Ami Dolenz appeared in a few horror movies in the late eighties and early nineties, not the least of which was Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway, written and directed by Kevin S. Tenney (the man who gave us Night Of The Demons) as a follow up to the original Witchboard movie that he directed in 1986 (which was his directorial debut).

In the film, Dolenz plays Paige, a pretty young woman who is just about to move into a big loft apartment looked after by landlord Jonas (Christopher Michael Moore), his hippy wife Elaine (SNL's Laraine Newman) and her brother, a photographer named Russell (John Gatins). Despite the fact that Jacob makes a few creepy passes at her and that Elaine dots obnoxiously on her terrier, Doo, she moves in and looks forward to starting a new life as a painter while working her office job until that takes off for her.

Things go well enough to start. She and Russell hit it off and she and Elaine are able to be friendly enough. Things turn sour shortly after she finds an old Ouija Board in her closet, however. It tells her that someone named Susan is in the apartment and it would seem she is trying to communicate with her. Enter Paige's ex-boyfriend, a lunkhead cop named Mitch (Timothy Gibbs) who wants her back and is none too impressed that she's hanging out with Russell as much as she is. Since using the board though? Paige has started to change. No longer is she the meek, mild mannered girl next door. She's playing up her sex appeal and asserting herself in ways she never thought possible, not just in her personal life but her professional life as well. Around this same time though, bad mojo seems to descend upon the apartment building, starting with Jonas' death in the boiler room. From here on out, Susan and Russell, with some begrudging help from Mitch and all the privileges being a cop can offer him, try to figure out who Susan really is but what Paige discovers, she's not going to like and before it's all over a few other people will learn the hard way that playing with a witchboard doesn't come without its consequences.

This one plods along for the first half of its ninety-five minute running time without a whole lot really happening, yet somehow remains fairly watchable in spite of this. The chief reason for this is Ami Dolenz. She's not likely to ever win an Oscar for her work but even so, she's likeable enough. Not only is she very pretty but she's got what can realistically be described as sympathetic charm. We want her to start over, to quit the desk job she obviously doesn't like and to get away from grumpy Mitch so that she can do her painting thing. Laraine Newman fails to convince as the hippy who talks like a Valley Girl while Christopher Michael Moore is fine as her lecherous hard drinking husband. He's got a greasy, predatory vibe to him. John Gatins is likeable enough to make his character work and as things progress and the role of his character shifts he transitions well. Likewise, Gibbs as Mitch handles the evolution of his character across the arc rather adaptly.

There's no really deep character development here and her character is fairly one dimension, as are all the characters in the movie, but she's got a very likeable screen presence. Once the movie hits the halfway point the pace does start to pick up quite a bit. The movie flirts with sexiness but never goes particularly far with it and it offers up some fairly mild gore, probably earning its R-rating more for language than sensational or exploitative elements but the script does afford the opportunity for a few decent effects set pieces.

This one is very much a product of its time, a sequel geared towards cashing in not at the box office but in the rental store. The cover art (re-used on this release, thankfully) is eye catching and appealing to horror fans but once you get to it there isn't a whole lot of meat on these bones. Not that it's a bore or a waste, it's just unremarkable… but somehow watchable. It's plenty glossy, nicely shot, has a decent enough score and some appreciable atmosphere towards the end. Not a masterpiece by any stretch, but completely fine entertainment.

Video:

Witchboard 2: The Devil's Doorway looks pretty good on Blu-ray from Olive Films, framed at 1.78.1 in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. There is some minor print damage that can be spotted, really just some minor specks, but these aren't particularly distracting. Detail is better than you might expect with close up shots showing decent skin tones and solid texture. Colors are nicely reproduced and black levels are good as is shadow detail. Some shots are a little bit soft but this would appear to stem back to the original photography and not the transfer itself. There are no obvious issues with edge enhancement or noise reduction to note. All in all, the picture quality here is quite good.