Really Awful Movies

Another fashion crime vomited up by the 80s, Witchboard is the brainchild of Kevin S. Tenney, who went on to do the similarly wacky, though better-crafted, Night of the Demons.

We begin at a party,and we get some horror right off the bat: the hair, the fringe jackets, and the dancing.

Then there’s a drunken argument in the corner about the origins of the universe, but neither Dr. Lawrence Krauss nor Dr. William Lane Craig can be found.

And you know where these seemingly intractable debates lead…fistfight? Search for common ground? No. A Ouija board. Like all psychics, we didn’t see that one coming!

One of the interlocutors (and self-described atheist) is Brandon, a pompous blowhard lawyer who drives a Beamer. He explains the etymology of the Ouija, apparently a portmanteau of French and German words for “yes.” If that were the case though, it would be pronounced “Wee-Ya.” No matter. He pulls out a board and claims he’s been communicating with the long-dead spirit of a boy, David. Partygoer Jim (Brandon’s nemesis, and a construction worker) calls bullshit.

Everything grinds to a halt at the party, because nothing is more exciting than Ouija. Linda (80s video vixen Tawny Kitaen) indulges Brandon and puts her hands on the planchette as they attempt to communicate with the Great Beyond.

Linda borrows the board and starts to become obsessed with it, and in her spare time talking to young David (who it turns out, after some fastidious research by Jim and Brandon, died in some kind of fire).

As is often the case, the spirit world is an angry place and the real world starts being affected by the otherworldly disaffection. One of Jim’s colleagues is killed by falling sheet-rock after an axe telekinetically lops off the safety supports. Petrified, they call in a psychic, who’s subsequently killed (she didn’t see that one coming, another zing!)

Then it’s up to Brandon and Jim, once rivals for the heart of Linda, to save her from possession, or “progressive entrapment” as it’s called here, allusions to which were in The Exorcist.

Spirited stuff if you will, with unintended hilarity, crappy performances and a cool plot.

*** (out of 5)

[Check out our Really Awful Movies Podcast discussion of Witchboard]

Equal parts Don’t Answer the Phone! and Barfly, When a Stranger Calls also puts seedy LA front and center. And it gets down to business with what’s now become a time-honored horror trope, one exploited by Wes Craven in Scream: the woman home alone receiving threatening phone calls originating from the basement.

Here, it’s Jill (Carol Kane), who, much like Laurie Strode in Halloween, appears a bit long-in-the-tooth to be associated with babysitting work and worrying about cute boys (The similarities to Halloween don’t end there, with the antagonist here also confined to a mental institution and treated intensively — and ineffectively — by health professionals).

Jill is left to take care of the Mendrakis kids as the doctor and wife are out on the town for the evening.

A heavy breather calls repeatedly with the “have you checked the children?” query, and cops are initially not all that keen to help (“probably just a weirdo”).

LAPD then trace the call to SOMEONE CALLING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE! That’s one of the all-time great urban legends, to go along with the hook-for-a-hand lurking around Make out Point, or You Have AIDS scrawled on a bathroom mirror.

When a Stranger Calls then does an abrupt shift, going all police procedural as two forces of 70s cinema take charge to hunt down the perp: Charles Durning (The Sting/Dog Day Afternoon) and Ron O’Neal (Super Fly).

Meanwhile, the antagonist is drifting through LA’s Skid Row, meeting up with an aging bar queen a la Henry Chinaski in Barfly.

When a Stranger Calls is either a good bad movie, or a bad good movie and you’d be forgiven for coming down on either ledger. The outset is clockwork tension-horror, a wonderful set up on a deserted street, with a dynamite score and rich primrose tones. After that stunning opener, things go a bit south with exposition-riddled blather and a bit of a pacing letup, before it finishes strong.

There’s enough meat to keep horror fans satiated. Just don’t expect big portions.

*** (out of 5)

[Check out our podcast discussion of When a Stranger Calls on the Really Awful Movies Podcast!]