Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019
Images from the Internet
Ouija Room (aka Haunting Inside)
Directed by Henrique Couto
New Dynamic Pictures
78 minutes, 2019
The indie filming scene
around Dayton, Ohio, is not to be ignored. There is a core of directors and
actors that overlap into a powerful and quite interesting clique of artists,
such as Henrique Couto and Erin R. Ryan, among others.
For this release,
director Couto has assembled some of his regulars and also new talent to
release a demonic tale involving a Ouija board and the requisite evil spirits.
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| Joni Durian |
The center of the film
is troubled Sylvia (lovely Joni Durian), who has several mental ailing, such as
ADHD, agoraphobia (fear of leaving the house), OCD and seems to be somewhere on
the autistic spectrum. Durian does a strong job playing a wide range of
emotions right from the first scene, which is off-putting until the viewer
realizes pretty quickly that she’s not just quirky, but rather disturbed.
Her guardianship is in
the hands of her brother Sammy (Couto’s go-to actor John Hambrick), who
obviously cares for her, but is on the brink. He buys board games that she
likes to play solo and watches whatever Sylvia wants to see on television (but
no indication of a computer or cell phone for her). He also does his best to stop
her from self-destructive behavior and tries to help her focus on a task. He’s
getting to the point of burning out and drinking too much. Sammy’s girlfriend
is Rebecca (Ryan), who often comes to visit and is a seemingly calming
influence and supportive of Sammy’s taking care of Sylvia.
Among the stack of games
Sammy misguidedly brings home from a comic store, of course, is said Ouija board.
If there’s a Ouija and it’s on-screen, you know trouble and malevolent forces
are not far behind; especially when the dissonant note music starts on the
soundtrack when the board is introduced. Just so you know, I am not giving
anything away here, this is the basic set-up to the action in the first few
minutes of the film.
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| John Hambrick |
Sylvia is obsessed
with two things: games of any sort and a desire to make friends (she feels like
those she watches on television are “friends” in the same way we believe that
people we don’t really know or have met on social media are “friends”). And it
is these two things that Sylvia’s trio of spirits of the Ouija board manipulate
for their own purposes.
The title of the film is
a bit of a double entendre because Sylvia is house bound by her OCD fears of
going outside since her parents died, and the much-desired friends/spirits are
also within the domicile. The second meaning for quite a while is that the trio
may actually be inside her mind as well. For example, the board’s planchette moves
in extremely fast circles, but she is still able to “read” it (without the audience
having to watch everything tediously spelled out). This is a nice touch that
enhances the complexity of the story, and of Sylvia’s mind; she’s not stupid,
just troubled with mental illness.
It’s understandable
that Sylvia is attracted to these spirits: they appear caring, tell her truthful
dark secrets about others in a blunt manner, and keep reminding her that they
are all in the middle of playing “a game.” The purpose of said game is the question
the audience will be asking, though it comes across as obvious very soon (hey,
it’s a relatively short – but perfect length – film).
Couto seems to do well
avoiding clichés, but he does have his tropes. As in many of his films, one of
the main characters is a struggling writer. Perhaps this is Couto’s own real-life
haunting inside (note that this film was written by Dan Wilder, but certainly Couto
had some influences on the story).
Dorian’s acting style can
be quite jarring here, as she shows the audience Sylvia’s brain trying to
process the information of what is happening around her. It took a couple of
minutes to get into the vibe of it until her situation is understood, so it works
well. Her moments of lucidity under the guidance of the spirits becomes the
oddity, which works really well. Most of the rest of the cast is pretty good in
their performances; the spirits can be a bit over the top in the acting
department here and there, but in the long run it all works together.
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| Erin R. Ryan |
These spirits, wisely,
are very different from not only the principal characters, but among themselves.
Also, they are different from most other demons (I’m assuming) you would expect
from this sub-genre. They are a little girl obviously played by an adult (Alia
Gabrielle Eckhardt), a wise-acre wiseguy gambler in a sharp suit who
also helps Sylvia with recipes in the kitchen (Joe Kidd),
and a punk rocker who wears her hair in a distracting Misfits’ front rattail style
(Rachael Redolfi). As I said, Couto does not usually dwell in the house
of cliché.
While most of the cast
is attractive, there is no nudity or sex, a low body count per se, and little
bloody visceral material, but the story easily holds the attention of the
viewer anyway as this really is character based more than SFX. That being said,
there are some beautifully shot sequences that are effectively unnerving, such
as Sammy’s recurring dreams about Sylvia’s future.
If you’re looking for
knives and gore, there are other Couto films to check out, such as Babysitter
Massacre (2013), but this is, as I said, story- and character-based, and I
say it’s all the better for it.
