Movie Review: WITCHBOARD

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: August 15th, 2025 / 05:45 PM

WITCHBOARD movie poster | ©2025 TheAvenue/Atlas Distribution

Rating: R
Stars: Madison Iseman, Aaron Dominguez, Melanie Jarnson, Jamie Campbell Bower, Antonia Desplat, Charlie Tahan, David La Haye, Elisha Herbert, Renee Herbert, Chiara ForsattiWriters: Chuck Russell and Greg McKay, inspired by the screenplay WITCHBOARD by Kevin Tenney
Director: Chuck Russell
Distributor: The Avenue/Atlas Distribution
Release Date: August 15, 2025

The original 1986 WITCHBOARD, written and directed by Kevin Tenney, was a horror movie that centered around a Ouija board and eventual spiritual possession. WITCHBOARD was followed by 1992’s WITCHBOARD 2 and 1995’s WITCHBOARD III: THE POSSESSION.

Now we’ve got a new WITCHBOARD, in more ways than one. In 2014, Universal released OUIJA (followed by 2016’s prequel, OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL). which is now a Hasbro-branded “game.”

It’s unclear if the current indie WITCHBOARD ran into trademark licensing issues, or if the filmmakers just wanted something more ancient and colorful-looking, but the title object here is a circular “pendulum board.” This is eventually described in the movie as dating back to pre-Christian Egypt and an inspiration for the current Ouija board, which is “just a game.” (Take that, Ouija boards!)

This WITCHBOARD starts in 1693 France, with a coven ritual around a fire, complete with severed hands hanging from trees and a man tied up to a rock.

Not for the last time here, our sympathies shift back and forth. Yes, the man – who we learn is Bishop Grogan (David La Haye) – is in a terrifying predicament. But the coven leader, Naga Soth (Antonia Desplat), says he has defiled her.

Grogan’s followers come to his rescue, and in the following melee, Naga Soth’s witchboard is left behind.

In the present, the board is on display in a New Orleans museum, until it is stolen by a couple of quarreling goons. One shoots the other, both escape the police, and neither survives very long.

Recovering drug addict Emily (Madison Iseman), her aspiring restauranteur fiancé Christian (Aaron Dominguez) and their friends are picking mushrooms in the woods. A very large stray cat leads Emily to the board, which has fallen out of the thief’s satchel; Emily doesn’t see the man’s corpse lying nearby.

Emily brings the intriguing board home, thinking it will be a good decoration for Christian’s about-to-open Creole Kings Café. At a party celebrating the restaurant’s impending debut, Christian’s ex Brooke (Melanie Jamson) shows up. Brooke happens to be a professional expert in the occult. She’s surprised to see the board but is happy to explain its nature to the curious Emily.

Emily at first just wants to use the board’s otherworldly powers to locate her missing engagement ring. Then Emily starts having nightmares, Christian’s kitchen starts having accidents, and Brooke’s friendly pagan acquaintance Alexander Baptiste (Jamie Campbell Bower) starts expressing a lot of interest in the board.

When Emily declares early on that she’s done searching for the parents she’s never known, there are no prizes for deducing her bloodline.

However, the screenplay by Chuck Russell, who directed, and Greg McKay does have a lot of nicely-braided twists that lead into one another. It’s especially pleasing that we can’t predict which way certain things will go, and that a sense of real grievance, rather than blanket “evil,” underlying the circumstances.

Russell, who helmed one of the better NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET sequels, comes up with some great folk horror imagery and reasonable sense that we’re in the Big Easy. There are plot reasons given for some big set pieces, and the pace is propulsive.

Iseman and Desplat are both called upon to deliver wide-ranging performances, and they do so with skill. Jamson exudes sophistication, and Bower contributes charm and mischief along with the requisite arrogance.

It also helps that the witchboard is intricate enough that we want a better look at it. It’s an impressive prop at the center of a fun horror film.

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