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Ouija Before 'Ouija': 6 Movie Moments Featuring the Spooky Spirit Board

The Ouija board is back to scare us silly again. Hasbro just turned its hoary spook-summoning, slumber-party staple into the No. 1 movie at the box office going into Halloween week.

But Ouija is far from Hollywood’s first spin around the ol’ spirit board. The rise of spiritualism post-World War I helped fuel the popularity of Ouija — and that coincided with the advent of motion pictures. Within a very short time, cinema was embracing the board as shorthand for the occult and supernatural.

Using the online Museum of Talking Boards as our guide, we sorted through dozens of cinematic Ouija sessions to bring you six of the most notable appearances in the movies.

1. Out of the Inkwell

Before his iconic work on Superman, Betty Boop, and Popeye, animation pioneer Max Fleischer achieved some of his earliest success with Koko the Clown in the series Out of the Inkwell. This circa 1920 installment, a trippy combination of live action and rotoscope animation, marks the earliest known screen appearance of a Ouija board, which, as far as we can discern, somehow sends ghosts into Koko’s 2D realm, prompting him to leap off the page and into the real world.

2. 13 Ghosts

This 1960 fright flick checks all the boxes: haunted house, prescient kid asking questions, spirits unleashed by the Ouija board. This film sets up many of the Ouija tropes used in future films, including the boy making contact with spirits (asking, “Are there any ghosts in this house?”), the planchette moving on its own to spooky effect, and the requisite nay-saying adults (“I think this is silly… It’s rigged… That’s a toy”) who learn the hard way that they should have believed. See the full scene here.

3. The Exorcist

The 1973 horror classic features Linda Blair’s Regan happening upon a scuffed-up board in a closet, giving us the best combination of quality movie and creepy Ouija action. Through the board, she meets the mischievous “Captain Howdy.” When her mom sits down for a little Q&A, Captain Howdy offers some devilish responses. Things only get worse from there.

4. Amityville 3-D

Included here not because of its cinematic merits, but because of the stars. See the very young Meg Ryan and Lori Laughlin, before their respective When Harry Met Sally… and Full House days, tempting fate with a DIY board in the 1983 sequel. They ask, “Is anyone in this room in danger?” You don’t need a spirit guide to know the answer to that.

5. Witchboard

“It began at a party. It was only a game…” Cue Whitesnake muse Tawny Kitaen, who has a completely unhealthy devotion to her Ouija board in a 1986 low-budget flick that wound up spawning two sequels. It also helped reinforce the movie rule that you should never Ouija solo. Hence the film’s tagline: “Witchboard. Don’t play it alone.” Consider yourself warned.

6. Paranormal Activity

The 2007 found-footage frightfest, about a newlywed couple terrorized by a demon in their suburban SoCal home, features our hapless hero Micah trying to use his Ouija to chat with the evil spirit. The spirit isn’t much of a conversationalist, though, immolating the poor board. Michah gets his later.

Watch the Ouija trailer