EXCLUSIVE: As we speak, Chuck Russell is in LA, prepping for the world premiere of his new film Witchboard . It'll be a homecoming in more ways than one; first, because — though it's set in New Orleans — the supernatural horror was largely shot in Montreal, home to the Fantasia Festival, which is hosting the screening. But more than that, Witchboard marks Russell's return to the genre that launched him in the late '80s, first with 1987's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and then, a year later, with his seriously gory take on the camp '50s B-movie The Blob (tagline: "Terror has no shape!").
Witchboard Interview: Chuck Russell and Madison Iseman on Returning to Horror!
Witchboard is very loosely (as in, not at all) based on Kevin Tenney's 1986 VHS hit of the same name. Madison Iseman stars as Emily, a recovering drug addict who, along with her fiancé Christian (Aaron Dominguez) and their group of friends, sets out to open a new organic café in the French Quarter of New Orleans. While out picking exotic mushrooms, Emily stumbles upon an old 17th-century French pendulum board that was recently stolen from a local museum. Emily treats it as a novelty, an antique to hang on the café's wall, but it quickly becomes apparent that the board is a dangerous portal, one that brings a supernatural threat from the past straight into the present.
Though he retired from horror in the '90s, first with the oddball comedy The Mask (1994), starring Jim Carrey, and then with the action thriller Eraser (1996), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Russell is more than happy to revisit old territory, and he's admirably vocal in his insistence that the film's many shocking, not-for-the-squeamish moments be left unspoiled. But while it might initially seem a little old-fashioned in today's marketplace – where it'll be jostling for attention with more self-aware genre fare like MaXXXine , Oddity , and, with a very generous nudge, Longlegs – there's a refreshing purity to Witchboard.
The director embraces that reaction. "We had a couple of guys we call The Horror Bros, who were all tattooed and horror movie experts, and they were impressed that there was a story," he recalled. "They said too many horror movies don't really have a story to follow, they're all about the set pieces. Look, I'm a horror fan, so I think there's room for all sorts of subgenres and different ways of doing things. But I like to create interest, even in a horror movie. It has to be scary — but we also have to care about the characters."
