A Ouiji Board and Hatchet Murderer's Spirit: Thank you 80s.

Witchboard (1986) is exactly what I needed to start the early part of October. Again, 2019 was going to be a very different kind of October year than previously. I wanted to go with something easily digestible and nostalgic. Kevin Tenney will be a director I watch a few films from this month actually. If it wasn't for Night of the Demons, made two years later and set on Halloween, this film might be Tenney's most well known. It has some 80s hallmarks like the casting of soap opera star, Nichols, of Days of Our Lives and Kitaen of the very familiar Whitesnake video, the use of the Ouija Board (I recall when I was a kid, family members my age gathered in a bedroom and tried to see if it would work to summon spirits, pretending to hear something moving in the closet) as a storytelling horror device, and a colorful medium (played with spunk and punk by scene-stealing Wilhoite, making her brief screen time, performing a seance and diffusing the intense air with her psychic humor) brought in to try and spirit away the possessive nasty evil seemingly conjured during a party at carpenter/construction working Allen. Investigation of the boy spirit, David, a frequent visitor to Ouija practicing teacher, Nichols, is considered the malevolent spirit bothering Kitaen, who can't seem to break away from the board,her fingers always on the planchette. Sheetrock falling onto a friend of Allen, another victim getting the sharp end of a hammer to the forehead, with Tenney using his camera as a POV (the camera even hovers in the air and flies at the cast). I feel after watching it again that this was more or less groundwork for Tenney as he brings a lot more tricks to his next film, especially the camera movements. This was exactly what I would be a bit nervous about watching as a kid and wonder why as an adult. I do recall it being on HBO and braving to watch Nichols meet his inevitable doom when David tells him and Allen that Malfeitor was among them. I'll do a top 5 maybe later. ***

I don't think it's great but still I always have fun with it. 1986, this period as a kid is quite important in my eventual embrace of the horror genre. This is the kind of "appetizer" I think is fine for so early in the month. I think quite a few of us watched this a lot on Halloweens in the late 80s/early 90s.