Tuesday, February 3, 2015

I Am Zozo (2012)

Five friends travel to an island on Halloween to spend the weekend partying at a nice home.  When they arrive, they find the electricity is out. So they gather flashlights and firewood to prepare for when it gets dark.

One of the girls is a Wiccan and surprise! she brought a Ouija board for them to use.  Wait, something sounds familiar.  Isolated home? No way off the island? The electricity is out?  Using a Ouija board in the dark? Nope, no cliches here!

Two of the kids put on blindfolds, which I've never seen when using the board, and someone else transcribes the letters that the planchette lands on.

These are some lucky Ouija players because every time they ask if a spirit is in the room, the answer is yes.  The first few times, the spirits are friendly. But then they get a spirit named Zozo. Although his name sounds like he'd be a high talking clown on a unicycle, things quickly get creepy when he says he's going to kill Tess. Another night of Ouija gone wrong. Will these kids ever learn?

For the first part of the film, I often felt like I was watching a home movie.  The camera is handheld and the dialogue is mundane.  It was way too much like being in the room with them, and that 's not a good thing. Overall, not much happens in this film until the end, and then it's just a girl having an asthma attack. So other than spooky hijinks with the board, and some doors slamming, there's not much to see.

This movie starts and ends noting that it is based on true events, and includes a quote from Darren Evans. No idea who he is, but one of the extras is an interview with him about his experiences with Zozo.  Due to the marketing plans of recent films, you'll wonder whether this is real or just promotion for the film.  A google search brings up a web page for Darren, as well as a twitter account that is currently promoting Ouijacon 2015.  How much you want to bet someone attending Ouijacon will attempt to call Zozo?  How could you resist?

I have mixed opinions on Ouija boards. On the one hand, my brother, cousins and I played with one a few times when we were kids.  Everyone swore they weren't moving the planchette when it moved.  Later I heard Ouija boards are not to be messed with because when you open the door, you never know what may come through.  I never thought of that, so I don't touch them anymore.  Because I'd be pretty pissed off if a demon attached itself to my back, and I had to spend the rest of my life carrying that thing around just because I used the stupid board for fun.

On the other hand, Ouija boards are sold as a game by Hasbro or Parker Brothers, so how dangerous could they actually be? No company is going to take the chance of selling potentially dangerous boards that could conjure an evil spirit who could hurt a small child.  Although I'm surprised some lame crazy parent hasn't sued the manufacturer claiming that a ghost has attacked their child or the board caused the kid psychological problems.

The sailor hat with the red pompom is really distracting.

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