It’s been nearly 40 years since Kevin Tenney’s Witchboard first creeped its way onto screens in 1986. That original film was hardly revolutionary for its time, telling a fairly straightforward tale of a cursed Ouija board unleashing demonic possession, but what it did have was a certain flair: a moody John Carpenter-lite synth score, some surprisingly engaging performances, and slick camerawork that elevated its modest premise. It was the kind of horror flick that could easily be dismissed as another 80s artifact, but if you gave it your time, you’d find some inventive plotting and a couple clever subversions hidden beneath the big hair and classic rock. It wasn’t trying to change the game, but it played its part well.
This 2025 remake, on the other hand, swings for the fences with a bigger budget, a more elaborate mythology, and a new, supposedly more culturally specific setting - and sadly fumbles more often that it doesn't. Directed with unclear intent and edited with an almost stubborn disregard for pacing, Witchboard 2025 is a strange and unfortunately boring reimagining that drowns out the potential of its premise with over-explained lore, flat characters, and a frustrating lack of atmosphere.
This time, the titular board (no longer your standard Parker Brothers-style Ouija board but a legitimately ancient, sinister object tied to witchcraft) has an evil origin story set in the distant past, complete with a coven, a sacrifice, and some disgruntled villagers. We then cut to the present, where the Witchboard has wound up in the hands of a group of friends who are in the middle of preparing to open a new restaurant in the French Quarter. Emily (Madison Iseman) and her fiancé Christian (Aaron Dominguez) lead the cast, joined by Christian’s ex Brooke (Melanie Jarnson), their buddy Richie (Charlie Tahan), and others. The new setting at least gives this version of Witchboard a slight boost - there’s something inherently fascinating about New Orleans as a hub for both food and the occult - but it’s mostly squandered on stiff dialogue and bland characterizations.
Within the first fifteen minutes, there's the kind of heavy-handed exposition that sucks all the tension out of the air before things can even get going. We’re introduced to everyone’s motivations upfront in a way that feels more like reading cue cards than actual conversations. The restaurant is struggling to open without a hitch, the relationships are strained, and naturally, no one sees a problem when Emily and Christian discover a creepy, ancient board in the woods and decide to keep it around.
Madison Iseman gives a genuinely strong performance, clearly trying to make something out of the material she’s been given. She’s easily the film’s standout, imbuing Emily with a believable vulnerability that feels like it belongs in a better movie. The rest of the ensemble fares less well - Charlie Tahan is gone far too early, Jamal Azemar’s Zack is likable enough but underutilized, and Jarnson’s Brooke gets stuck in a contrived love triangle that seems to exist more out of obligation to the original than for any real narrative payoff.
This remake takes its biggest swing with the introduction of a full-fledged antagonist: Jamie Campbell Bower (Stranger Things) as Alexander Babtiste, a scheming aristocrat type with a personal mission to reclaim the Witchboard and unlock its true power. He’s backed by his own mini-coven of goth witches, and while Bower definitely looks and sounds the part, the movie can’t seem to decide how much of a threat he’s supposed to be. The same goes for the board’s backstory, which leans into a convoluted mythology involving time travel, body swapping, and recurring flashbacks to an ancient witch named Naga Soth (Antonia Desplat), whose role becomes less clear the more the movie tries to explain her.
It’s strange - for a film this stuffed with lore and “plot,” Witchboard still manages to feel like it’s spinning its wheels. The first act drags immensely, the middle offers little more than repetitive slasher antics, and the finale, while briefly energetic thanks to a wild restaurant-opening-night-gone-wrong sequence that thrives on heightened panic, is still hamstrung by a script that overcomplicates everything and underdelivers on actual scares.
The movie’s tonal messiness doesn’t help. There are glimpses of what could’ve been a fun, modern update, like an ominous cat named Mr. Lucky, a few tongue-in-cheek callbacks to the original, and the potential of using Gen Z startup culture as a horror setting. But none of it coheres into something satisfying. At the end of the day, this reboot wants to be darker, deeper, and more expansive than the original, but it forgets the fundamentals: likable characters, a tight structure, and a little bit of style. The original Witchboard may not have reinvented the wheel, but at least it was confident in what it was.
This remake is a lot of things - bloated, erratic, oddly obsessed with its own mythology - but entertaining sadly isn’t really one of them. Despite some solid ideas and an earnest lead performance from Iseman, Witchboard is the kind of horror misfire that confuses “more” with “better.” In the end, it’s just not fun. It’s not scary. And it’s hardly even interesting.
'Witchboard' comes to theaters August 15th, 2025.
