Photograph: Allstar/Universal Pictures
The 2014 Ouija movie was a confusing way to drum up notoriety for the Hasbro supernatural board game (buy it, you’ll love it; don’t buy it, it’ll kill you). This prequel makes the rules clearer: Ouija is safe to play, just not in a graveyard – or in a nice suburban home that happens to have a charnel house backstory. Engaging up-and-comer Annalise Basso plays the sceptical daughter of a phoney medium (Elizabeth Reaser), whose home life turns seismically shaky when her kid sister (eerily candid Lulu Wilson) starts coming over all Linda Blair. Once director Mike Flanagan pulls the big bumps-and-thumps lever, the cause is pretty much lost, but the first hour keeps the suspense admirably taut, the 1967 period setting and sense of domestic claustrophobia bringing a twist of style that puts this way ahead of the first ho-hum chapter.
