Genre Research - Similar Films

Ouija (2014)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Age Rating: 15
A girl is mysteriously killed after recording herself playing with an ancient Ouija board which leads to a close group of friends to investigate this board. They later find out that some things aren't meant to be played with, especially the 'other side'.
Ouija Official Trailer

This film is very similar to our short film idea because the storyline is very similar. Both the film and our idea include a group of friends getting together to use a Ouija board to make contact with their dead friend. However, the difference with our film is our characters don't know their friend is dead and so they start the Ouija board without him which leads to them finding out the truth.

I looked into some reviews of the film from the IMDb website. The majority of people who had left a review said that the film was boring due to unoriginality. One review mentioned how teenagers help the success of a film, and I believe this to be true especially in horror films because teenagers appeal to a wide young audience and make the typical characters in a horror film due to their lack of life experience and stereotypical attitudes and rebellion.


 Since our film follows a very similar storyline it is important that we do something different to avoid a negative response although this could be difficult due to the fact that there isn't much of a storyline development with a topic as simple as a Ouija board. We certainly should give our film a more exciting and intriguing name than 'Ouija' to avoid audiences judging our film before it's release, we don't want our audience to think our film will be predictable throughout. Although this film has some bad reviews it was a success at the box office. The film had an estimated budget of $5,000,000 and earned a total of $20,006,000 on the opening weekend in America. Two months after the release, the film made a total gross of $50,820,940 therefore proving that audiences did want to see this film. However, the time of the film release most likely contributed to the film's success, the film was released in time for Halloween - if it was released in the summer it probably wouldn't have been as successful as the box office. Another potential reason for the success of the film could have been the director; Stiles White who is known for his work in 'The Sixth Sense' which is a very popular mystery thriller about a boy who communicates with spirits.

The film includes low key lighting, especially when the teenagers are playing with the board. There is also a lot of green within the film whether it's in the background or a filter done through editing, it's predominantly there throughout. Green has connotations of money, nature, birth, luck, emotions and jealousy. Within the film perhaps the use of green represents the characters feelings towards each other and the 'birth' of the supernatural presence invading their lives. The shade of green used is dark and grainy which is a connotation of horror as dark colours are uncomforting. However, the colour green as a whole could possibly only represent the supernatural presence that has come into their lives and since the colour is used throughout the film it could suggest that the supernatural presence is always with them. Along with the green there are also some blue hues which can be created through lighting and editing. Blue has connotations of trust, innocence, faith, intelligence, loyalty, heaven and confidence. In the film the colour blue could be used to represent the trust within the friendship of these teenagers and the innocence they share since they aren't bad people. It could also represent that their dead friend is in heaven which is the reason why these friends have come together to use the Ouija board to get answers. They also have confidence in using the board and as a friendship group they are loyal to each other - even when their friend is dead they are still loyal to her. These two colours dominate the screen in almost every single scene which tells us they are there for representations, perhaps this is a new technique being slowly introduced to horror films as the majority of horror films don't often include colours filtered in, just low key lighting.