Today's film wears out the "ice cream" connection and goes right to the cheese, but it was a big, visible horror video rack hit in the 1980s. Does it deserve your time and attention? The planchette points to NO, but I still had a good time ragging on it. Enjoy!
Bonus: This features Cincinnati native Stephen Nichols, a veteran of multiple daytime soaps, and Tawney Kitaen, former wife of a Cleveland Indian. Maybe this shoulda been set in Ohio?
31 Flavors of Horror #28:
Witchboard
This was a video-store staple, and I have vague memories of renting and catching it at parties during my teens. What I remember clearly is that every copy had those stress-and-rewind lines right before Tawny Kitaen's shower scene. Personally, I think they should have been included as part of the DVD experience. You know, to complete that "retro" feel.
Anyhow, like many an Eighties flick, Witchboard opens at a party attended byclean-cut, mid-to-late twentysomethings (in conservative dress and mom jeans) who're supposed to be wild, crazy college kids. Smug Brandon (Stephen Nichols), buddy Jim (Todd Allen), and pretty Linda (Tawny Kitaen) and her rat's nest of hair are having (ahem) deep discussions and trading jibes during the festivities (which are taking place in a house I've seen in a dozen other movies). Bad music, smoking in the house, mullets? This is definitely showing it's 1986 origins. Some things don't age well. Jim and Linda are a couple, but she used to be with rich-boy Brandon, and it's giving Jim the vapors. I immediately decided, based on his melodramatic guzzling from a whiskey bottle that not only is he insecure, but it's probably Brandon he's really in love with.The party starts to simmer down, settling into a discussion of completely unsubstantiated convictions about the existence of the devil. You know, it was much easier to say "there are tapes, photographs" and not have to prove it in a time before teh interwebz. Our sulky, lovelorn Brandon whips out his Ouija board and planchette, helpfully defining them for our audience, while one queen with enormous eyeglasses perches on him. New boyfriend? What did Linda see in this guy besides his cash and unthreateningly good hair anyhow?
(Spoilers, man-love, and possible merkins ahead!)
