"Get a grip, Paige, it's only a Ouija Board."
From the director of Night of the Demons and the first Witchboard, is this '93 sequel featuring the gorgeous Ami Dolenz as an amateur artist, Paige, moving into an attractive loft so she can hopefully make a career out of painting while working unhappily at a business to pay the bills. When she dabbles with a Ouija board, found in a closet (it falls in a spot so she can visibly see it), the spirit of a former occupant wants her, Paige assumes, to find her body and the murderer responsible. The question: is there more to this than meets the eye? Could a desire to possess Paige be part of why she keeps motivating her to use the Ouija board? Other characters involved in the mystery regarding the spirit of Susan (Julie Michaels) include a photographer, Jonas (Christopher Michael Moore), the brother of apartment renter, Elaine (Laraine Newman, of Saturday Night Live fame), still living in the 60s (she has a hippy-painted van, dresses and speaks as if she were stuck in a timewarp). Mitch (the bo-hunk Timothy Gibbs) is Paige's former lover, a plain-clothes policeman with bitterness due to her leaving him for being too bossy and pushy. Tenney does use special effects as he did in the first Witchboard to convey Susan's abilities to affect her surroundings when Paige is using the Ouija board (a broken mirror, operating a crane which sends a wrecking ball crashing into a vehicle crushing a victim, and pressing down the accelerator pedal of a Ford Ranger that nearly kills Mitch in Tenney's French Connection sequence of the film). Also a Tenney trademark is the Evil Dead "bird's eye view" camera shot—in this movie's case, from the Point of View of Susan moving about in spirit form—still in effect here as has been used in times past (preferably Night of the Demons and Witchboard, arguably his two best films). Tenney tries to shoot the adorable Dolenz (boy, did I have a crush on her when I was a teenager!) in sexy, provocative ways, and does, at times, succeed. She does have a potty mouth once the Paige character becomes more reliant on the Ouija board, soon quite addicted to solving the mystery of her death, placing her own body in jeopardy of a total takeover. Most unintentional funny scenes (maybe they were intentionally funny, I don't know) have the first victim trying to evade a spinning saw blade in flight, chasing (!) after him and this very same victim succumbing to a boiler that actually balloons as if it become bloated, resulting in a steam kill! Dolenz is actually not a bad lead heroine, her smile is a knock-out and she exudes a pleasant enough personality, but I found Gibbs' cop a hard character to like (he tries, later after reflection, to be more understanding and seems committed to a better relationship with her, but his initial scene does not necessarily warm us to him; his aggressive nature and aura of hostility are especially noticeable), even though he factors heavily into Paige's rescue. One things for certain, Mitch is quite a punching bag thanks to Susan's supernatural powers. Newman does what she can with a caricature, actually still quite amusing during many of her scenes. Moore is the other man in Paige's life, and his character (much to the film's credit) can not be pinned down as completely innocent, although he's far more easy to like than Mitch.
From the director of Night of the Demons and the first Witchboard, is this '93 sequel featuring the gorgeous Ami Dolenz as an amateur artist, Paige, moving into an attractive loft so she can hopefully make a career out of painting while working unhappily at a business to pay the bills. When she dabbles with a Ouija board, found in a closet (it falls in a spot so she can visibly see it), the spirit of a former occupant wants her, Paige assumes, to find her body and the murderer responsible. The question: is there more to this than meets the eye? Could a desire to possess Paige be part of why she keeps motivating her to use the Ouija board? Other characters involved in the mystery regarding the spirit of Susan (Julie Michaels) include a photographer, Jonas (Christopher Michael Moore), the brother of apartment renter, Elaine (Laraine Newman, of Saturday Night Live fame), still living in the 60s (she has a hippy-painted van, dresses and speaks as if she were stuck in a timewarp). Mitch (the bo-hunk Timothy Gibbs) is Paige's former lover, a plain-clothes policeman with bitterness due to her leaving him for being too bossy and pushy. Tenney does use special effects as he did in the first Witchboard to convey Susan's abilities to affect her surroundings when Paige is using the Ouija board (a broken mirror, operating a crane which sends a wrecking ball crashing into a vehicle crushing a victim, and pressing down the accelerator pedal of a Ford Ranger that nearly kills Mitch in Tenney's French Connection sequence of the film). Also a Tenney trademark is the Evil Dead "bird's eye view" camera shot—in this movie's case, from the Point of View of Susan moving about in spirit form—still in effect here as has been used in times past (preferably Night of the Demons and Witchboard, arguably his two best films). Tenney tries to shoot the adorable Dolenz (boy, did I have a crush on her when I was a teenager!) in sexy, provocative ways, and does, at times, succeed. She does have a potty mouth once the Paige character becomes more reliant on the Ouija board, soon quite addicted to solving the mystery of her death, placing her own body in jeopardy of a total takeover. Most unintentional funny scenes (maybe they were intentionally funny, I don't know) have the first victim trying to evade a spinning saw blade in flight, chasing (!) after him and this very same victim succumbing to a boiler that actually balloons as if it become bloated, resulting in a steam kill! Dolenz is actually not a bad lead heroine, her smile is a knock-out and she exudes a pleasant enough personality, but I found Gibbs' cop a hard character to like (he tries, later after reflection, to be more understanding and seems committed to a better relationship with her, but his initial scene does not necessarily warm us to him; his aggressive nature and aura of hostility are especially noticeable), even though he factors heavily into Paige's rescue. One things for certain, Mitch is quite a punching bag thanks to Susan's supernatural powers. Newman does what she can with a caricature, actually still quite amusing during many of her scenes. Moore is the other man in Paige's life, and his character (much to the film's credit) can not be pinned down as completely innocent, although he's far more easy to like than Mitch.