Witchboard
Writers: Chuck Russell, Greg Mckay; based on Witchboard by Kevin Tenney
Director: Chuck Russell
Cast: Madison Iseman, Aaron Dominguez, Melanie Jarnson, Charlie Tahan, Antonia Desplat, Jamie Campbell Bower
Witchboard is more-or-less a remake in name only, borrowing the concept from the 1986 horror film of the same name but otherwise barreling ahead with its own twist on the narrative. It's a rewarding formula for director and co-writer Chuck Russell, who knows something about '80s horror as the director of both A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and the beloved remake of The Blob.
Though the film isn't set in the 1980s, Russell approaches much of his Witchboard with a similar energy to those classic films, a go-for-the-throat dive into as many horror elements as can possibly fit into a two-hour runtime. The result is a film that evokes both the wildness of 1980s blood-fests and the bombastic fun of the Dark Castle horror remakes at the turn of the millennium. It's a lot to take in, but that's to its advantage, because any story deficiencies in Witchboard are quickly overcome by sheer horror movie energy.
The title board is a centuries-old "pendulum board," an eerie-looking device used for fortune-telling and spellcasting. After a prologue scene establishes that it used to belong to some nasty French witches, Witchboard jumps to present day, where the board is stolen from a New Orleans museum in a heist gone wrong and just happens to make its way to Emily (Madison Iseman), a young woman with a history of addiction who's in the process of turning her life around.
When we meet her, Emily is looking toward the future with her boyfriend Christian (Aaron Dominguez), a chef who's about to open a new restaurant in the French Quarter with his friends. Everything is bright and happy and full of potential, but while everyone else is focused on the grand opening, Emily is distracted by the mysterious board and its abilities. There's just one problem: Every time she uses the board, something unexpected or just plain horrible seems to happen. Doors open and shut by themselves, fires get started, limbs get severed — Emily has clearly opened a door, and on the other side of it is a journey that will lead her to Christian's antiquities-expert ex-girlfriend Brooke (Melanie Jarnson) and a mysterious local occultist (Jamie Campbell Bower) with interests of his own.
Beginning with brutal prologue sequences featuring witches and armed Christians out to slaughter them, and continuing right up through severed hands and scalding showers and a dinner gone very, very wrong, Witchboard never skimps on the blood, gore, and mayhem. Russell, who's got some '80s horror classics under his belt, still understands this particular style of horror filmmaking, an exercise in constantly winding up tension and letting it go in gruesome ways, and he's lost none of his prowess in that regard. When it's really firing, Witchboard is a blast for fans of that particular kind of horror.
Of course, because this is a remake in name only, there's also plenty of room to play with the story, and the screenplay (by Russell and Greg Mckay) wastes no time expanding the world. The board in this film has not only a checkered history, but some kind of malevolent destiny, one that leads to some convincing and rewarding third-act reveals. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes quite a while for the film to meander over to the next key plot point. There's a certain lack of efficiency in the nearly two-hour runtime that will, in moments, make you forget why you were so entertained. The all-out horror energy always returns, eventually but Witchboard's plotting, and its sometimes rough edges (this film, for example, is really convinced that saying "Wiccan" will get people to believe its lore) keep it shy of greatness.
Still, by the time the film was over, I barely remembered these weak spots. Like The Blob before it, Witchboard is just a relentless, super-fun remake from Chuck Russell. It hammers you from all sides with its madcap, violent energy, unexpected humor, and the kind of overwrought plotting that will call to mind the (wonderful) remakes of House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts. It's a re-imagining that exceeds the original, and — flaws and all — it's one hell of a ride.
If you haven't already, consider supporting worker-owned media by subscribing to Pop Heist. We are ad-free and operating outside the algorithm, so all dollars go directly to paying the staff members and writers who make articles like this one possible.
