Witchboard 2: The Devil’s Doorway (1993) [31 Days of Gore]

Cinemax was kind to me in the 90s. I recorded Witchboard 2 on the same VHS as 976-Evil 2 and Amityville 6, the latter of which taught me that if you take the cable of a guitar amp and plug it into an attacker’s mouth, you can make them explode (but only after turning the volume knob up). I’ve just seen Witchboard 2 again, thanks to r/badmovies’ latest movie marathon. I suspect I’ve now seen the movie more than anyone else, including the people who made it.

Sure, it’s marginally fun with the right crowd (attendees developed a drinking game with rules such as “drink every time you see mom jeans”), but this marks the first time I’ve fallen asleep during this year’s 31 Days of Gore. I was out for about twenty minutes and somehow didn’t miss a thing.

The leading female, who we’ll call Dullsville, moves into an apartment and decides she’s going to be a hotshot painter. Her landlady (Laraine Newman from SNL) is crazy and believes it’s still 1969 for no other reason than the filmmakers thought it would be funny. (Nothing in this movie is intentionally funny and it’s painful whenever it tries.) Dullsville’s love interest is a snarky photographer who helps her investigate the strange happenings that occur after the previous tenant’s Ouija board is found in a closet. Then nothing interesting whatsoever happens for a gruelingly long time.

Here’s a movie that attempts to make use of the camera techniques Sam Raimi pioneered in Evil Dead films, but the shots are used nonsensically. The camera pushes through a moving car, down a chimney, and sometimes flies all over the damn place, but there’s rarely a reason for it. It’s as if the filmmakers are mimicking things they’ve seen in better movies, but didn’t understand why they were effective.

Calling the characters one-dimensional would be an insult to doodles. As for redeeming qualities? There are none. The most exciting thing in the movie was given away by the box art (see above). It turns out that was a dream anyway. How lame.