Witchboard review
Chuck Russell returns to horror with a bit of a throwback to what made his genre work notable to begin with. But first…I have a surprisingly long debate about nothing.
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Witchboard
Directed by Chuck Russell
Screenplay by Chuck Russell and Greg McKay
Starring Madison Iserman, Aaron Dominguez, Melanie Jarnson, Charlie Tahan, Antonia Desplat and Jamie Campbell Bower
Witchboard Review
Witchboard comes to us from master of horror Chuck Russell. I’m sorry to start the review like that. They made it a part of their marketing, and I have been trying to rationalize it ever since the first trailer dropped. Maybe it’s just me but when I hear the words master of horror my mind heads straight to Carpenter, Craven, Romero and Argento. James Whale is a personal horror directing hero of mine…and I’d argue he is one of the first filmmakers to qualify for that due to the quality and influence of his work. Of course, the Germans got there first. F.W. Murnau and Robert Wiene may only have one memorable horror piece in their credits (Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, respectively) but the importance of those films can’t be undersold.
Raimi, Hooper, Cronenberg, Dante. If you extend it to incredible filmmakers for whom horror concepts were running themes in their work even if they weren’t always making “horror” you can easily extend it to indisputable masters of film like Hitchcock, Kubrick, Lynch and Spielberg. Takashi Miike, Stuart Gordon, Don Coscarelli…the list can run as deep as you want it too. And there’s a new era of talent that is making a strong case to be allowed into that elite pantheon as well. Robert Eggers, Mike Flanagan, Jordan Peele, Ari Aster…on the right day I’ll take up the argument in favor of every name listed. Chuck Russell? Who is Chuck Russell?
Ok…I know who Chuck Russell is because it’s sort of my job to know who Chuck Russell is…but a “master of horror”? His last horror production was a very bad movie called Bless the Child starring Kim Basinger. It was released TWENTY-FIVE years ago. His last good horror movie was the 1988 remake of The Blob…which, to be fair, is an awesome movie. He also wrote the semi-horror sci-fi/adventure film Dreamscape in 1984. It’s a pretty good movie that the wind can blow to solidly good if you’re in the right mood. But the movie you probably know Chuck Russell from…the one that apparently you would use as his credentials to qualify for any real “masters of horror” list is 1987’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.
I’m not going to beat around the bush…Dream Warriors is a tremendous movie. It’s inarguably one of the three best Nightmare films…with many people ranking it as their favorite. I had it third…but the top three are all excellent films in different ways. Is it enough to make him a master of horror? Maybe it will be for you. People love that movie. I hesitate to crown someone with that term when their top work is a sequel to someone else’s concept.
Look at the list of names in the first paragraph again and see if you can spot the pattern. Spoiler: they all, at some point, stood at the front of the line and created something influential. Chuck Russell made (arguably) the most fun version out of Craven’s iconic original idea, an entertaining remake of a Steve McQueen movie, a movie someone else directed and an awful movie a quarter of a century ago that seems to have put him off of horror completely until now. That has been the totality of his contribution to the genre. I’m not saying this to denigrate Russell’s work. There’s quality in a couple of those pictures that most directors would kill to have on the resume. But master of horror? What are we doing here?
Now that I’ve spent over 500 words on a marketing phrase that no one besides me even cares about…let’s get to Witchboard. It’s a remake (or reboot…or reimagining, or completely unrelated but using the same title…I’ve never seen it) of a cult from almost 40 years ago. Maybe you’ve seen it. Maybe you’re thinking of Warlock with Julian Sands. Either way…it’s a new movie about a witchboard. A witchboard is exactly what you think it is. A precursor to the Ouija board toy that Hasbro makes. When the original Witchboard came out…they were made by Parker Brothers. You don’t actually need to know that. This witchboard was the property of a real witch centuries before this story takes place. The difference between it and a Ouija board is that this one works.
Russell’s movie is a throwback to an era of film where conveniences were acceptable in screenwriting. What happened to the witchboard after the opening scene shows us the capture of its owner? Well, it’s in a museum of course. That checks out. Thieves break in to steal it for a man named Alexander Babtiste (Jamie Cambell Bower). It ends up in the woods when the man carrying it bleeds out and dies. Ok. The board is then discovered by a young couple foraging for ingredients for the opening of their restaurant. Because the restaurant is going to play a major role in the story. It’s found because a stray cat leads Emily (Madison Iseman) to it. The cat will also play a major role in the story…and it covers how silly that part sounds in this recap.
But wait…there’s more. Emily is engaged to the head chef of the restaurant Christian (Aaron Dominguez). At the pre-party for the restaurant’s opening, Chrisitan’s ex-girlfriend Brooke (Melanie Jarnson) makes an awkward appearance. You’re not going to believe this. She knows a lot about antiquities. But she’s not an expert on witchboards. Luckily…she knows a guy. That comes in handy when Emily’s use of the board starts having deadly effects on those around her and puts her life in great danger. You aren’t going to believe this. That man is Alexander Batiste. I’m not sure exactly when Witchboard is a throwback too…but it’s whenever that was acceptable plotting.
Because here’s the thing about Witchboard… That nonsense kind of works. The beats are absurd when you stop to think about them…but it saves a lot of time and explanation that would have dragged the movie down. Witchboard is a well-paced film that saves its best trick for a little past the midway point of the story. It turns things upside down and has some unexpected fun in not one, but two different time periods.
Regardless of how it gets there…Witchboard had me smiling for almost the whole second half of the movie. It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not “great”. And it’s certainly not going to propel Russell’s name up that list of masters of the genre…but it is a good movie. It’s a fun movie. A lot of it comes down to how un-seriously it takes itself at times. One thing Russell’s oeuvre shows is that he is a master of understanding that the end of the world doesn’t have to feel like the end of the world. Sometimes, more importantly this time, that’s more than enough.
Scare Value
I didn’t dig too deep into what actually happens in Witchboard‘s main plot. There’s death and possession and something cooler than possession…and it’s all part serious/part silly. I think that tone was completely intentional. It’s also one of the movie’s best attributes. I don’t mean silly like farcical. I mean…it knows that we’re all here to have fun even when a long-dead witch starts messing with the life of our main character. Deadly fun. The kind that Chuck Russell has used in his best genre offerings. Maybe there’s a secondary list he can firmly be placed on. Above the masses…but behind the masters.
3.5/5
Witchboard Link
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