Emily, her fiancĂ© Christian, and their friends were out foraging for mushrooms when she stumbled across the evil board. They weren’t for recreational purposes. They are for the opening of Christian’s hipster restaurant. Apparently, everyone was so busy planning for the premiere, they missed the news of the museum heist that made off with a notorious witchcraft relic.
The board still basically works the same way. It just has more bells and whistles. Ominously, Emily grows increasingly obsessed with the board’s divining powers, after it leads her to her misplaced engagement ring. Indeed, the recovering Emily has an addictive personality that makes her acutely susceptible to the board’s malevolent influence.
Nobody really thinks about why the board was there in the first place. Anne Ricey-looking Alexander Babtiste, a wealthy expert in the dark arts, commissioned the theft, but was double-crossed by the hoodlum now decomposing in the forest. Ill-advisedly, Christian’s torch-carrying but well-meaning ex, Brooke, refers Christian to Babtiste for occult guidance. Clearly, he does not have Emily’s best interests at heart.
Russell and co-screenwriter Greg McKay’s screenplay wildly departs from the 1986 original, but Babtiste’s shadowy conspiracy to resurrect a notorious 17th Century witch is the best thing going for the film, admittedly in a wacky and outlandish kind of way. There are times when the film ventures quite deeply into the tall weeds of left field (to compound metaphors).
