‘Witchboard’ Review: An Old-School, Effects-Laden Remake

Chuck Russell’s Witchboard doesn’t share a lot in frequent with Kevin S. Tenney’s cult favourite from 1986 past the titular spirit board. Even then, the board in query has been up to date to raised mirror its moniker, with the usual Ouija board of the unique movie swapped out for an ornate round relic with roots in Seventeenth-century French witchcraft. However Russell’s ostensible remake does intention to channel one factor about its supply of inspiration: that giddy amusement-park spirit that marked a lot ’80s horror schlock.

This Witchboard strikes the motion from the nameless California setting of the unique to a bustling New Orleans, the place a younger couple, Emily (Madison Iseman) and up-and-coming star chef Christian (Aaron Dominguez), are within the midst of opening a brand new bistro within the French Quarter specializing in natural substances. Whereas foraging out within the woods sooner or later, they occur upon the spirit board, mendacity close to the just-out-of-view mutilated physique of the thief that not too long ago stole it from a museum. Seemingly referred to as towards it by an unseen presence, Emily brings the board house and places it on show. It doesn’t take a fortune teller to surmise that it will turn into a really dangerous omen for our exceedingly cheery protagonists.

Like Tawny Kitaen’s beleaguered Linda from Tenney’s movie, Emily regularly turns into possessed by the spirit that inhabits the board. Besides right here that spirit is at least the so-called Queen of the Witches, named Naga Soth (Antonia Desplat), who’s launched in a gap Seventeenth-century-set prologue the place she energetically conducts a demonic ritual within the woods.

Pity, then, that Emily’s descent into diabolical insanity feels reduce from the fabric of your run-of-the-mill possession flick, and that the secure of generic-looking younger actors largely lack the quirkiness of the forged that spiced up the unique Witchboard’s in any other case routine proceedings. (The one exception is Jamie Campbell Bower, who brings a little bit of camp aptitude to his position because the occultist whom Emily and Christian hunt down for assist.) And don’t hassle in search of any of the intriguing gender politics or homosocial relations that, whether or not intentional or not, led Tenney’s movie to turn into a spotlight of Carol J. Clover’s Males, Girls, and Chain Saws.

What this model of Witchboard does have is sturdy route, with Russell’s dedication to crafting an old-school, effects-laden style thrill trip harkening again to his heyday on the helm of studio tent poles like The Masks, The Scorpion King, and the unfairly maligned and equally themed Bless the Little one. A number of the interval motion set items are spirited of their staging, whereas the movie doesn’t lack for grotesque and elaborate kill sequences, which is nearly sufficient to distract from the screenplay’s patchiness and insipid characterizations.