‘Ouija: Origin of Evil’

Rated PG-13 (99 minutes.)

**

The surprises in “Ouija: Origin of Evil” have nothing to do with scares, of which there aren’t many. It’s still baseline creepy, but what’s unexpected is how character-driven, well-acted and unusually well-written the film is. Thus, it probably won’t do as well as its massively panned predecessor.

The first “Ouija” banked $103.6 million on a $5 million budget — while racking up an abysmal 7 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The prequel brings in the “Oculus” and “Before I Wake” team of director and co-writer Mike Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard. The result is a pretty good movie, just not a particularly terrifying one.

“Origin” winds back several decades to the events that generated the mean ghost of the first movie. It turns out sisters Paulina (Annalise Basso) and Doris (Lulu Wilson) Zander and mom Alice (Elizabeth Reaser) were once a close-knit, if sad, family unit. Beloved Dad died not long ago and the still-shaken clan is running a goodhearted fortune-telling scam to pay the bills. One of those wacky old Ouija boards gets brought into the action and malevolence ensues as they proceed to break every one of the game’s rules.

There’s nothing unique about the setup. But Flanagan and Howard’s script has charming touches, wringing humor out of characters rather than gags. Even the retro opening title card foretells a self-aware sense of humor, which gratefully manifests. The dialogue is dotted with meta fun such as when a teen holds up a Ouija board and says, “It’s actually really scary. You guys wanna play?” Young Alexis G. Zall, in a too-brief appearance, milks that teens-begging-for-trouble scene for every laugh it’s worth.

The family relationship is actually believable. The filmmakers manage a couple of touching moments related to the ladies’ shared grief. Reaser is solid; and the youthful Basso and Wilson are downright impressive. Henry Thomas provides admirable “Exorcist”-style ballast as the well-meaning priestly principal of the girls’ Catholic school.

There are casually creepy shots and nice horror-movie setups, too, as the ghosts start to have their way with the kids. Not even those virtues can lift “Origin” high above the weight of familiarity, though. It’s all stuff we’ve seen before, horror-wise, especially in Japanese ghost fare. Flanagan seems to know this and, sadly, resorts to the in-vogue practice of shattering audiences’ eardrums to make them jump. His interesting images are badly undercut by hammer-to-the-brain sound design that bashes the viewer out of the experience.

It also doesn’t help that, in an otherwise smart script, there don’t seem to be any rules for the evil spirits.

Still, this “Before They Were Evil” exercise is more than freaky, and it’s fun enough to justify its existence.