If you ever wanted to know what it would feel like to watch a haunted house movie made by someone who’d only heard the idea of haunted houses explained secondhand at a bus stop by a man with mustard on his shirt — Witchtrap is your movie.
This 1989 curiosity, directed by Kevin Tenney (of Witchboard infamy), is the cinematic equivalent of being promised a rollercoaster and getting a rusty teacup ride operated by a hungover clown. It tries to blend supernatural horror with hard-boiled action — like The Exorcist meets Lethal Weapon, if both were filmed on a camcorder in someone’s aunt’s summer rental — but it ends up being neither scary nor exciting. Just dumb.
Plot? Kind of.
Here’s the setup: an old mansion used to belong to a powerful warlock who died. Naturally, the new owners want to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast — because nothing says “five-star weekend getaway” like a history of ritual murder and ectoplasmic leakage. But there’s a problem: the house is haunted. Not in a subtle, atmospheric way. More in a “people are exploding and nobody reacts like a human being” way.
So, the owners call in a team of ghostbusters, only they’re not scientists — they’re washed-up psychics, washed-up cops, and people who look like they got lost on their way to a Motley Crüe concert. Seriously, half the cast looks like they wandered in from a commercial for Aqua Net.
The lead, Tony Vincente (played by James Quinn), is supposed to be a tough, grizzled ex-cop. In practice, he comes off like your uncle trying to sound cool after one too many Coors Lights. His character has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and delivers every line like he’s auditioning for a Skinemax softcore noir. He’s angry at the world, skeptical of ghosts, and clearly wondering where his career went wrong.
The Ghost is a Joke
The villain — a warlock named Avery Lauter — is supposed to be terrifying. In execution, he’s a mulleted spirit who floats around blowing up people’s heads and possessing showers. Yes, there is a haunted shower scene, and it plays out with all the finesse of a high school film project. Steam, nudity, random screams, and death by ghost plumbing. Somewhere, Alfred Hitchcock is spinning in his grave like a drill bit.
Lauter’s evil ghostly presence causes various members of the team to die in over-the-top ways, usually with some kind of gore effect that would make a Tales from the Crypt intern blush. Head explosions, possessed water, demonic winds — it’s all here, and all bad. And yet, not so bad it’s good — just… bad.
Dialogue from Hell
The script is an abomination. Every line sounds like it was written by someone trying to win a bet about how many clichés they could cram into a single conversation. People shout things like “I don’t believe in this mumbo jumbo!” and “This house is trying to kill us!” with the sincerity of a soap opera understudy. At one point, a character earnestly says, “You don’t fight a ghost with a gun,” and another responds, “That’s why I brought a shotgun.” I wish I were joking.
Even worse, the film tries for humor — and fails spectacularly. There’s a moment where Vincente yells at a possessed woman, “You slut! You ghost slut!” which is both hilarious and depressing because the movie doesn’t know it’s funny. It thinks it’s edgy. It’s not. It’s a walking HR violation.
Production Values? Not So Much.
The whole film looks like it was shot for $47 and a half-eaten sandwich. Lighting is inconsistent, sound mixing is atrocious (there are entire scenes where you can hear the wind more clearly than the actors), and the camera work is shakier than a squirrel on meth. The special effects range from laughable to “I think that was just ketchup.”
There are scenes where doors slam on their own, lights flicker, and objects float across the room. But instead of tension, you feel like the crew was just tired and ready to go home. Every scare is telegraphed. Every scene overstays its welcome. Even the death scenes — which should be something — feel perfunctory. Gore happens, people scream, and then nothing. It’s horror movie limbo.
Kudos to Linnea Quigley… for Showing Up
B-movie queen Linnea Quigley shows up long enough to take her clothes off and die. Her performance is, generously, “on-brand” — meaning she shows more effort than the script deserves, then checks out before it completely tanks. She’s killed in one of the film’s more memorable scenes (if only for how absurd it is), and then the movie loses whatever tiny flicker of personality it had.
The Title is a Lie
Let’s address the title. Witchtrap. Great name, right? Evocative. Suggests action, magic, maybe a trap. But there are no witches. And there’s definitely no trap. It’s like calling your movie Sharkocalypse and setting it in a desert. Someone thought “Witchtrap” sounded spooky and just went with it — script be damned.
The Ending — Oh, Who Cares
By the time the final confrontation rolls around, you’ve already mentally checked out. There’s some chanting. Some fighting. A shotgun blast or two. Maybe a spell. It’s hard to tell because the film just collapses into static and noise, then ends like it remembered it had a bus to catch. Characters die, the warlock maybe gets exorcised or maybe moves to another Airbnb, and the survivors walk off like they forgot where they parked.
Final Verdict: Trap the DVD, Burn the Tape
Witchtrap is a movie that should only be watched under very specific conditions: (1) You’ve already seen every horror movie ever made, including ones from Lithuania and public access channels, (2) you’re too drunk to stand, and (3) you hate yourself just enough to think it’s a good idea.
It’s not the worst film ever made — that’s a high bar — but it’s aggressively mediocre in a way that feels more insulting. It wastes a fun premise, a decent horror pedigree, and poor Linnea Quigley. The scariest thing about it is realizing you just lost 90 minutes of your life you’ll never get back.
Rating: 1 out of 5 ghost showers.
Only recommended if your idea of a good time is watching a VHS copy of Poltergeist that someone taped over with a bad cop show and a few minutes of a wedding video. Otherwise, run. From the ghost. From the movie. From yourself.
