As kids, best friends Debbie and Laine used to play with Laine's Ouija board. It was merely a creepy little diversion since neither of them really believed the game was connecting them to "other side." So it was just the eerie idea that some ghostly figure had its invisible hand on the planchette with theirs—moving the plastic pointer from letter to letter on the board—that kept them going at it, giggling all the while. 

The rules they played by? (Laine had picked them up somewhere and said they should never be broken.) You never played alone. You never played in a graveyard. You always said goodbye at the end of each session. And you began with these words: "As friends we've gathered, hearts are true. Spirits near, we call to you."

It was all just fun and, well, games, right? They figured, why would calling out to dead spirits be a problem?

A few years later, Debbie was cleaning out her dusty old attic when she stumbled upon a very old Ouija board and some other creepy remnants. This hand-painted board had a planchette carved out of wood. And the pieces were so antique-looking and cool that Debbie just had to dust them off and give them a try. She even decided to record herself using the board while sitting in her bedroom. Alone. 

Here we have yet another woeful byproduct of that much ballyhooed partnership between Hasbro and Universal Pictures. Because this is far from family board game fun at the Cineplex.

Rather, this movie feels like it was the result of a gaggle of writers—assigned a title and a deadline—just haphazardly jotting down every tired ghost story trope they could think of. From the creepy doll in the attic to the hidden torture room in the basement to the found footage of a teen dabbling with evil to the crazy kids who keep coming back for more ... well, the tale stretches logic and any sort of sense to the snapping point on numerous occasions.

It's a serious subject, though, the use of a Ouija board. And at least this cinematic jump scene smorgasbord—with its creepy collection of nasty teen murders and twisted spirituality—curiously informs us that communing with the dead will, um, get you dead. That it's not appealing in any way. And that you should run far, far away if any of your friends think it's a cool idea. Take that at face value, and Scripture gives the sentiment two thumbs up, so we certainly will too. 

Still, "It might pique their interest, especially if it's something they haven't played or thought about in a long time," says Jesse Cruz, manager of the Puzzle Zoo toy store in Los Angeles. "There's always some curiosity that comes with these things." And, indeed, it's the idea of playing with fire, getting "in touch" with something dangerous that compels many teens to play around with Ouija boards. So is it misbegotten and odd or accidentally clever, then, that this Hasbro-approved movie delivers the dictum: BURN ALL OUIJA BOARDS!