The great Roger Ebert used to say that if filmmakers wanted to remake something, they should remake bad movies rather than attempting to redo perfection. It would appear that noted horror director Chuck Russell (The Blob, Nightmare on Elm Street 3, as well as Eraser, Scorpion King, The Mask) has taken that advice to heart with his updated, reworked Witchboard.
The only thing I really remember about the original, largely forgotten Witchboard is that it starred Tawny Kataen and Rose Marie, and that it wasn’t the tiniest bit scary (as far as scares go, Russell has remained faithful to the original). Set in New Orleans, the film involves Emily (Madison Iseman, from the Jumanji movies, Annabelle Comes Home, and the short-lived I Know What You Did Last Summer TV series), who is helping her chef boyfriend Christian (Aaron Dominguez) as he prepares to open up his new restaurant in the French Quarter, because the French Quarter definitely needs another cajun restaurant).
While foraging for mushrooms in the woods, Emily comes across a very old looking board with ancient symbols on it (in the original film, it was a regular old ouija board), which we know from a flashback opening sequence is somehow connected to Naga Soth, an actual French witch (Antonia Desplat) who lived several hundred years ago, practiced natural medicine and was burned at the stake by the people in the town where she lived. Emily thinks the board will look good in the restaurant, so she takes it home and starts messing with it, trying to figure out how it works, and awakens dark forces, blah blah blah.
There’s a cat who causes so much destruction and death that it should have been put down 10 minutes into the movie. In addition, Christian’s best friend who works in the restaurant is killed on the job, and not only does this not instantly derail his plans to open in a few days but apparently it doesn’t make the news or force OSHA to shut the business down before it ever opens. Plus, nobody seems the least bit sad about his death after the funeral. People in horror movies have the shortest memories and attention spans of all the genres.
At some point, Christian’s ex-girlfriend Brooke (Melanie Jarnson) involves herself in the restaurant and Emily’s increasing attachment to the witchboard. She introduces Emily to an acquaintance named Alexander Babtiste (Jamie Campbell Bower, from the Twilight and Harry Potter franchises, as well as Stranger Things), who is basically a male witch who knows exactly what the board is and how to use it. But is he friend or foe to Emily? We may never find out.
Witchboard is filled with deception to no real purpose. We’re told Emily used to be a drug addict for a short time thanks to some dude named Richie (Charlie Tahan), who refuses to exit her life even after she gets clean. But the way the film treats both her addiction and her temptation to use again is so overly simplified and frankly disrespectful to anyone going through something similar that it really killed what ever fun I might have been having watching something so richly terrible. I also wasn’t in any way emotionally connected to this couple staying together; they both seem so easily led astray by natural and supernatural forces that I eventually started cheering for them to end things so I didn’t have to spend time with them for a second longer.
The film’s evil forces lead us to believe it’s going to be a horny escapade, but it can’t even deliver on that implied promise. I’m sorry, but a movie that opens with witches dancing around a fire at night fully clothed should immediately be suspect. There’s even a gratuitous shower scene with Emily that manages to shoot her almost entirely from the neck up. What is the world coming to?
I’m not saying my review would be any better if there was some amount of nudity, but why have the scene at all if you’re going to take a chaste route through this story? Witchboard fails to deliver as camp, as horror, as suspense, or as a film about a guy opening a restaurant.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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