Discovering a link from this world to a more sinister realm for dwelling lost souls and dealing with the quintessential terror that accompanies hauntings seems to be the premise for too many horror movies.

The most recent installment of this type of horror movie, Ouija, uses this premise to terrorize five young adults who attempt to use a Ouija board to open a connection to the undead and communicate with a friend that has mysteriously passed away.

During the process, the group discovers that what had disguised itself as their late friend turned out to be an evil spirit bent on killing everyone involved in the Ouija activity; thus the cliché continues.

I don’t know what is most frightening about this movie: the plot itself, strung together with loose-ends built upon the trite poor decisions of each character, or the acting.

In one sequence involving the main character, Laine, played by Olivia Cooke, rummaging the attic for clues scene, we know all too well that her faint source of light (and the only subsequent beacon of security for the suspended audience) would flicker on-and-off as she aptly continues to ignore tell-tale signs of her impending doom.

Still, what should be the epic horror-inducing climaxes of these suspenseful scenes are more like an epic fizzle; much like blowing air into a balloon until it reaches a watermelon size, expecting the balloon to very audibly burst, but instead just deflates in that flatulent-sounding magnitude.

Putting aside some of the over-used plot elements embedded in the film, Ouija occasionally catches you off-guard causing popcorn-flinging fits of fear. Though this happens scarcely, and makes the countless anti-climactic scenes all the more disappointing by comparison.

These sudden-jump tricks, in all intents and purposes, lack any sort of creative planning, rendering them cheap to say the least; anything that loudly pops out of nowhere is going to make you jump.