Witchboard
Review by Peter Syslo

Witchboard (1986) is one of those movies that I saw as a young teenager, late at night, on one of the cable TV movie channels. I had forgotten about it until 2004, when I saw that Anchor Bay put it out on DVD. I went out, bought the DVD, watched it that night, and I was happy that it seemed just as good to me as it did when I was younger. I don't hear this movie mentioned that often and I feel that it is underrated and unsung, as a horror movie.

Witchboard is written and directed by Kevin S. Tenney, who also directed Night of the Demons (1987) - which I think is sort of a companion piece to Witchboard (see my review of Night...). The movie begins as Linda (Tawny Kitaen) is goaded into using a Ouija board, with her ex-boyfriend Brandon (Stephen Nichols), at a party. Her semi-alcoholic boyfriend Jim (Todd Allen) watches on, as it appears that they made contact with the spirit of a 10-year-old boy, named David. The ex, Brandon, goes into an interesting monologue about the rules of using a Ouija board, which is a great moment in the movie (it is like an urban legend type of thing that everybody kind of knows, but doesn't say). On a side note, Brandon and Jim have great animosity towards each other - it turns out that they were childhood friends and there is this weird, love-triangle tension that actually plays out nicely towards the end of the movie. But anyway, it turns out that they anger the spirit of the boy (or who they think is the boy) and bad things begin to happen. Linda starts using the board, alone, and starts acting very strange. There are a few deaths and Brandon and Jim join forces, only to discover that it is a malicious spirit that they contacted, not a boy. This spirit was a killer in life and it appears that he is trying to possess Linda. The movie comes to a head as the Jim tries to stop the evil spirit and save Linda.

This movie is like a time-capsule of the late 80's and I think that it is very enjoyable and original (I don't know if there are many movies about the Ouija board, aside from the sequels to this). Oh yeah, you do have the 80s 'cheesiness' in full force; you have a wise-ass character who has a great, quotable line about flattening tires, you have a gratuitous shower scene with Tawny Kitaen, and you have a hilarious psychic who is just 'over the top' and steals the scenes that she is in. However, I don't just like the movie because 80's cheese is in style now (I was a true geek long before people were trying to dress like 'geeks' to be fashionable); it is actually a well-thought out movie with an interesting story. It has slasher elements (the legend or backstory of the killer, the way in which people are killed, and the suspense, because you never know when or how the killer will strike) and it has supernatural element s centered around life/death and the Ouija board. I think that it is an enjoyable mix of different genres that doesn't get the recognition that it deserves. Such an iconic thing as the Ouija board is great subject matter for a movie (the DVD actually came with a little, paper Ouija board) and I think that this film built an interesting story around it (it wasn't just pointless scenes, with the board as the star). So, grab the board and watch the movie, I answer 'yes' to the question, 'Should I see it?'.