PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Filmmaker Chuck Russell (Nightmare on Elm Street 3) is back in horror! Witchboard is being heralded as his “return to horror.” A reimagining of the 1986 film of the same name written and directed by Kevin Tenney, this new version is NOTHING like the original, and I think that’s what makes it so good.
A cursed Witchboard awakens dark forces, dragging a young couple into a deadly game of possession and deception.
To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with Chuck about coming back to the genre, designing the pendulum board, horror movies, and more!
PopHorror: I had a lot of fun with Witchboard so I’m excited to talk to you about it today.
Chuck Russell: Fantastic!
PopHorror: Your film is a reimagining of the 1986 Witchboard, which was written and directed by Kevin Tenney. How did this project come about?
Chuck Russell: It’s synchronicity. Everything is timing in my business, and I think in life in general. I wanted to get away from horror originally. My first two films were thankfully very successful, but I was risking being branded in horror. It was Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and The Blob. We still seem to have fans so I’m very grateful for that.
PopHorror: Yes!
Chuck Russell: But I didn’t really mean to be away from horror this long. I went to comedy with The Mask, action/adventure with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Erasure, and Dwayne Johnson in Scorpion King, and on with my producing career with Tom Cruise in Collateral, and many other things. I’ve enjoyed making all kinds of films. I think I was reluctant to return to horror also because I wanted to top myself. I got a bunch of fans off those first two films, and I wanted to give them something that I thought was even better. So, Witchboard came about, and I thought, well perhaps there’s been too many Ouija board movies. I wasn’t that interested, and I realized, I’m writing a pendulum board movie. I was developing something because I’m fascinated with pendulum boards. The audience may not be familiar, but I’d never seen it in a horror film, and it is really the original Ouija board. They are obviously with a pendulum, and they were used for spellcasting and divination. It’s not just letters. It is ancient symbols, astrological signs, and ways of learning about your fate and even manipulating your fate. It’s been around since ancient Egypt, so I thought, why not do a witchboard and really get into the history of witches I’d been researching and bring all that and top myself in the genre with this new film?
PopHorror: I’m glad that you’re back because yes, you do still have fans with The Blob and Nightmare on Elm Street 3. Those are definitely fan favorites.
Chuck Russell: Thank you.
PopHorror: Was there anything that you were adamant about keeping in the film, no matter what?
Chuck Russell: There wasn’t a lot of pushback. I developed this film also as a producer/director. There were a few things on my mind, of course, but one of them was showing both sides of Wicca. I’ve seen films where the witches are just old and haggard, and we ended up having a level of sensuality. There are white witches and contemporary witches and, in my mind, the music, the sensuality, the locations in New Orleans are all part of Wicca, all very authentic to Wicca, so I wanted to capture that side too. But of course, it’s a horror film and the number one thing is to be really scary, so we let loose in that direction as well.
PopHorror: One thing that I like in my horror films is good kills and I have to say the one with the meat slicer… I used to work in a deli when I was 18 and cut a nice chunk out of my finger which was the end of the world at the time. I thought this was super unique.
Chuck Russell: Thank you for that. I challenge myself on the scares, the set pieces and kills, and some of them are wild and elaborate and they’re all practical effects, by the way. We had that insane, wild meat slicer on set, all scared of it the whole time. We’d do these things safety conscious but still… That brings a level to the performance that’s quite different than if you’re doing a green screen or a CGI movie where the performers themselves have a level of fear, a level of tension, whether they admit it or not and that’s communicated really well to the audience. I believe fear is a herd instinct. It’s why we like the theater experience where we’re all watching, in the dark, the same scare. In this case, the actors are already performing just trusting me when I say, “Action!”, to walk down that hall knowing that something is going to explode up at them.
PopHorror: I like that you brought up the theater experience because I 100% agree. I love watching horror movies with like-minded individuals. That makes it so much more fun. To be in a group with tons of people who love the same stuff that I do and cheering when people are killed and when the blood is flowing. That is the best experience.
Chuck Russell: It’s cathartic. There’s a connection with roller coasters and things like that. We love to get our adrenaline up, especially when times are difficult and there’s a general tension where there’s an issue in the economy or crazy politics. It’s great to let out that scream in a horror film and survive it. To face your worst fears through those characters, as authentically as I can create them, and then walk out relieved.
PopHorror: The witchboard in your film – the pendulum board – is pretty unique and super creepy. It’s really unlike anything that I’ve seen. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and designing it?
Chuck Russell: The inception of this whole film was my fascination with pendulum boards. Years ago, I happened to be investigating an occult bookstore in Los Angeles kind of randomly, and it had an array of pendulum boards, and I was fascinated with them. They are the predecessor of Ouija boards. They don’t just have letters on them. There are pendulum boards with nothing but astrological signs, there are pendulum boards with ancient symbiology almost like tarot. They’re interpretive and I got into it. I was like, What is this? Like tarot or Ouija boards, the activity of holding a pendulum over one of these scrying boards, scientists will tell you that your subconscious is guiding the micromovements in your muscles and guiding it. That’s the scientific explanation for these boards. They’ve been around for centuries. The mystical explanation is the spirits are leading your intuition and literally moving the pendulum. What’s interesting if you’re doing it properly, which starts with the right intention I hope, reaching for the light rather than the dark. It’s like anything else in mystical practices. It’s maybe a cautionary tale against mystical practices so I’m not advertising the boards but I will tell you, they’re fascinating. The reason we haven’t heard much of them is that it’s true, the French Pope in the 1700s outlawed them and they were burning women at the stake for having them, so it’s very tied into the real history of witches. That died out – literally – and the Ouija board evolved from that with the planchette years after, in the late 1800s. That’s where it comes from and it is a wonderful art form by the way. I was fascinated with them. I thought, Wait a minute. I could do Witchboard with pendulum boards, get to have the cinematic fun of shooting something like that and be authentic to the history of witches.
PopHorror: Much like a Ouija board, I will not try it.
Chuck Russell: Please don’t!
PopHorror: I don’t believe in a lot of stuff I see in horror movies. Obviously, I watch a lot, and I get it’s all fake. But I do feel that Ouija boards and now pendulum boards and all of this could possibly open something that I don’t want to be a part of.
Chuck Russell: I agree! That’s why I’m quite serious. I feel responsible for saying so to my audience. I don’t think any of them are toys. We live in a spiritual world. Depending on how people want to interpret it, there is good and evil. I’ve been in locations where the spiritual vibe was so strong I know it for a fact. So don’t invite darkness into yourself. We’re all witches. We’re all manifesting in our lives one way or the other and I think positive intentions bring the good things in life, so that’s what I recommend.
PopHorror: I agree with that, and I don’t know that I can always be positive so I don’t want to know what would happen. We had touched a little bit on your career and being in horror and leaving and coming back, and you said that you didn’t want to be branded in horror. Why? Did you not want to be expected to do horror all the time and you felt that maybe you couldn’t branch out and do other genres? This is being marketed as your return to horror, which I think is awesome.
Chuck Russell: Thank you. It is. Look, because I’m, for lack of a better word, sensitive to all of this stuff, horror takes its toll on me, particularly in the writing and the editing. When I’m shooting, I’m working with my cast. I’m working on safety and practical effects and things like that. But you’re investigating darkness. I try to balance it with light. I like having an element of hope to how you dramatize dark if the whole movie’s dark. I respect the trend in contemporary horror that I find to be just very depressing where everybody dies in the end. As a storyteller, I prefer stories where every man or every woman rises up against a greater evil and we have to outthink the horror. That’s what I find more fascinating. So no, I didn’t want to get branded. I wanted to try comedy. I wanted to try action/adventure.
PopHorror: But you came back. That’s what matters. I have just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?
Chuck Russell: My new favorite scary movie is Sinners because it uses – beyond just being brilliant in acting, directing, and everything else – music and dance in horror, which I never thought of. And it was absolutely fantastic.
Thank you so much to Chuck for taking the time to chat with us. Witchboard is in theaters August 15, 2025. Want to see the movie with Chuck? Come out to the Roadhouse Cinemas in Scottsdale, Arizona on August 14 at 7pm for a screening of Witchboard with a special in-person appearance by Chuck!
