With a brand new model of the 1986 horror film Witchboard hitting theaters, a revisit of the surprisingly quirky authentic is likely to be so as. Written and directed by Kevin Tenney, the thoughts behind maybe a fair larger cult horror favourite, 1988’s Night time of the Demons, the movie is theoretically a couple of younger couple in love whose lives are turned the wrong way up by a cursed Ouija board. However the viewer shortly realizes that Tenney’s Witchboard is actually extra of a unusual “buddy film” in regards to the protagonist and his long-lost childhood finest buddy — inexplicably pushing the progressively demon-possessed girlfriend, performed by ’80s icon Tawny Kitaen, to the sidelines.
‘Witchboard’ Star Tawny Kitaen Will get Overshadowed by the Two Male Leads
Witchboard opens with the right set-up for a horror film: a cocktail party the place alcohol flows, and the primary leisure is “firing up” the previous Ouija board. On the heart of the occasion is fairly Linda (Kitaen) with each her present boyfriend Jim (Todd Allen) and her ex Brandon (the proprietor of the Ouija in query, and performed by Days of Our Lives and The Younger and the Stressed common Stephen Nichols). Whereas it might initially be assumed that the plain friction between Jim and Brandon is because of Linda, we quickly uncover that the 2 males have been finest buddies since childhood. In the meantime, Linda is fascinated by the spirit she summoned with the board, supposedly the ghost of a boy named David. Because the movie progresses, Linda spends more and more extra time with the ghost, and Jim and Brandon — beneath the acknowledged goal of wanting to assist Linda — spend extra time collectively.
There are quite a few scenes all through Witchboard by which Jim and Brandon interact in conversations of unusual depth for a low-budget horror movie, typically discussing what went mistaken in their very own relationship. And by its midway level, it’s clear that Witchboard actually is not a couple of lady possessed by a demonic spirit from a Ouija board, however reasonably about Jim and Brandon themselves. It’s primarily a “buddy film,” one which follows two males as they journey, analysis, bicker, and share innumerable dramatic two photographs. Curiously, Linda is described because the “portal” between the spirit (who seems to not be just a little boy, however the indignant ghost of a Portuguese assassin) and the board, however she’s additionally the “hyperlink” between the 2 true primary characters of the movie.
‘Witchboard’ Abruptly Switches within the Remaining Act
If that is all starting to sound virtually like a “bromance” between Brandon and Jim, actually creator Carol J. Clover, in her landmark 1992 guide on horror motion pictures, Males, Girls, and Chainsaws, thought so. She devoted many pages to Kevin Tenney’s Witchboard, describing how she thought Linda was principally a “plot gadget” to really inform the story of Jim’s personal sexual confusion:
“Maybe as a result of it may be solely incompletely expressed, the story of male affection is a poignant one. Within the movie’s opening scenes, Brandon and Jim, clearly at odds, trade insults and really practically blows as properly. Between them stands Linda, Brandon’s former and Jim’s current lover, without delay a barrier and a conduit. Linda’s slide into spiritualism, no matter its manifest which means, additionally serves to vacate an emotional territory on which the male story will now play out.”
Clover additionally cites one scene particularly, by which the 2 males are on the “Wishing Effectively Motel,” staying up late at night time, sitting on beds, and having yet one more deep emotional trade about “what occurred to us, man?” Whereas the subject of Linda is talked about, it at all times comes again to them.
The final 20 minutes of Witchboard reasonably immediately finish the Brandon/Jim dynamic, as the previous is killed (presumably by the demon ghost, although it must be famous that Jim was thought of a suspect in an entire raft of killings because the starting of the movie). Jim’s focus then turns into 100% Linda, as he rushes dwelling and confronts his possessed girlfriend (who’s now sporting males’s garments and talking in a masculine voice). He tells Linda he loves her, falls out a window to crash onto the roof of a automobile, and, inexplicably, quickly after enjoys a contented wedding ceremony scene along with his new spouse (albeit sporting a neck brace). Every little thing has been resolved, and “love heals all,” although there’s nonetheless the matter of all these useless folks (together with Brandon). As Clover notes in her guide:
“It isn’t solely that we’re offered with two hierarchically organized love tales – Jim/Brandon and Jim/Linda – and that the latter can’t proceed with out a decision of the previous; it’s that the previous story – the story of Jim and Brandon – lies on the emotional coronary heart of the movie. To the scene by which the weeping Jim embraces the corpse of Brandon, the movie’s the rest – the de-possession of Linda and the marriage – stands as a pale heteroerotic epilogue.”
Many low-budget horror motion pictures of the Nineteen Eighties have intriguing, deeper subplots and meanings that stretch past what was initially marketed. The common moviegoer from 1986 may need anticipated an Exorcist-level possession story from Witchboard (which might be why the primary heroine has the title “Linda,” as in Linda Blair). As an alternative, what the film delivers, till its jagged final act, is a remarkably textured narrative in regards to the love (and hate) between two males.
Witchboard
- Launch Date
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December 31, 1986
- Runtime
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98 minutes
- Director
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Kevin Tenney
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Tawny Kitaen
Linda Brewster
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Stephen Nichols
Brandon Sinclair
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Kathleen Wilhoite
Zarabeth
