Witchboard, 2024.
Directed by Chuck Russell.
Starring Madison Iseman, Aaron Dominguez, Melanie Jarnson, Jamie Campbell Bower, Antonia Desplat, and David La Haye.
SYNOPSIS:
A young woman becomes obsessed with an antique pendulum board, opening a gateway for an evil spirit to enter our world.
Kevin Tenney’s 1986 movie Witchboard was a flawed-but-fun slice of ‘80s cheese that wasn’t without its charms and became something of a VHS rental hit. It told the fairly simple story of a love triangle and a young woman becoming obsessed with a Ouija board as those around her died mysteriously, and for a 15-rated horror movie in the 1980s it was fairly grisly and starred Whitesnake music video siren Tawney Kitaen for extra teenage male fantasy points.
So now we have the remake and, to be fair, Witchboard was a movie that could have benefitted from another telling, updating the mullets and multi-coloured punk fashions for something less garish. Unfortunately, it has been remade in the 2020s, a decade that has its own tropes and characteristics that will likely age it as quickly and negatively as the knitted cardigans and big hair of the 1980s did with the first one. At least that original movie was entertaining.
What Witchboard 2024 has in its favour is a director with a bit of a pedigree. Chuck Russell can easily be credited with reinvigorating the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and setting the direction that series would go with Dream Warriors, and his 1988 version of ‘50s classic The Blob normally falls in just under The Fly and The Thing as a remake that improved on the original. In this case, however, Russell’s magic touch just isn’t there, the director setting up scenes of occult horror only to be let down by a lacklustre cast that cannot seem to emote and CGI that would have (possibly) been great if this movie had been made in 1997.
Instead of the Ouija board of the original we have a pendulum board, which is ostensibly the same thing, only you dangle an item such as a necklace over it and it moves the necklace in the direction of an answer to your questions. The board has been possessed by the spirit of Naga Soth (Antonia Desplat), a witch who was the target of fanatical witch hunter Bishop Grogan (David La Haye) in 17th century France, and is found in the woods by Emily (Madison Iseman) after it was stolen during a robbery in modern-day New Orleans.
Emily is a recovering drug addict, and with her boyfriend Christian (Aaron Dominguez) they are opening a restaurant in the city’s French Quarter. After Christian’s ex Brooke (Melanie Jarnson) – who happens to be an expert on the occult – confirms what the mysterious board is for, Emily starts to use it, at first for innocent things like finding a lost ring, but things get weird when accidents start happening to those around her and Christian. Seeking Brooke’s help, they are introduced to Alexander Babtiste (Jamie Campbell Bower), a New Age Pagan who seems to have extensive knowledge of the board and what it can do, although his motives for helping Christian and Emily may not be entirely honourable.
Taking just the bare bones plot of the original and adding to it, Witchboard is messy and needlessly long, collapsing under the weight of its own ambitions long before its 112-minute running time is up. To their credit, the filmmakers have made a solid backstory for how the pendulum board came to be, and the opening scenes set in 17th-century France are the best of the movie, with Chuck Russell capturing the chilling and exciting atmosphere of a witches’ sabbath being broken up by vengeful clergy. Reminiscent of the flashback scenes in Rob Zombie’s Lords of Salem (but without the naked witch body suits), whenever the movie reverts back to the 1690s it immediately becomes more interesting, making you wish the whole thing was like this.
Unfortunately, whenever we are in the modern-day Witchboard is crammed with far too many flawed characters played by bland actors – which is pushing it – with too many plot contrivances to make the story feel anything other than forced and bloated. Madison Iseman is the standout, taking what is essentially the Tawney Kitaen role from the original and making the dual-personality of Emily when she is under the board’s spell the focal point, and she injects a lot of personality into what she has to do, especially when Emily is being possessed by Naga Soth.
The trouble is Christian is a very dull ‘hero’, which is telegraphed when you first see him collecting mushrooms in his man bag, and whereas Brooke had the potential to be the character with something about her – after all, she is an expert on all things occult, which just doesn’t seem to sit well with her overall personality – Melanie Jarnson’s performance can only be described as one-note, the note being a similar vocal tone to that of a record being played at a slow speed. Which leaves Alexander Babtiste (which is too close to Clinton Baptiste to not make him even more hilarious) as our other main character, and if Witchboard was in desperate need for a bit of scenery-chewing then Jamie Campbell Bower provides it, although you sometimes have to wonder if he knows he is the same movie as the other cast members as none of them seem to gel together.
There is some tasty gore here and there, although picking out the practical effects from the CGI is easily done as the computer generated visuals were clearly made using a processor that is close to being obsolete, and there is a very macabre tone throughout, even when the movie seems to be channelling The Devil’s Advocate (again with that late ‘90s vibe) with its depictions of glossy black magic and stylish occultism. It is just a shame that we didn’t get a witchfinding movie set in the 17th century as that is where this movie is strongest, but as a remake of Witchboard it is very disappointing, filled with awful characters, bad acting, pointless plot threads – such as Emily’s heroin addiction past, and the few scenes with her former supplier that could easily have been chopped out – and far too many ideas fighting for room in a script that cannot sustain them.
There is a solid occult horror in here somewhere that a bit of editing and streamlining could probably have brought out, but if Chuck Russell – the man who brought Freddy Krueger out of the shadows – couldn’t find it then what chance do we have of seeing it?
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Chris Ward
