Ouija

Linda Brewster (Tawny Kitaen) makes two mistakes when she throws her big party. MISTAKE #1- she invites her morose, ex-boyfriend, Brandon (Stephen "Patch" Nichols) to the bash. MISTAKE #2- When someone breaks out the novelty device of the title, Linda allows it, rather than tossing it in the fireplace and praying for forgiveness. Worse yet, she delves deeper into deviltry, consulting the WITCHBOARD for advice.

Soon, Linda is plagued by nightmares, and begins yelling obscenities like nobody's business! Supernatural shenanigans quickly unfold, resulting in grisly, "accidental" deaths. Not surprisingly, Linda's current boyfriend, Jim (Todd Allen) thinks she's losing her mind. When the world's goofiest medium (Kathleen Wilhoite) is called in, all bets are off!

One of the more memorable mid-to-late 1980's horror films, it was Ms. Kitaen's big star vehicle. Fairly good at being overwrought, she screams and panics her way through most of her scenes, while her boyfriends worry about her. Their ensuing bromance will be tested to its core.

Almost a character in itself, Linda's pile of red hair soars whenever she's tossed around by the peevish ghost! No, this movie isn't overly frightening, but it is still enjoyable after all these years. Especially, the hair-flailing finale!

P.S.- Indeed, there is a shower scene, and yes, Ms. Kitaen does don her birthday suit... while screaming a lot!...

This isn't Shakespeare, but as far as Ouija board movies go, it was decent. You get some kills (not gory enough) some boobs, some 80's hair and fashion, and a whole lot of homoerotic tension between the two leads (unintentional). But it adds up to a quick moving, decent little cheesy horror movie. Not amazing, but not the worst thing you can see.

This is a surprisingly competent horror movie, and it is certainly better than most other films of the same genre. That having been said, since very few horror films work for me, it should come as no shock that I found this one to be nothing more than an average movie. It did generally keep me entertained, and there were some clever moments in this film, but the momentum did not last all the way until the end, and so I'd say that it falls a little short of being "good".

People have been pretty hard on this film, and I have to admit my expectations going into it were rather low. Especially when you consider it was written/directed by somebody I had never heard of with a nearly anonymous cast including a leading lady named Tawny Kitaen (Tawny Kitten???). But overall I was impressed. With a modest budget of two million dollars this independent film managed to produce a small profit back in 1986.

Rather than being a boring gore fest with wooden acting, as were so many of the 80s horror films, this one keeps you engaged with suspense, camera technique, and an interesting score written by a relative of the obscure writer/director. In fact you might classify this film as horror/mystery, as it is not at all clear exactly what is going on until the end.

The film opens on a party with Brandon, who seems to be an intellectual snob, talking about the spirit world. He brings out his ouija board and gets his ex-girlfriend, Linda, interested in contacting the spirit of a ten year old boy, David, that he has contacted frequently. A rather jealous Jim - Linda's current boyfriend - makes snide remarks during the session, apparently angering the spirit and causing it to slash Brandon's tires.

Linda asks to borrow the ouija board for a few days. She soon becomes obsessed with it and her behavior becomes erratic. Also, there is a sudden rash of what could be accidental deaths, maybe murders of people close to Jim. And by close to him I mean he is nearby when they happen to the point where he could have been killed too. In each case the cause of the accident/death involves an axe, and Jim's hammer/axe combo that he uses at his job on the construction site has gone missing. This causes Jim to be dogged by the most annoying homicide detective in the history of the world. What goes on here? Has David become a malevolent spirit? And if so what does he want? Watch and find out.

This one has pretty good acting including some good scenes between Jim and Brandon as the source of the tension between them is explored, as well as the history of their friendship. I'd recommend it.

Look out for Rose Marie of the Dick Van Dyke show in a small role as Jim and Linda's landlady.

I Love the 80s! You gotta love productions like Witchboard, if you like the 1980s. It is the ultimate 80s horror flick: bad hair (including punk multi-colors and mullets), microfiche, bad dialogue, smoking in a hospital (?!?), waterbeds, cheap thrills and open-shirted male shirts with hair flowing from masculine chests to the screen. It's actually a guilty pleasure of mine and hard to downgrade since I grew up on it.

My sister was the one that loved this movie when I was young and like a lot of late-1980s flicks (i.e. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and Dirty Dancing) she got me hooked on this one. Now, watching it again, honestly the first time since the late 1980s, it's such an extreme flashback. I mean dialogue like "TTFN – ta ta for now" or "I got a bad feeling about this" should sum it up. Oh, and the foggy graveyard helps too.

We have a bizarre love triangle between former best male friends and a female third who is soon-to-be engaged to one of the males at a party and an Ouija Board. They contact (for fun) a dead 10-year-old David…or did they bring about an evil spirit? Either way, ditzy red-headed Linda (Tawny Kitaen) continues to "play" with the board alone when she's not supposed to! Inadvertently, she concurs up this other "evil" spirit and people start dying left/right. Will the two males fighting for her attention solve the problem before she's fully possessed? It's hilarious. Really. If you watched this for the first time, outside of the 1980s, you might laugh your ass off. But, I'm glad this movie was made; this was an extreme homage to that period. It's kinda scary – not really, but if you believe in this hocus-pocus Ouija stuff. It's gory. And it has the most laugh-out-loud outrageous finale, as if they ran out of ideas and had to close it out. This is for die-hard fans, or just someone out for a good laugh.

Side Note: I remember reading a wonderful "Ask Marilyn" (by Marilyn vos Savant) article that stated on how to prove the Ouija is a hoax, and I believe her. You get two people to control the Ouija Board, but blindfolded and have a third party watch them. Since they can't subconsciously control the pointer while in the dark, the results should be hilarious. Honestly, I have yet to try that, but I have met very few that believe in such nonsense. I'd love to prove the insanity this board has produced. At least it produced a fantastically fun 1980s horror movie.