Witchboard (1986)

2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Bored Game

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

At a party, an annoying yuppie, Brandon (Stephen Nichols) demonstrates his Ouija board by contacting the spirit of a dead boy, David. When he inadvertently leaves the board behind, Linda (Tawny Kitaen) starts using it by herself, and accidentally contacts some kind of demon that begins wreaking havoc. Specifically, it doesn't like Linda's boyfriend, Jim (truthfully, I didn't like him much, either) and kills Jim's friend and co-worker on a construction site. Brandon and Jim, who are estranged childhood pals, must team up to save Linda. The movie is interesting for the way it develops the relationship between the two men, but the Linda character comes up short; she's just a pretty prize to be won by either one or the other of the men. The horror is pretty silly, and it's annoying watching Kitaen pushing the planchette around in circles on the board at lightning speed. In the best scene, Kathleen Wilhoite plays a new-wave/punk-rock psychic named Zarabeth; she brings a much-needed weird comedy to the movie, and then leaves a hole in it when she's gone.