If you spend any time online, you’ve likely heard Quentin Tarantino wax poetic about making his tenth and, so he says, final film, a quixotic quest to leave a sort of perfect legacy on celluloid. Of course, not every filmmaker is a rich, name-brand commodity like QT; critic and filmmaker Scout Tafoya has recently embarked on a series of fascinating reviews of Simon West films, tracing the trajectory of the once in-demand journeyman director responsible for a few big hits in the ‘90s and whose work is now entirely contingent upon the vicissitudes of modern modes of production and distribution. These reviews are only partially interested in whether or not West is “good” in any traditional sense (although Tafoya makes a case for the man’s talent), but rather an attempt at tracing a fractured throughline encompassing film festival buyer’s markets, direct-to-VOD financing deals, international co-production financing schemes, the once burgeoning, now contracting Chinese market, and the increasing prevalence of cheap CGI and digital shortcuts that makes all of this cheaper on the bottom line and therefore more enticing to potential investors.
One could churn out a similar series of articles about Chuck Russell, an ‘80s legend who helmed a few beloved genre classics, moved on to effects-heavy projects in the early days of CGI, fell off the map for over a decade, and then returned with a series of cheap action movies, a Hindi-language Indian epic, and now, with his remake Witchboard, an attempt to return to that ‘80s heyday. But the landscape is radically different now, aesthetically as much as financially, and a cheap horror movie in 2025 doesn’t have the same charms as one from 1986. Truly, one could show film students Kevin Tenney’s original and Russell’s reimagining as a crash course in the ever-shifting norms in mainstream image-making. Neither is particularly good, but at least one of them has some personality and texture.
Fans of the 1986 original — a low-key, 90-minute supernatural thriller about a woman conjuring a spirit via a Ouija board that then possesses her — might be surprised that Russell has added almost a half hour of additional business to his new take on the material. This Witchboard opens with a prolonged flashback to 17th-century France, where a coven of witches is about to sacrifice a man in ritualistic fashion. Soldiers burst in at the last minute, and a battle ensues, saving the man and capturing the lead witch, Naga Soth (Antonia Desplat). But blood is spilt on a spirit board (a circular object that looks like a dart board, not the Ouija of the original). Fast forward a few centuries, and we find two men robbing a museum; one of them is searching for the spirit board while the other tries to grab anything that looks valuable. They argue, attract the attention of some cops, and a shootout ensues. One of the men, now mortally wounded, runs into the surrounding woods before succumbing to his injuries. The other man returns to a lavishly appointed mansion, where he meets Alexander Baptiste (Jamie Campbell Bower), a powerful medium obsessed with the occult who immediately kills the man for his failure in procuring the board.
Soon, a young couple is seen wandering the woods, scavenging for fresh mushrooms. Christian (Aaron Dominguez) is a hotshot chef preparing for the grand opening of his new restaurant in the French Quarter. His girlfriend Emily (Madison Iseman) stumbles across the now-abandoned board and decides to bring it home with them. It’s not long before she’s messing around with it, and soon begins having visions of Naga Soth. As is increasingly common in our modern streaming era, Russell (also credited here with the film’s screenplay) spends a lot of time on superfluous secondary characters and adds lots and lots of backstory to everyone; Naga Soth was actually a healer who was persecuted by the church for refusing to abide by their rules; Emily is a recovering heroin addict, and her unsavory ex-boyfriend comes knocking, looking to get her into trouble again. Christian’s kitchen is stocked with a variety of loveable weirdos who are all fiercely dedicated to making the restaurant the best it can be, and Christian also has an ex-girlfriend who’s an antiquities expert. It’s she who suggests the couple go and meet Alexander, who, for his part, employs some strikingly styled triplets who help him perform various occult rituals. There’s also a cat running around who acts as a harbinger of Naga Soth and pops up just as some horrible accident is about to befall some hapless passerby.
It’s a lot — too much, really — and the film lurches around from set piece to set piece, never managing to get pulses racing. It has a weird start-stop rhythm, undercutting any creepy vibes by halting everything to introduce another character, or move them all from point A to point B. All of which might be forgiven if the set pieces were actually good. But in another sign of the times, anything that might have once been done via practical effects is now delivered as an unsightly hodgepodge of CGI. It’s a real shame, as Russell’s work on A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors and the 1988 version of The Blob are justly lauded for their creative gore effects. But what in the past had to be created via ingenious puppetry, camera tricks, optical effects, and a variety of other techniques is now all managed via computer. Witchboard climaxes with an epic freak-out during the grand opening of Christian’s restaurant, and a sequence that could have rivaled the opening of Robert Kurtzman’s Wishmaster in terms of effects showcase instead becomes a disappointing bit of cheap computer creature effects. The digital cinematography is also disappointing, too slick and textureless, with scenes often being over-lit and leaving everything to look like a Hulu original. Witchboard isn’t offensively bad; the references are pretty good, and Russell at least knows what he’s doing with a camera. But there are so many missed opportunities, and the movie is remarkably overlong. Anyone hoping for a dose of old-fashioned fun with a throwback horror movie is bound to be disappointed.
DIRECTOR: Chuck Russell; CAST: Madison Iseman, Charlie Tahan, Aaron Dominguez, Jamie Campbell Bower, Melanie Jarnson; DISTRIBUTOR: The Avenue; IN THEATERS: August 15; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 52 min.
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