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Witchboard 2 (1993)

Writer/Director Kevin S. Tenney returns in this sequel to his 1987 original. Introducing new characters, this story centers around a young woman named Paige (Dolenz) who has left her boyfriend Mitch (Gibbs) to see if she is the artist she thinks she is. She rents an artist’s loft to paint, but finds the Witchboard and begins playing it alone. She contacts the spirit of Susan (Julie Michaels) who was the former resident of her loft and heavy into the occult. Susan communicates to Paige that she was murdered which causes Paige to do some checking on her own of Susan’s death. Paige slowly becomes obsessed with the case and the board and gets caught in progressive entrapment like Lynda from the original film did. Unlike the original film in this series, Tenney makes this a story of revenge with Susan’s spirit doing the dirty work. Along the way she takes out a handyman and his stuck in the 60’s wife Elaine (Newman) in grisly fashion. Elaine’s death could be the best of the movie has a giant wrecking ball smashes her into and through her VW Bus she’s standing in front of. Like in the original, Tenney has is camera swoop around the apartment in wide angle to show the point of view of the spirit, and once again it is effective. Composer Denis Michael Tenney delivers a well done score that enhances the action on screen. Some good jump scares are included in the form of some intense dream sequences, but some of the original films atmosphere is sadly missing. The revenge plot line just doesn’t allow for as many scare opportunities as the first film did. Still, this sequel is a worthy effort and Tenney supplies some good supernatural moments to entertain and scare the audience. There is a great final scene which involves the first films star Todd Allen playing Jim with his friend, also from the original Kenny Rhodes as Mike as garbage men as Jim is telling Mike that Linda just had a baby and they named it Brandon. Cool homage to the original.