Those of us hoping Chuck Russell’s Witchboard remake would be a pleasant surprise found ourselves with a mixed bag. At times, it feels like 1990s supernatural fodder blended with a knockoff of a CW horror drama aimed at tweens. This is sad because most of us were assuming this take on Kevin Tenney’s 1986 film of the same name would be fun. Or at least push the envelope forward as it is being reimagined nearly forty years later.
Witchboard Returns With An R Rating
Another reason some of us were excited to see Witchboard is that Russell directed, produced, and co-wrote this reimagining. He helmed The Blob and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, so he knows what a fun horror movie should look like. However, we are met with a 112-minute runtime that is unearned. While this film has little in common with the original, it also avoids ever doing anything too interesting. Instead, it settles on a rather pedestrian and frustratingly predictable tale that lacks thrills. The film has an R rating, and I have no clue how it achieved that with its almost basic cable sensibilities.
Some Missed Opportunities
This iteration of Witchboard is set in present-day New Orleans. Emily (Madison Iseman), Christian (Aaron Dominguez), and some of their friends are opening a restaurant in the French Quarter. However, those plans are derailed when Emily finds (and becomes obsessed with) the cursed board. She unknowingly falls for a trap set by a vengeful witch willing to kill for her own gains. Yet, all of the reveals are toothless, and none of the attempted scares land. So, this movie feels very paint-by-the-numbers, and you can see where it’s going from the very beginning. Instead of making this one-note story fun or exciting, the team serves a very bland movie.
We soon find out that Emily battled to get sober not so long ago, as it comes up a lot. Her fiancé continually asks her if she’s using again. His friend/ex-girlfriend Brooke (Melanie Jarnson) explains Emily’s addictive personality is the reason she’s such an easy target for the board. We even get her former dealer trying to catch her at a funeral and calling to offer her heroin. Witchboard harps on Emily’s past but never does anything with it aside from reminding her and the audience about it. It’s one of the many things that feel underdeveloped in this film.
Subtly Doesn’t Exist in Witchboard
Through completely obvious and predictable means, Alexander Babtiste (Jamie Campbell Bower) gets involved with this couple and this cursed item. He’s an occult expert who is asked to help save Emily’s soul, but the script doesn’t do anything subtly. Witchboard announces he’s the big bad from the beginning, so we have to suspect everyone who works with him is also evil. While Bower gives one of the stronger performances, his character is written like a cartoon villain. This especially hurts because wherever you land on Stranger Things, you know Bower can play a damn good bad guy. However, he’s sadly one of the many wasted opportunities in this film.
While this version of Witchboard should be more modern, bold, and scary, it curiously feels like it takes many steps backward. The original film had a bromance that felt like it would have been a romance in more modern times. This new version shoves away that glimmer of queerness and instead makes the main trio of characters very hetero. However, you almost forget to throw tomatoes for those reasons because the casting department has given us another prime example of why we have to start having more conversations about colorism.
And Another Thing!
This movie is set in New Orleans. However, I can count the Black actors with dialog on one finger, and the Black actors I saw on screen with one hand. They were able to hire a few more to be bodies when things go down later in the film. While I am begging for more POC representation in general, I can’t help noticing the media’s aversion to casting actors with darker skin tones. It’s almost as if the powers that be aren’t aware that POC can have a variety of skin tones. I write this while looking at my own pasty legs and glaring at my computer.
This is not to take away from how happy I was to see Dominguez and Jarnson on screen. If anything, I would love to see them in better movies so I can see what they are actually capable of. However, I am also tired of the industry-wide problem. We have seen so many horror movies this summer, which also didn’t get the memo that Brown people can be Brown.
Why Remake Witchboard?
I cannot say Witchboard is a good time. I tried to convince myself that it might be so bad it’s good, but that would be a lie. Aside from the embarrassingly bad CGI and a few smartphones, there is nothing to really anchor this movie in this decade. It could’ve easily been a late ’80s or early ’90s effort. Which begs the question, why this remake now? If it doesn’t want to be in conversation with anything going on today, why touch the IP? It would have been cool to push the premise forward for a more modern audience. Instead, we have a toothless reimagining that overstayed its welcome. For why? For Whomst?
