Espírito Assassino

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.

This is one of those movies that proves that you don't need a huge budget to make a quality horror film, or any film for that matter, but we are talking horror here. I had read many years ago that this film was made for less than a million dollars and even in 1985 that is chump change. But this film is so pure with it's suspence that you would think it was done by a major Hollywood studio with a ten million dollar budget.

When a witchboard is discovered it is at first played for fun. But then it becomes an obsession and it takes over the life of the woman that talks to it. A spirit named David is a little boy that may or may not be the spirit that is possessing the Witchboard and sometimes he is nice and other times he is down right nasty. There is also a great horror villains name in this film, Mal Veder, almost sounds like Darth Vader's distant cousin doesn't it?

What Witchboard does so well is it pays attention to detail and it pays attention to what made some of the great horror movies did. And what this manages to do is treat the camera like it is his best friend. The camera lurks mysteriously behind it's actors and beside them and above them and everywhere else. And what this does is it gives you the illusion that there is someone or something there, and that is the beauty of this film, you don't know if it really is someone or something there. This is great homage to some of the greats like Carpenter and Hitchcock.

Witchboard is a great 80's horror film and I like it for the fact that it is much more concerned with atmosphere than stupid blood and guts and unneccesary gore. 90's horror should watch films like this and use the same techniques to scare us. Blair Witch may have watched this but films like the Haunting and I Know.... and Idle Hands sure didn't.

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.

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".

WITCHBOARD is a fun film that is scary depending on when you watch it. If you watch it at around ten or eleven o'clock at night, you will feel the full scary effects that Kevin S. Tenney wants you to feel. I own a ouiji board and after seeing this film, I don't think I'll ever touch it again. Some users say what this COULD'VE BEEN and all that crap. Truthfully, this film is as good as it could've been and deserves to be re-released so that a new generation of horror fans can appreciate this film for what it's worth and not for what it could've been. **1/2out of****For an enjoyable late-night horror fare.