The Ouija Experiment (2011)

Eric Window: "Baby, I promise you. It's not gonna be on YouTube.
It's not gonna be on Sex Tube. The only place it's gonna be is on my tube."

Miranda Martinez scar
(SFX makeup artist Josh Fread)

At a glance:
Apparently shot with just $1,200, filmmaker Israel Luna (Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives, 2010) has completed The Ouija Experiment (2011), now sensibly retitled The Realm for its DVD release, in an attempt to either avoid legal wrangles with Hasbro head honchos or sound less like a bargain bin staple. Unfortunately, the package cannot escape its poor "found footage" pedigree, not even in its very first few minutes when most movies of its ilk would succeed in flatterin to deceive. It opens with a pretentiously weak title card about the titular occult object and a very annoyin actress of Vietnamese descent named Belmarie Huynh. She's soon followed by a motley crue of similarly inane and disengagin characters with their embarrassingly hammy lines.

Bad news on the doorstep:

It's the kind of movie I'd really look forward to if all my friends are in it.

Perennial wonderment:

Surely you'd ask about lottery numbers
instead of cheating boyfriends, no?

When will this genre bring somethin new to the table? Here's a list of some of the ho-hum found footage films I've sat through recently - The Tunnel Movie (2011), Another Kind (2011), The Jungle (2013) and Absence (2013). Of all these, The Ouija Experiment is certainly no better.

Reminds me of:

The last ouija board effort I watched was Ouija (2007) a.k.a. Seance. That was a Filipino effort by Topel Lee and it had a hot chick or two at least.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

"Whattt???"

Maybe if they had just shot the ouija-playin bits in a conventional format and then added the elaborate 10-min flashback sequence towards the end, it would've worked better. Also, the fact that there's also a video webchat interface midway when the characters contacts someone online fatally takes us out of the "found footage" experience. Oh, well. You can check out its official Facebook fan page for more information. Otherwise, jog on.★1/2

Bonus material:

Leah Diaz as Gracie.

Seance (2007) @ Ouija

At a glance:
The spirit of the glass deserves better than this Filipino caper where Final Destination-meets-Ju-On, released internationally as Seance or so I read. Actually, movies from the Philippines are kinda amusin because they always speak the first part of the sentence in Tagalog and then the rest in English. However, this ploddin movie has too little goin for it and wouldda ended up in some film market's buy-one-free-two bargain bin if not for the hot girls.

Whoops.

Bad news on the doorstep:
It's a shyte film, what can I say? It is however, more watchable than, say, Siquijor: Mystic Island but that's not sayin much.
Reminds me of:
Mavic (pronounced Marvey, innit Ons?) whom I was supposed to take to watch this, before she bloody disappeared.
Watch out for:
Iza Calzado (top pic, centre), a real fine piece of Filipina fruit. Looks like a more chiselled version of Sarimah Ibrahim. Apparently got into the public eye after a Pantene ad and counts her cellular as her most treasured item. What a bimbo. Very nice.

Most memorable line:
"I don't want to be bitten by a snake, I don't even have a love life yet". And yes, in that accent. Fuckin hilarious.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
One and a half. Sad excuse for a movie but probably did good things for the girls' profiles and got them into the good books of GMA Films.