Witchboard

Watched September 29, 2015

1986
Starring: Tawny Kitaen, Todd Allen, Stephen Nichols, Kathleen Wilhoite

Linda (Tawny Kitaen) and Jim (Todd Allen), a young couple are throwing a party at their apartment. Linda invited an old friend, Brandon (Stephen Nichols) who is not friends with Jim anymore...but it takes some time for this relationship to be explained. Brandon is talking to some of the party guests about weird ghosts, religion and acting like a jerk. He has brought a Ouija board , that he has a lot of experiencing using. He convinces Linda to try it with him and they contact a little boy named David. Brendan seems to know a lot about the Ouija board, the history of it and how to use it correctly. After asking the ghost boy David some questions the board jumps off their laps. From outside, they hear a pop and Brandon's fancy sport car has a sudden flat tire.

Since Brandon had to leave the party suddenly he left his Ouija board at Linda and Jim's place. The next day Linda uses the board to contact the ghost David and he helps her find her missing ring. That same day, Jim is at work on a construction site when his friend and coworker is flattened by a pile of Sheetrock. Jim comes home upset about the sudden death of his friend. Linda starts to act strange but it turns out she might be pregnant. Brandon talks to Linda and tells her that she shouldn't be using the board alone. Linda thinks it's harmless until she gets trapped in the kitchen and a knife is thrown to the ground and covered in cocktail sauce.

Brandon thinks that Linda is a victim of progressive entrapment, where a ghost slowly manages to gain the trust of a person until they can take her over. He hires a crazy medium to lock out David from Linda's mind. The medium, Zarabeth (Kathleen Wilhoite) is a valley girl/punk-ish nut but it seems like she does have a real connection to the spiritual realm. They hold a séance and it seems like Zarabeth kicks David out. Brandon drives Zarabeth back home, but the bad spirit follows her into her house. In her apartment it slits her throat and pushes her out the window onto sharp sundial.

Linda and Jim go to the funeral of his construction coworker. There Jim is questioned by a detective who thinks the accident was actually murder and Jim is the main suspect. The detective begins to follow Jim.

Brandon wants to go up to Big Bear where David was killed to make sure they've been talking to him and not some other ghost. Linda tries to contact David again and he shakes her around until she is knocked unconscious. Jim takes her to the hospital but then goes with Brandon to Big Bear.  They find out the David isn't lying by looking up his murder on microfiche at the library. Jim and Brandon spend time together and repair their relationship that was torn apart by Jim's love for Linda.

They get another Ouija board to contact David  to see if he can help them figure out what the actual dark spirit that is trying to progressively entrap Linda. They take it to an old dock and in front of a bunch of tied up barrels try to contact David. It turns out that David is talking to them but there is also an old Portuguese spirit that used to live in Jim's building that is trying to possess Linda. After talking to David, the barrels are unleashed. Jim is knocked unconscious and Brandon falls into the water. Dazed, Brandon does pull himself out of the water but then is killed by an ax to the face. Jim later wakes up, stumbles around and finds Brandon dead.

Jim heads back to the apartment and it's all torn to shit. Linda is now possessed by the Portuguese old man spirit and tries to kill Jim with an ax. They tussle, spirit possessed Linda tries to convince Jim he is the opening to the spirit world and the only way to close it is to kill himself. The detective shows up and tries to arrest Jim but Linda attacks him. Jim then shoots the Ouija board and that gets rid of the spirit but not before he is pushed out the window. 

Later we see Jim and Linda get married, so it all worked out for them. The landlady is cleaning up their messed up apartment and she find the bullet damaged Ouija board and a sequel is hinted out.

All the characters are unlikable and prone to sudden outbursts of rage. Since this was made the 1980's I'm not sure if these kids are 16 or 35. Jim and Linda live in a fancy older building that has been converted to apartments. He works in construction and maybe she is a college student, but we mostly see her hang out around the house. The ghost scenes are pretty weird. They talk about progressive entrapment over and over again which is funny.