PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Ouija boards have been at the center of chaos in horror movies for decades. Often seen as the connecting point between the current world and the bridge to the afterlife, ghosts often enter the human realm through these boards with revenge on their minds. Such is the case in Spirit Board: Doorway To Death, the newest release from Facemelt Features. Let’s get on board with Spirit Board: Doorway To Death and see what it conjures up.
Spirit Board: Doorway To Death was written by Shawn Wright (Night Of The Axe 2022) and Wade Brown (Butterfly Of Black Velvet 2022) and directed by Wright. It stars Mo Tacka (in their debut role) as Jill, Amanda Megan (Anna Key 2024) as Katie, and Gary Carper (Laugh Till You Die 2020) as William ‘The Spirit’.
We kick off the film with some angry townspeople storming the house of William, a murdering practitioner of witchcraft. After they kill William as penance for the death of their loved ones, William seeks a way back into the world for more revenge. In the present day, when a contractor finds an old Ouija board in the walls, all hell breaks loose.
Spirit Board: Doorway To Death does a nice job with a small budget and minimal sets to create the feelings of tension and isolation. You can tell that this film has inspirations in things like Evil Dead and Night Of The Demons (read our retro review here). From the lighting to the spirit jumping to the possessions, the movie throws out the rulebook and seeks to have fun with a bloody throwback type of style.
Two big things that stood out in this movie were the gore and the fun that the actors were having together. Spirit Board: Doorway To Death really succeeds when it gets bloody, to the point that you wish that the movie had more characters to torture and longer shots that bathe in its brutality. The actors seemed to truly delight in the times that they got to channel their emotions and get dark with each other.
This movie really dabbles in a really dark place, but it doesn’t always stay there as long as you’d like. The runtime is a svelte sixty-two minutes, so the pacing and dialogue could’ve benefitted from each character getting more time to explore their relationships with the dark arts and what their possessed sides would look like. While it doesn’t quite go as far as it could, the movie still allows for some really trippy scenes with some cornered characters in peril.
Spirit Board: Doorway To Death is certainly worth a watch and is a fun and genuine labor of love from Shawn Wright. DVD and Blu-Ray preorders can be found at https://facemelt-features.square.site/.
