In popular culture
Ouija boards have figured prominently in horror tales in various media as devices enabling malevolent spirits to scare their users.
In the 1919 American comedy film When the Clouds Roll By, Douglas Fairbanks asks his board: "Ouija - can two live as cheaply as one?"
In the 1960 supernatural horror film 13 Ghosts, the Zorba family plays the game "Ouija, the mystifying oracle".
Episodes of Lost in Space ("Ghost in Space" (1966)) and The Waltons ("The Ghost Story" (1974)) have spirit boards as part of their plots.
A Ouija board is an early part of the plot of the 1973 horror film The Exorcist. Using a Ouija board the young girl Regan makes what first appears to be harmless contact with an entity named "Captain Howdy". She later becomes possessed by a demon.
Based on Ouija Board, a song and album of the name, Ojah Awake, by Osibisa, was released in 1976.
The 1986 film Witchboard and its sequels center on the use of Ouija. The 1991 film And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird features use of a Ouija board in an important early scene. What Lies Beneath (2000) includes a séance scene with a board. Paranormal Activity (2007) involves a violent entity haunting a couple that becomes more powerful when the Ouija board is used.
Since the early 1990s, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has used several guitars featuring Ouija board graphics on the body of the guitar itself. These have been produced by both ESP and their subsidiary LTD.[59]
Aparichithan (The Stranger) is a 2004 Indian Malayalam-language horror film. The plot centers around a Ouija board and spiritualism.
Another 2007 film, Ouija, depicted a group of adolescents whose use of the board causes a murderous spirit to follow them. In 2011, The Ouija Experiment portrayed a group of friends whose use of the board opens, and fails to close, a portal between the worlds of the living and the dead.[60] The 2012 film I Am Zozo follows a group of people that run afoul of a demon, based on Pazuzu, after using a Ouija board.[61] The 2014 film Ouija features a group of friends whose use of the board prompts a series of deaths.[62] A 2016 prequel, Ouija: Origin of Evil, also features the device.
Romancham (Goosebumps) is a 2023 Malayalam-language horror-comedy film. The plot involves several bachelors from Bangalore who improvise a Ouija board from a Carrom game.[63][64]
The British singer Morrissey released a controversial single titled "Ouija Board, Ouija Board" in 1989. The lyrics and the video of the song mockingly play with the idea of supernaturally contacting dead persons.
The rap group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony referenced Ouija on their Horrorcore albums Creepin on ah Come Up and E. 1999 Eternal, having been inspired by seeing the board at Toys "R" Us.[65]
Jeremy Gans' 2017 nonfiction book, The Ouija Board Jurors: Mystery, Mischief and Misery in the Jury System, based on an article he wrote for the University of Melbourne,[66] recounts an incident in which four jurors sought the help of a Ouija board during a double murder trial, both for guidance and to relieve the stress precipitated by the brutal images of evidence.[66]
The National Geographic show Brain Games Season 5 episode "Paranormal" clearly showed the board did not work when all participants were blindfolded.[67]
The sitcom Steptoe and Son in Series 8 Episode 6, includes a scene with a Ouija board where Harold briefly fools Albert into believing that they are in contact with the ghost of Adolf Hitler.[68]
Ouija boards appear in the video game Phasmophobia as an item investigators can use to communicate with the ghost, although using it can prove dangerous.
Ouija Board ( ওইজা বোর্ড ) is a Bangladeshi television drama directed by Humayun Ahmed and starring Bipasha Hayat, Shila Ahmed, Al Monsoor, Dilara Zaman, Abul Hayat and others.
The novel The Stand by Stephen King features a Ouija board (referred to only as a planchette) as a plot device.
