Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway (1993)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Blistering performances.

I really wanted to like this. I am a fan of horror/supernatural films that range from the 50's up through the late 80's to early 90's. I have seen a lot of them and they all have their own hang-ups considering they are so aged compared to 2014. The problem with this movie isn't so much the movie itself as the choice for the lead actress. Sure, Amy Dolenz is very beautiful, but that voice and her acting is just pure hell. I wanted to contact a demon on my board just to shut her up. I would rather have Mickey Dolenz as the lead actress than Amy. The movie itself was what you would expect from the era and the genre, decent B quality stuff that keeps you entertained and you can poke fun at it because of the time. Give it a shot if you really must, but watch some other stuff first.

Paige Benedict is a wannabe artist who moves into a large apartment loft and discovers an Ouija board in the closet. After trying it out she starts receiving messages from the other-side by the previous tenant Susan Sidney. Who claims that she was murdered. Paige suddenly gets caught up into finding out what happened to Susan, but along the way people start dying off by strange occurrences.Well I've never seen the original, but there's no relationship between the two films that makes you have to seen them in any particular order. I was expecting something quite secondary, but Kevin Tenney's 'Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway' was a mostly fun and harmless little piece, which was competently directed with some nice inventive flourishes. While, it's not hard to figure out what's eventually going to happen (though the final twist got me) and the pacing can lumber along with long talky spells, but there are definite features that make up for these aspects. Tenney makes the most out of his budget to cook up some strikingly atmospheric camera-work, tautly effective music score, credible special effects and a humdrum script filled with some biting humour. There are some well staged action scenes that have energy and the edgy deaths are mildly inspired. Although they are rather tame. False jump scares are evident, but never fall into the cheap variety. It tries to be creepy in its set-up, but I found it to be too silly to be so. Laughable in patches, but it never gets overly cheesy. Although there are some totally unlikely (if moronic) plot developments in the script that will raise eyebrows. One thing that got on my nerves was the constant use of sounding out every single letter and letting us know what it spells when Ouija board comes into play. Sure I can hack it every now and then, but all the time. No way! At least we had a blond hottie doing it for us. Tenney sure does tease the viewer with the gorgeously dainty Ami Dolenz. Her perky performance is surprisingly good. Those looking for a bit of flesh will be highly disappointed. Laraine Newman is amusing as the flip-out hippie landlady. The beautiful Julie Michaels was fine as Susan. Timothy Gibbs, John Gatins and Christopher Michael as bawdy landlord were okay.It's a decent enough time-waster that has a certain quirkiness and stylish feel to it all.

Spoilers herein.A truth about horror films is that you don't really visit the world of the story as much as the mind of the filmmaker(s). If there is a strange and scary mind there, you get creeped out. If it is skewed in some way, you can pick it up if there is any competence at all.In this case, we have a story about a haunting, and the camera is placed so that we do that haunting. The story is irrelevant. Everything is focused on the apartment and the sailing ghostly eye that observes. We become the ghost.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

This is one of those movies that you must see. Ok, it's not as good as the first one but it is still worth renting. In this movie Kevin S. Tenney shows us everything that happened in the first, but this time with some better acting and better death scenes. For actors you have Ami Dolenz (Ticks), and Timothy Gibbs (Leprechaun 3). I didn't care for anyone else, except for Laraine Newman who played the "I'm still stuck in 1969 lady". She's a good actor, and plays the role of a hippie pretty well. (To be honest a little to well). If you liked "Witchboard" then you will probably like this one. Stay away from the third one. Kevin S. Tenney didn't even write that one. For Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway ~ 7/10 stars.