Witchboard
Witchboard is a 1986 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Kevin Tenney in his directorial debut, and starring Tawny Kitaen, Stephen Nichols, and Todd Allen. The plot centers on college student Linda Brewster who becomes entranced into using her friend's Ouija board alone after it was left behind at her party. She is subsequently terrorized and eventually possessed by the spirit of malevolent serial killer Carlos Malfeitor, who committed a series of axe murders in the 1930s.
Tenney wrote the screenplay while a student at the University of Southern California, inspired after attending a party in which a friend brought a Ouija board for partygoers to use. The film focuses on the notion of "progressive entrapment," the process by which a malevolent entity or demon takes control of a human being, a theme that was also touched on in The Exorcist after Regan MacNeil dabbles with a Ouija board. Filming took place in 1985 in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Francisco.
Cinema Group gave Witchboard a limited theatrical release in the United States on New Year's Eve 1986. Following favorable box-office returns, the release was expanded in the spring of 1987, and the film went on to gross $7.4 million in the United States. Although the critical response to the film was largely unfavorable, it has attracted a cult following since its release, and was subject to significant critical analysis by academic Carol J. Clover in her 1992 non-fiction book, Men, Women, and Chain Saws.
Two unrelated sequels, Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway and Witchboard III: The Possession, were released in 1993 and 1995, respectively. A remake directed by Chuck Russell was released in 2024.
Plot
At a house party in Fairfield, California, Brandon Sinclair uses his ouija board with his ex-girlfriend Linda Brewster to contact the spirit of David, with whom he had communicated before. Her boyfriend, Jim Morar, insults David, which provokes him to slash the tires of Brandon's car. The next day, Linda uses Brandon's board that was left behind to contact David, who informs her where her lost engagement ring is. At the construction site where Jim works, his friend Lloyd Salvador is killed by fallen drywall. When Jim is questioned by Lieutenant Dewhurst at Lloyd's funeral, Linda contacts David about the accident, but he says that he did not cause it.Linda begins to fall under progressive entrapment, where the spirit terrorizes the user enough to weaken them in order to possess them. She becomes increasingly preoccupied with communicating with David, and begins to experience nausea and other symptoms, leading her and Jim to believe she is pregnant. Brandon brings over psychic medium Sarah "Zarabeth" Crawford to contact David through a séance, and to exorcise him if necessary. Zarabeth channels David, who claims to be a ten-year-old boy. This further leads Linda to become protective of David and her communication with him. After the spirit leaves, a suspicious Zarabeth returns home to research the occurrence, but her throat is slashed before she is thrown through a window and lands on a sundial, impaling her to death. The next morning, Brandon hears about her death and suspects that David killed her, but Jim continues to be skeptical of his claims.
As Brandon leaves to seek information, Jim witnesses Linda violently thrown against the wall, rendering her unconscious. After she is brought to a hospital, doctors confirm Linda is not pregnant as they had suspected. Unnerved, Jim teams with Brandon to conduct research on David. The two find a newspaper article about a ten-year-old boy named David Simpson who drowned in a nearby lake. Jim and Brandon travel to the lake and use another board in an attempt to communicate with David, but soon learn that a different spirit, Carlos Malfeitor, has been terrorizing Linda all along. Seated on a dock, Jim is knocked unconscious when a stack of fishing barrels topples over him, and Brandon is killed by Malfeitor with a hatchet. Upon regaining consciousness, Jim grieves over Brandon's body. That night, he researches Malfeitor's biography, and learns that he was an axe murderer shot by police in his home in 1930—the same residence he and Linda live in.
After Linda discharges herself from the hospital, she is attacked by Malfeitor. The next day, Jim finds their home in disarray, before a possessed Linda attacks him. Dewhurst enters and accuses Jim of the murders, but Linda strikes him with a fire poker. Jim brandishes his revolver, and Linda tells him that he is the "portal", taunting him in an attempt to drive him to suicide. Instead, Jim shoots the board before he is pushed through a window and lands on a car.
After the events, Jim and Linda, now free from Malfeitor's influence, resume their lives and marry each other. Their landlady, Mrs. Moses, finds the board while cleaning out the home with her granddaughter, and wonders if it still works. The board is thrown into a box, where its planchette moves to the word "yes" by itself.
Cast
Production
Development
wrote the screenplay for Witchboard while studying filmmaking at the University of Southern California. He drew inspiration for the story from a party he attended where a friend brought a Ouija board for partygoers to use. While researching the history of the Ouija board, Tenney learned about the notion of "progressive entrapment", an element that figures briefly in The Exorcist, in which the young Regan MacNeil becomes gradually "entrapped" by a demonic entity. As some elements of the script were based on incidents he had heard of while researching experiences close friends and others had with Ouija boards, he believed the material would resonate with viewers being based in facts, despite it being fictitious. Though Tenney never believed in the board himself, he admitted the board was "creepy".One of the central themes of the film was the "bromance" of Jim Morar and Brandon Sinclair, whose friendship involved a love triangle with the character of Linda Brewster. Tenney viewed the film as being about the board, who he sees as a character, forcing Jim to reflect on his relationships with Linda and Brandon, the latter of whom he had a falling out with. Once he knew this was the story, it was easy for him to work it around with the incidents he had researched about. In writing the characters, he drew from his own background to make them "three-dimensional," and thought it would be interesting to see Jim's disestablished friendship with Brandon come back together. The character of Jim was based on Tenney himself, and he wrote him to be a construction worker from when he, his brother Dennis Michael Tenney, and their friend James W. Quinn worked in construction before moving to Los Angeles. He stated in interviews that despite it being a horror film, he sought to create a character-driven story.
When Tenney's friend, Rolan Carol, had to drop out of university due to financial issues, he found a job at a commodities firm where the owner, Walter Josten, was getting bored of commodities. Rolan mentioned Tenney's script to Josten, who had an interest in filmmaking. Tenney and his friend, Gerald Geoffray, then pitched the film to Josten, who was impressed by the idea, and agreed to help finance the project. Tenney dropped out of his program at the University of Southern California, four units shy of earning his master's degree, to begin shooting the film.
Casting
Todd Allen was cast as Jim, as Tenney felt he was the only one that was true to the role. Initially, Allen was worried that he lost the role when he saw Tenney laughing while sitting in the auditioning room, but he made him laugh because it reminded him of the way he talked and acted. He received the benefit of returning with the filmmakers to read the actresses that auditioned for the role of Linda, which Tawny Kitaen had read when he was not there.Casting producer Rebecca Boss and Tenney found Kitaen ideal for the part as everyone the latter knew at his office, who were all male, noticed her the most. She had flown to New York prior to shooting so Tenney called up her agent about making a deal, and she flew back to arrive on set when filming began. When she met Allen, they both became very intimate with their relationship. Tenney saw that she brought an "appeal" that affected everyone at the time, which was something he initially did not see.
Photographer J.P. Luebsen was hired to play Carlos Malfeitor, the villain, when he met Tenney through a friend at an Independence Day party. Whenever he was on set, Kitaen mentioned to him about being completely distant so that she could build herself up to be terrified of him. Other cast members include Quinn, Kenny Rhodes, and Kathleen Wilhoite. Although Wilhoite was the first to audition for Sarah "Zarabeth" Crawford, she initially did not respond to Tenney about the part, but later accepted it when they re-met. Rhodes stated that Witchboard was the only film in his career where he did not recall auditioning. The costumer gave him a bandanna to "toughen up" his character Mike, which he kept as he was a Bruce Springsteen fan.
Filming
Though set in Tenney's hometown of Fairfield in Northern California, financial restraints mandated that the film be shot in Southern California. Principal photography took place in the summer of 1985, at the Higgins-Verbeck-Hirsch Mansion in Windsor Square, Los Angeles, and Big Bear Valley in San Bernardino, California. Additional photography occurred in San Francisco. Filming at Big Bear Lake occurred in August 1985, as well as at the Big Bear public library. Three days of filming were completed with an unnamed cinematographer, mainly the film's opening party scene. The producers subsequently chose to replace the cinematographer with Roy H. Wagner, who shot the remainder of the film.The film was shot under the working title Ouija, but had to be re-titled during production after board game conglomerate Parker Brothers, who owned the trademark name "Ouija", attempted to prevent one of their boards from being used or mentioned in the film. The errors and omissions carrier did not approve of the filmmakers having already shot footage using one of their Ouija boards, requiring the production company to put up $50,000 bond to prevent any potential litigation. Though there was no lawsuit, Walter Josten stated that this should have been cleared before they started filming. The film's production company received the insurance to change the title to Witchboard and were allowed to pay the bond, as well as to integrate the board footage with an alternate board footage as shown when Jim and Brandon are at Big Bear. However, the filmmakers were divided about the title change, with many preferring Ouija while others felt that Witchboard was a "cooler" title.
Shooting the shower scene was difficult for Kitaen as she did not trust Tenney nor the camera crew to shoot the scene, but had faith in cinematographer Wagner to do it when she saw his wedding ring. According to Tenney, Kitaen only agreed to film nudity in the presence of married men. The crew used effects when the spirit turns on hot blazing water in the shower that Linda was trapped in, using breakaway glassed shower doors, and a fog machine to represent the hot water's moisture. Kitaen became more comfortable when the set was cleared to only the director and second-camera loader assistant, but this was a big uproar as all of the men had to temporarily leave the set.
On set, there were numerous running gags that Wagner was mostly involved in. In one, Kitaen devastatingly believed on-set that her poodle was accidentally run over by the props truck, but she was relieved to find that the dog was safe and it was only a gag prop with hair similar to her dog that was laid on the road. At the time, they used another gag whereas since Kitaen was dating O. J. Simpson at the time and he visited her on set occasionally, they would call the production office under a pseudonym to speak with her. Other gags involved rocking Kitaen's trailer back and forth, flipping the outhouses upside down with actors inside, and locking the crew in rooms where they could not get out to set on time.
There also, however, was a fair share of eerie occurrences on set. Some of the crew, mostly those that had come in earlier, had significant problems inside the 637 Lucerne Blvd house such as the crew bumping into objects that were not there, as well as objects that moved that no one else around could have moved during that time frame. Wagner especially felt a strong presence at the staircase where someone was walking behind him, and numerous occurrences where the cast and crew heard whispering and talking.
The last scene shot was of Jim being pushed out of the window, which was done in one take at a distant park, using a built replica of the window. Since there was a crane arm behind Allen, he could not flail his arms around and instead blocked it out with his shoulders.