Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Chuck Russell
Starring: Madison Iseman, Jamie Campbell Bower, Aaron Dominguez, Charlie Tahan, Mel Jarnson, Antonia Desplat
For much of the 20th century, the Ouija board was simply recognised as nothing more than a parlour game mass produced by Hasbro. It wasn't until 1973's The Exorcist that its occult roots came back into the mainstream. A Ouija board made a fleeting appearance in Friedkin's film but would later become the centrepiece of Kevin Tenney's 1986 shocker Witchboard. Much of what we now know as Ouija lore was laid out in that video store favourite, though Tenney's film has largely been forgotten.
Two '80s horror movies that have fared better are Chuck Russell's 1987 Nightmare on Elm Street sequel Dream Warriors and his 1988 remake of The Blob. Now, four decades after his genre prime, Russell has returned to the realm of '80s horror with a remake of Tenney's film.
In truth, Russell's movie is an in-name-only remake, featuring very little in common with the '86 original. Even the titular prop bears no resemblance to the traditional Ouija board adopted by Tawny Kitaen. Here it's a pizza-shaped antique that utilises a pendulum instead of the more common planchette. It's a neat piece of production design, but more effort seems to have gone into this central prop than the script.
The action this time is relocated to America's spookiest city, New Orleans, though surprisingly there's no mention of Voodoo. There we find ex-junkie Emily (Madison Iseman) and her boyfriend Christian (Aaron Dominguez). The pair are about to achieve their dream of opening a restaurant in the French Quarter when a trip to the woods in search of tasty mushrooms leads Emily to stumble across a bag containing the aforementioned antique. Emily doesn't notice the dead body laid out on the other side of a bush, and she isn't aware of the prologue that sees a 17th century French witch vow revenge against her Christian tormentors.
As with Kitaen in the original, Iseman's Emily can't stop using the board, and every time she does someone close to her suffers a grisly fate. The original tied Kitaen's continued use of the board into her pregnancy, with the demon fooling her into thinking he was the spirit of a 10-year-old boy, but we're given no such explanation for Emily's attachment to the board here.
Tenney's film had some fun proto-Final Destination kills, something Russell leans into here. But Russell's set-pieces merely resemble the last 30 seconds of a Final Destination set-piece, with none of the nail-biting Rube Goldberg construction or clever use of environment. This remake, which was shot a full three years ago, seems to have been filmed as though a 3D release had been initially planned. Watching it in 2D there's a distracting clunkiness to how Russell keeps throwing things at the camera and having his cast members poke their fingers in our eyes.
The best of those cast members are Jamie Campbell-Bower, channelling Julian Sands as an aristocrat who wishes to bring that old French witch back to life, and Melanie Jarnson as Christian's sexy and vampish ex-girlfriend. Every one else is as stiff as a witchboard, and a couple of supporting performances are downright amateurish. The CG effects are of the sort that will have you pining for the practical work of the '80s, and Russell's copout dream sequences are far too telegraphed to have any impact.
At close to two hours, Witchboard outstays its welcome with unnecessary flashbacks to 17th Century France (though props for these scenes actually playing out in subtitled French) and a belaboured climax that sees the movie enter James Bond territory as the villain reveals his plan to the captured heroes. If you need to fill a wet afternoon, a seance might be a more entertaining option than renting this dud. Oui? Nah.
Witchboard is on UK/ROI VOD from February 2nd.
