Witchboard: A fine excuse to see Tawney Kitaen naked

I don’t like to do this but I think I need to lead this one off with a disclaimer: This is going to be one for the guys. It will be a deep and penetrating exploration of the adolescent psyche. Specifically MY adolescent psyche. Specifically my adolescent psyche’s obsession with boobs. Which is really not all that deep at all.

Hey, I said this one was for the guys.

Now that the ladies are gone I’m going to be honest here; I used to think Witchboard was a good movie.

And you know what? If you came of age in the 80’s I bet you think it was too.

I know I saw it more than once in junior high and I had fond memories of it. Than I saw it again last week and I gotta say; NOT a good movie. Like most fondly remembered low budget 80’s flicks this one was better off staying in my memories. There it could live on untarnished; a perfect blend of horror, action, and yes, boobs. Now that memory has been forever sullied which is really just my way of saying “Oh my, time has not been kind to this flick.”

The reason I was interested in the movie in 1985, and really the ONLY reason to watch it now, is star Tawny Kitaen. You may remember her from the Whitesnake video where she writhes on the hood of a car in lingerie and licks David Coverdale. She can’t act worth a damn but with her lion’s mane of gigantic raven hair and perfect body you won’t even notice. She is the star of the movie for better or worse. Mostly worse.

Witchboard is badly made but has a pretty good premise. After using a Quija board at a party, Laura (Kitaen) becomes obsessed with the “game” and starts playing more and more. Even worse, our resident Ouija expert Brandon (Stephen Nichols) warns her repeatedly not to play it alone. She becomes more and more obsessed with a ghost boy named David and people start dying all around her. Laura’s boyfriend Jim (Todd Allen) and Brandon have to work together to stop the murders and find out why the previously nice Casper the not-so-friendly ghost is now so murderous.

Suffice it to say nothing is as it seems and when the true killer shows his maniacally grinning face on screen it is the movie’s one heart stopper moment. Unfortunately the killer is shown for all of 2 seconds and in a dream sequence to boot. Adding insult to injury, instead of showing the killer again at the end we get Laura possessed and wearing a bowler hat looking like she just stepped out of a community theater rendition of Chicago.

Still, there is a shower scene to look forward to. However the naked time is interrupted quickly by a murderous shower nozzle (damn you possessed plumbing!) and the scene quickly changes from arousal to alarm as you find yourself yelling “You’re gonna cut your boobs on the broken glass!” at the TV.

Despite featuring a couple of murders by hatchet, the movie is lame in the gore department. Usually that doesn’t bother me but I needed something to wake me up. A couple spurts of blood and some nudity was enough to keep me watching when I was a kid. Now a 14 year old me would probably turn this flick off after the low budget opening credits in favor of internet porn and Wolf Creek. Heartwarming, eh?

Ah, the times they have a changed.

The plot mechanics of the movie are mostly ridiculous. It is never clear how a ghost that we never see was carrying around a real hatchet. Any time there is an attack the camera takes the role of the killer. It’s like Halloween but with more lame. So we the viewer are zooming around chasing after the victim while they scream and say things like “You!?” as if it is a clue to the killer’s identity.

Spoiler Warning!

It is not a clue.

End Spoiler Warning.

The ending makes little sense and I’m not surprised I misremembered it being better than it actually is. I won’t ruin it because I know you have all just catapulted Witchboard to a Very Long Wait status on Netflix, but if you are ever in danger from a ghost just shoot the nearest Ouija board. Despite evidence to the contrary all will be fine.

As a narrative Witchboard sucks but as a vehicle to showcase Tawny Kitaen in all her (brief) naked splendor it is a rousing success. I wish I could put this genie back into the bottle and preserve the memory of a much better movie but it is not to be. My inner 14 year old is crushed but he’ll get over it eventually.

I wonder if Ghoulies is as awesome as I remember?