mike Flanagan, of Hush, Oculus, and recently, multiple Netflix horror series, to direct. Then I looked at the IMDB page, the promo photos. No, this was something completely different. The poster image looks like an airport paperback. The promo photo is… the poster image. This is the kind of movie where what sounds like music that you can license for free online plays throughout multiple scenes, even when people are talking. If it looks cheap, and it sounds cheap, well…

Karen Fujimoto (Ariel Sekiya) is an American who lives in Japan with her Japanese husband. She makes a living by completing surveys, but struggles with the language barrier. She finds the locals hostile, except for her one friend and ally, Satsuki (Miharu Chiba). The performances feel  unrehearsed and awkward, as if each new character who shows up was a reluctant friend of the crew, there to do a favor. Sekiya’s acting is particularly painful. She talks as though she’s as bored with the movie as we are. Karen’s husband’s default reaction is a hearty, fake laugh, as if “Ha ha ha!” was written in the script. Maybe it was.

Ouija Japan doesn’t have the aggressive badness that The Room has, but it really reminded me of The Room. And if you’re like “Ha ha ha! I love The Room!” Please remember that it was one idiot asshole’s project and that it is barely art. It is a bad thing.* Ouija Japan makes some of those mistakes in its overused, repetitive (and likely free) soundtrack, exposition-heavy dialogue, and empty exchanges that are supposed to carry weight. There is some bad dubbing of English, in addition to some other bad automated dialogue replacement. Through more awkward exchanges, Karen joins the local housewives on a trip to get to know them better and work on her Japanese. The women decide to play Kokkuri-San, a game similar to Ouija which summons a “fox demon.” Letters are written on paper and you push a penny around with your finger. 

The film is cheap and tedious and takes forever to really gain momentum, if you’re still watching by the time, nearly a half hour in, when the penny explodes with blood. There’s a related app which guides them through the game, and the number of victims remaining pops up on the screen. Not the screen of the app - the upper left screen of the film. So the film really isn’t about Ouija at all, it just sets the stage for a slasher flick with a villain in a fox mask and performances so bad they’re not worth the time or energy to watch and laugh at. Which reminds me, I feel like Countdown, the movie about an app that tells you how long you have left to live, was a sufficiently entertaining film. Go watch that, or anything else, instead.

*Your time on Earth is finite. Sure, it can be fun, soothing, and heck, sometimes even validating to watch something you know will be bad. But you deserve to watch good things, and you should watch them sincerely.