From the appalling collaboration between two companies—-one co-founded by Michael Bay and another that makes toys for children—-arose another frightful creation (not “Transformers”): the latest horror movie, “Ouija”. As messy as the makeup on the character’s faces and as scary as a board game could possibly be, this movie hit thetheaters on Oct. 24. Both the critics and the public were horrifically disappointed in the movie.

Almost as much as they were confused with the pronunciation of the title.

“Ouija,” pronounced “wee-jee”, is an American horror film directed and written by Stiles White and Juliet Snowden. Actors Olivia Cooke, Daren Kagasoff, Douglas Smith and Bianca A. Santos made up the cast of horribly inept, emotionally impaired teenagers.

Normally, when your best friend from childhood dies, you won’t approach her boyfriend a day later and aggressively interrogate him regarding her actions and mood prior to her apparent suicide. You also Also, you wouldn’t try to release a ghost from a prison because a crazy old lady in an asylum told you so.

The movie follows a group of friends, as they investigate the death of a former friend who had filmed herself using a ouija board, which, honestly, is a bad idea. (If your friend dies under mysterious circumstances, do not tamper with dark forces beyond your comprehension. Do not listen to a clearly insane woman in a mental asylum. And don’t listen to your idiot friend who got two of your friends killed and everyone else cursed.

In cinema, basing a movie off of any board game automatically makes it awkward and contrived (Case in point: “Battleship” (2012)).

It doesn’t take a psychic to predict what happens in the movie. The only unpredictable part was the ridiculous cop out at the end. Otherwise, the movie was merelyliterally a collection of every horror cliche the directors thought they could squeeze in a 90 minute long movie. Creepy doll? You got it. Dead evil little girl spirit and an ancient burial ground? Sure, time for more exposition. Flickering lights and shutting doors? Here are 50 of those, enjoy. An actually frightening monster/force of nature? Well…

In other words, the movie was not scary. Sure, it had plenty of jump scares, but that was all there was to it. Sneaking up on people and screaming “boo” at them every five minutes isn’t frightening. It’s annoying. Just like “Ouija.”

While it would be unfair (though very satisfying) to completely criticize the movie, “Ouija” did have some rather decent moments. The movie somehow turned dental floss into a freakish demonic murder tool.  Lin Shaye, from “Insidious”, pulls off a crazy good crazy old lady, and her insane rant near the end was one of the few highlights of the movie. Unfortunately, just like “Godzilla” (2014), the best character of the movie appeared twice for a grand total of five minutes of screen time. Four of those minutes were for exposition.

A producer cannot just make a movie about anything. They can make a movie about training dragons to be your personal weapon of mass destruction. They can make a movie about giant alien robots fighting other giant alien robots over a giant alien magic Rubix Cube. But not board games. Please. The five people who left in the middle of the climax agree. The movie theatre had 10 people left, but it was like no one was there at all.

Perhaps “Ouija” would be better if theatres were in the void of space. That way, they would have a valid reason for the silence and complete lack of screams.

“Ouija” did not introduce anything new to the horror genre. It depends too heavily on typical horror cliches, increasingly ineffective jump scares and an incompetent cast of actors who either cannot act or cannot appear on screen enough to redeem this mummified corpse of the horror genre and save it from the reviewers who stand guard against terrible terrors like “Ouija.”

Had the audience been given an Ouija board and a whole school of spirits, they still would not be able to deduce any artistic, entertainment or existential value in this movie. If an Ouija board should never be played with…

then “Ouija” should never be watched.

This story was reported by Brandon Chin, Justin Kim and Aditya Pimplaskar