Review: Ouija Death Trap

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019
Images from the Internet

Ouija Death Trap (aka Spirits)

Directed by Todd Sheets
Extreme Entertainment / Jackalope Media / Wild Eye Releasing / MVD Entertainment
74 minutes, 2014 / 2018
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Back in the 2010s, director Todd Sheets had a health scare that put him out of commission for a few years. He’s been back for a while now, and I personally think his newer films are better than ever. This found footager was one of his early “return” releases. While I’m not a found footage fan, I am one of Sheets, and decided to give it a try.

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Dakota Lassen, Raven Reed, Jessica Hopkins

tarting life under the title Spirits, the new name is reflective of supernatural goings on, of course. For our story, high schooler Raven (Raven Reed) has an internship at ShadowView Manor (great name), which has a reputation for being haunted. So, natch, she and her school pal friends – Jessica (Jessica Hopkins), Kota (Dakota Lassen) and William (William Christopher Epperson) – sneak into the office complex building, each with a camera to explore.

Like many films where there are a group heading out to a mysterious place, there is the older guy to fill in the back story, in this case the janitor (John O’Hara, looking and playing very different and almost unrecognizable from Sheets’ later film, Clownado). He’s kind of creepy in his telling of how the building used to be a brothel and how a priest came in and killed everyone; in fact, this is a de facto sequel to Sheets’ House of Forbidden Secrets (2014), and if I am right, it even takes place in the same structure (which I recognized from the earlier film).



John O'Hara

One of the positives about this is the high school kids actually look like high school kids. No thirty year olds pretending to be seniors. I’m grateful for that, because when it’s actors who are older playing younger, I find it distracting – and annoying.

 

So our intrepid quartet meets the janitor, and then starts to roam around the joint, and sure enough strange things begin to happen. People pop in and out, dolls and furniture move by themselves, and before long, our intrepid ghost hunters are terrified, jumping from floor to floor on the elevator (there’s three storeys, according to the buttons). Then they start getting dragged off somewhere by some mysterious beings, the spookiest of which is a girl who looks to be around their own age.

As I said, I’m not a big fan of the found footage genre, and this definitely has a bit of the best and worst of that. For the worst part, it’s the running around with the cameras in the dark, which is really annoying to view. Also, we get glimpses of things that scare them, and they react before we get the chance to see what terrified them in the first place; the oft response, “Are you fucking kidding me?!” does not answer what they are screaming about. They spend most of their time screaming at the top of their lungs. They’re afraid, I get it, but the screech level gets to ya after a while, y’know?



Jessica Hopkins, William Christopher Epperson 

As for the best of, thankfully Sheets works that well, with doors opening by themselves, or releasing hiding spirits; and things moving on their own are creepy. Sure, you know every time the elevator door opens, there’s a chance that there may be something supernatural to meet them, and sometimes there is but not always (another smart move), so it keeps the audience on their toes, as well. For me, the scariest thing in horror films is a closed door that’s about to be opened.

 

Another nice touch is that this appears to be happening in real time, so the events are in the less than 90 minutes time frame. This gives it a bit of a framework, though I’m not sure who was supposed to have edited the four simultaneous cameos (Sheets edited the film). What I also liked is that while this may be a sequel, it also works as a standalone, so you don’t need to know the previous film at all, House of Forbidden Secrets, even though I strongly recommend it as it is quite enjoyable.

The actors definitely come across as honestly scared, which is nice. According to the ending credits, they didn’t know what they were facing when they agreed to film it so they were genuinely frightened. This may be true or not, but it was effective in the screaming and whining. This was also all of their first films.

I realize I’m all over the map about this, whether I liked it or not, but that’s okay. For a genre that tends to bore me, Sheets managed to keep my attention until about 50 minutes in, when I started to weary a bit of the running and screeching. However, it became more interesting close to the end, so I was able to snap back into the story. I’m grateful for that.

The only extras are some Wild Eye Releasing trailers, which are always fun. Meanwhile, Sheets keeps getting better, and I certainly look forward to seeing a lot more of his upcoming films. And while you're at it, especially check out his werewolf release, Bonehill Road.