Writer/director Kevin S. Tenney’s 1986 horror classic Witchboard (watch it HERE) has been given the remake treatment courtesy of director Chuck Russell, who was bringing us the likes of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and the remake of The Blob back in the days when Witchboard was gathering its earliest fans. The remake received a theatrical release on August 15th (you can read a review by JoBlo’s own Tyler Nichols at THIS LINK), and now it has been given a digital release! It’s available to watch on Amazon, where it can currently be rented for $3.74 or purchased for $17.74.
Russell intended to go beyond the original Witchboard IP “with a deeper storyline, high intensity scares and imaginative visuals”. As such, the screenplay he wrote with Greg McKay is quite different from the original film. Here’s the synopsis: Emily, her fiancé Christian and a group of their friends open an organic café, refurbishing an old carriage house in New Orleans’ French Quarter. But a darkness descends over Emily when she discovers an ancient pendulum board, once used to summon spirits. Christian seeks help for Emily from occult expert Alexander Babtiste, but Babtiste has secrets of his own, knowing the fateful bloodlines that binds them all to the Witchboard. A modern coven of White Witches, a masked ball at Babtiste’s mansion, and the legacy of Naga Soth, the Queen of Witches, are all part of a dangerous game that puts Emily’s very soul at risk. The film stars Madison Iseman of the short-lived I Know What You Did Last Summer TV series, Aaron Dominguez (Only Murders in the Building), Antonia Desplat (Shantaram), Charlie Tahan (Ozark), and Jamie Campbell Bower, who caught a lot of attention for playing the villainous Vecna in season 4 of Stranger Things.
The Witchboard remake (which got a positive reaction from Tenney when he watched it recently) is an A-Nation Media production, and Russell and McKay are producing the film with Kade Vu and Bernie Gewissler. Eric Schiermeyer, Sarah Buxton, John Paul Isham, and Walter Josten serve as executive producers. Although the film is set in New Orleans, it was shot in Montreal.
The original Witchboard, which is one of my all-time favorites, had two sequels that followed different characters and featured different evil spirits. The main connection between the films was the presence of a Ouija board. Russell’s Witchboard seems separate enough from the original that it might as well be considered Witchboard 4, even if it switches out a Ouija board for a pendulum board. And I’m definitely interested in seeing a Witchboard 4 that’s directed by Chuck Russell. I didn’t catch it on the big screen, but now that it has been given a digital release I’ll be watching it ASAP.
The film has an R rating for strong bloody violence, gore, language, drug content, some sexual content and brief nudity.
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