A Ouija Board Walks into a Party
There are two kinds of horror movies: the ones that try to be respectable (The Exorcist, The Omen), and the ones that show up at your house party with a six-pack and a cardboard Ouija board. Witchboard belongs proudly in the second category. Written and directed by Kevin Tenney in his debut, this 1986 supernatural thriller is one of those VHS-era gems that proves you don’t need a massive budget, Shakespearean actors, or even much critical respect to carve out a cult following. You just need Tawny Kitaen, a creepy board, and a ghost with an axe to grind—literally.
Tenney supposedly got the idea at a party where someone whipped out a Ouija board. Most of us would’ve laughed, asked who was moving the planchette, and gone back to drinking warm beer. Tenney, however, thought: What if this piece of particle board slowly destroyed your life? That leap of imagination is why he got a movie deal and you didn’t.
Linda, Jim, Brandon, and a Love Triangle with a Ouija Board
The film starts innocently enough: Linda Brewster (Tawny Kitaen) flirts with her ex-boyfriend Brandon (Stephen Nichols), who just happens to bring along his Ouija board to her house party. (Romantic gift-giving is dead.) Brandon communicates with “David,” a ghost child he regularly chats with. Linda is intrigued, while her current boyfriend Jim (Todd Allen), a construction worker with a mullet and a chip on his shoulder, scoffs at the whole thing.
It’s the classic love triangle—woman, current boyfriend, ex-boyfriend—but with the added complication of an invisible ten-year-old spirit wedging himself into the relationship. That’s right: Witchboard is the only film where third-wheeling is done by an actual ghost.
Progressive Entrapment: When Ghosts Play the Long Game
The central theme here is “progressive entrapment,” which sounds less like a demonic process and more like a corporate HR seminar. Basically, the ghost terrorizes you just enough to weaken your will until possession becomes easy. For Linda, this means nausea, mood swings, and obsessive board use—symptoms indistinguishable from either pregnancy or playing too much Dungeons & Dragons.
The genius is that Linda doesn’t just become a helpless victim; she actively chooses to keep playing with the board, like the world’s worst addict. If Ouija boards were sold in back alleys, Linda would be the one pawning her jewelry to score another session with David.
David Wasn’t David After All
Of course, this isn’t really David. That sweet little drowned boy is just the cover story. The real ghost is Carlos Malfeitor, a Depression-era axe murderer who looks like he wandered out of a bad Halloween haunted house. It’s a twist so gloriously pulpy you can’t help but grin. The villain isn’t just a ghost; he’s a serial killer ghost. It’s like the writers made a list of “what scares teenagers” and decided to combine them all into one chain-smoking specter.
Psychic Mediums and Sundials: A Cautionary Tale
No supernatural movie is complete without a flamboyant psychic, and Witchboard delivers Sarah “Zarabeth” Crawford (Kathleen Wilhoite), who breezes in like a new-age Beetlejuice and breezes out by getting her throat cut and her body impaled on a sundial. It’s a death so over-the-top it borders on parody, yet it perfectly fits the film’s tone. Imagine dying not by ghostly possession but by tripping and landing on the world’s deadliest lawn ornament. That’s the kind of absurdity you watch Witchboard for.
Jim and Brandon: The Real Bromance
Director Kevin Tenney has admitted the film is less about Linda and more about Jim and Brandon’s fractured friendship. They’re ex-buddies forced to work together to save Linda, and for a while it feels like the ghost is just third-wheeling them, too. Their chemistry has more fire than Jim and Linda’s relationship, making one wonder if the true progressive entrapment was bromantic all along.
Brandon eventually dies, of course—hatcheted by Malfeitor—but not before cementing himself as one of the few horror movie exes who wasn’t totally insufferable. It’s almost touching, in a “he died so his buddy could keep dating Tawny Kitaen” kind of way.
The Axe Falls, the Guns Fire, and the Board Lives On
The finale is pure B-movie bliss. Linda, fully possessed, taunts Jim, convincing him he’s the “portal” and should kill himself. It’s a bold strategy—convince a blue-collar guy to shoot himself rather than fix the problem with a hammer. Naturally, Jim resists, shoots the board instead, and tumbles dramatically out a window. The board is seemingly destroyed, Malfeitor banished, and Jim and Linda marry—because nothing says “healthy relationship” like being possessed by an axe murderer before the wedding.
Of course, the real star isn’t Linda, Jim, or Brandon. It’s the board. In the final scene, the landlady’s granddaughter fiddles with the discarded Ouija board, and the planchette slides to “yes.” The board isn’t gone. The party game from hell is just waiting for its next victim. And that’s when you realize: Tenney wasn’t making a one-off slasher. He was making a franchise starter.
A Cult Classic Carved in Wood
Critics hated Witchboard when it came out, but audiences kept showing up. With a $7.4 million box office return, this low-budget debut punched way above its weight class. It spawned two sequels (Witchboard 2: The Devil’s Doorway and Witchboard III: The Possession), endless VHS rentals, and now even a 2024 remake. And really, what else could you expect? You can’t kill a Ouija board with bad reviews.
Carol J. Clover, in her seminal horror study Men, Women, and Chainsaws, gave the movie serious academic attention, proving that beneath the schlock is a film genuinely wrestling with gender roles, supernatural control, and the vulnerability of trust. Or maybe she just liked the axe scenes. Either way, Witchboard has more brains than you’d expect for a movie where someone gets murdered via sundial.
Why It Works
Here’s the truth: Witchboard works because it commits. It takes its goofy premise and plays it straight, never winking at the audience. Tawny Kitaen gives Linda just enough depth to make her descent believable. Stephen Nichols and Todd Allen play their rivalry like they’re in a soap opera rather than a horror flick, which gives the film unexpected emotional heft. And Malfeitor—well, he’s basically an axe-wielding Scooby-Doo villain, but he’s memorable.
The movie also introduced horror fans to the concept of “progressive entrapment,” a phrase now repeated in hushed tones at parties whenever someone pulls out Parker Brothers’ finest. It gave a supernatural justification to the idea that fooling around with a Ouija board isn’t just silly—it’s a gateway drug to axe murder.
Final Verdict
Witchboard is a movie that dares to take a $20 parlor trick and turn it into a horror institution. It’s campy, clunky, occasionally hilarious, but also legitimately eerie in places. It may not be high art, but it’s high entertainment. The fact that it still inspires sequels, remakes, and academic debates nearly 40 years later means Kevin Tenney succeeded where it mattered most: he made a horror movie people can’t forget.
So dust off your VHS copy, dim the lights, and remember the golden rule: never play Ouija alone. Unless, of course, you want to be possessed by a Depression-era serial killer. In that case—good luck.
