Witchboard (1986)

good back-story, and good acting

A lot of fun.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Auburn vixen Linda (Tawny Kitaen) has split with whiny rich guy Brandon (Stephen Nichols) and taken up with hard-drinking bozo Jim (Todd Allen). Brandon and Jim, formerly friends now hate each other. Thus inviting Brandon to their house is Linda's mistake, one which snowballs when Brandon whips out a party game - his Ouija board.Contacting his favourite spirit - the ghost of a little boy named David whilst Jim makes snide remarks having been goaded by Brandon all evening results in an apparent spiritual disturbance. Brandon leaves the Ouija board behind angrily leaving the party.With it left on her coffee table Linda uses the board more and more and starts acting weird neglecting other aspects of her life. Mysterious phenomena follow including an incident which results in the death of one of Jim's co-workers.A flighty valley girl medium (Kathleen Wilhoite) is brought in by Brandon to make David leave Jim and Linda's house. It all happens but not really according to plan. Within an hour of visiting the house the medium is dead under mysterious and grisly circumstances. Brandon thinks he knows why but Jim remains skeptical. Doing a little detective work to investigate the mystery leads to a deadly confrontation with a dark power.Kathleen Wilhoite is almost never less than fantastic in any role. Her performance in this however was just too badly written for her to do much with. Same thing with every other part in this appalling turkey that made several convincing actors look bad. It was the first feature for a bad director who didn't exactly improve with experience. Multiple errors in various aspects of post-production betray the poor planning, continuity and editing.The viewer wouldn't know it by what is seen here but believe it or not Tawny Kitaen and Stephen Nichols are decent actors when given good material and direction. Both have proved that countless times even on soap operas. Kitaen actually showed she could do comedy in her unforgettable guest spot on Seinfeld among other roles.Kitaen might have had more of a career if she hadn't done so much drek including those goofy music videos she did for her schlock-rocker boyfriend/husband David Coverdale. Having also posed for album covers by the metal band RATT she was the ultimate prize for head-bangers in the 1980s. But it did not serve her in carving out a niche and gain quality roles. That took a lot of hard work little of which was seen in this production.

Writer / director Kevin S. Tenny ensured cult genre status for himself in the 1980s with this film and "Night of the Demons". This particular film wouldn't suit all horror fans, as it's slowly paced, not really ever that scary, and is more plot-heavy than one might expect. In fact, it's better written than one might expect, features decent performances, and it never becomes a blatant cheese fest, indulging in a little bit of gore but never featuring much in the way of special effects. Some of the camera-work is genuinely effective, and the characters are entertaining and basically likable.Still, it can get annoying and repetitive. People are forever scaring each other in this thing. One may grow weary of these jump scares. It's all played with a dash of humour that never becomes too prevalent.Todd Allen and 1980s hottie Tawny Kitaen star as Jim and Linda, a young couple who mess with the supernatural when her ex-boyfriend Brandon (soap opera veteran Stephen Nichols) brings a Ouija board to a party and contacts the spirit of a dead 10 year old boy. Linda is intrigued and it doesn't take long for her to become obsessed with using the board. Then the spirit starts acting up and killing the occasional person, and Jim and Brandon end up working together to solve this mystery.Adding to the fun factor is Kathleen Wilhoites' performance as eccentric medium Zarabeth; she's appealing in a calculatedly but enjoyably kooky way. Burke Byrnes is good as the amiable detective working the case. Rose Marie makes a special appearance as a landlady. And J.P. Luebsen is memorable even with very limited screen time; he's quite creepy.Overall Tenney's debut is worth catching for the aficionado of horror from this decade.Followed by two sequels in which the only common element is a Ouija board.TTFN.Seven out of 10.

Director Kevin Tenney will probably be best remembered for a certain little splatter-and-sleaze fest known as Night of the Demons, (not to be mixed up with that lovable 'Bigfoot the rapist' flick, Night of the Demon), but thanks to the fine folks at Anchor Bay, we can enjoy his debut feature again, fully restored and remastered.Ah yes, there is nothing like screwing around with a Ouija board to tick off some evil spirits. When you were a kid, everyone knew some guys brother's friend who had a piano drop on his head through the roof of his house and had his corpse molested by Satan after he played with a Ouija board. It was one of those things you just don't do! Have some respect for the dead! Witchboard follows the consequences of giving the unliving the greasy goose after a party being held by yuppyish feisty redhead Linda (Tawney Kitaen) results in her getting a tad too attached to that unholy piece of cardboard. One of her guests, Brandon, used it to communicate with the spirit of a little dead boy named David, but after accidentally leaving it behind, Linda starts using the board on her own, much to the disgust of her bullish boyfriend Jim. At first, the spirit seems friendly, it helps Linda find a lost ring. But when Jim's friend on the construction site dies suspiciously under some old collapsed scaffold, it isn't long before Brandon puts two and two together to come up with 666, and the evil spirit fights to take control of Linda in an attempt to be reborn and destroy her for good.You can probably piece together what happens for the most part. Brandon hires a wonky psychic to exorcise the demon, but this only angers up the spirit who launches a full on assault on those trying to expose it. As Linda gets sicker and more unstable, it's up to Jim and Brandon to get to the bottom of who the ghost really is if they want to save Linda's life. Oh yeah, throw in some annoying detective who likes to speak in riddles for no good reason at all! In terms of a low budget film made in the mid 80's, this one still has a lot going for it. The filmmakers made a brave choice to go against the grain and to tone down on needless gore and to up tension and atmosphere. The film is a slow burner, taking it's time to develop the creepy stuff, and allow the story to play out naturally. Tenney gets quite creative in terms of how it is filmed, and actually manages to get some genuine scares and a sense of dread before the OTT ending kicks in. The acting is reasonable for the most part, with only the 'annoying as a pubic hair between the teeth' psychic Zarabeth really grating. It's funny how 80's horror males usually either look like ridiculous nerds or ridiculous homosexuals. Jim and Brandon fall into the latter category. These boys sure knew how to use hair dryers and tanning beds, and at one stage in the motel room, I though they were gonna straight up 69 each other. No joke.Oh yeah, and the cop who pops up to investigate the deaths and speak in riddles has nothing to really do with the film at all. All he does is add more running time to an already lengthy film, it really could have done with losing 10-15 minutes. There were also one too many 'fake scare' moments, the graveyard scene had about three of them, and they were all with Jim putting his hand on Brandon's shoulder! They didn't even bother putting music or stings on them! Lazy.Saying all that, Witchboard is still a lot of fun. Even the plodding bits manage to be interesting enough, and the camera work is of a high enough standard to keep your eyes open. With only one or two moments of brief gore, we do get a late-in-the-day shower scene from Tawney, so don't turn it off before that. I'm sure a lot of folks remember this one from it's VHS days and look back with fond memories. I just wish Anchor Bay had kept the original artwork in the UK, the cover we got was horrible.

I Love the 80s! You gotta love productions like Witchboard, if you like the 1980s. It is the ultimate 80s horror flick: bad hair (including punk multi-colors and mullets), microfiche, bad dialogue, smoking in a hospital (?!?), waterbeds, cheap thrills and open-shirted male shirts with hair flowing from masculine chests to the screen. It's actually a guilty pleasure of mine and hard to downgrade since I grew up on it.My sister was the one that loved this movie when I was young and like a lot of late-1980s flicks (i.e. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and Dirty Dancing) she got me hooked on this one. Now, watching it again, honestly the first time since the late 1980s, it's such an extreme flashback. I mean dialogue like "TTFN – ta ta for now" or "I got a bad feeling about this" should sum it up. Oh, and the foggy graveyard helps too.We have a bizarre love triangle between former best male friends and a female third who is soon-to-be engaged to one of the males at a party and an Ouija Board. They contact (for fun) a dead 10-year-old David…or did they bring about an evil spirit? Either way, ditzy red-headed Linda (Tawny Kitaen) continues to "play" with the board alone when she's not supposed to! Inadvertently, she concurs up this other "evil" spirit and people start dying left/right. Will the two males fighting for her attention solve the problem before she's fully possessed? It's hilarious. Really. If you watched this for the first time, outside of the 1980s, you might laugh your ass off. But, I'm glad this movie was made; this was an extreme homage to that period. It's kinda scary – not really, but if you believe in this hocus-pocus Ouija stuff. It's gory. And it has the most laugh-out-loud outrageous finale, as if they ran out of ideas and had to close it out. This is for die-hard fans, or just someone out for a good laugh.Side Note: I remember reading a wonderful "Ask Marilyn" (by Marilyn vos Savant) article that stated on how to prove the Ouija is a hoax, and I believe her. You get two people to control the Ouija Board, but blindfolded and have a third party watch them. Since they can't subconsciously control the pointer while in the dark, the results should be hilarious. Honestly, I have yet to try that, but I have met very few that believe in such nonsense. I'd love to prove the insanity this board has produced. At least it produced a fantastically fun 1980s horror movie.