10 Prequel Movies That Improved The Original

Now, it's fair to say that the bar was in hell when Universal announced a prequel to their deeply lame 2014 horror romp Ouija, which was near-universally panned by critics but scared up a storm at the box office. However, Ouija: Origin of Evil isn't merely a no-effort cash-in - it's fortunate enough to be co-written and directed by one of the horror genre's most distinctive current voices, Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House).

While it's easy enough to enjoy Origin of Evil as a standalone horror movie focused on a "fortune teller" (Elizabeth Reaser) who gets more than she bargained for when she introduces a Ouija board into her routine, it does about the most stand-up job imaginable of providing a worthwhile lead-in to the original film.

Did anyone need to know the particulars of how Ouija's malevolent entity came to be? No, but that only makes it all the more impressive that Flanagan actually made folks give a damn.