A stolen spirit board first reappears during a dawn mushroom hunt in the Piney Woods outside New Orleans, when Emily, a woman in recovery from heroin, discovers a weathered board and its detached planchette hidden beneath leaf litter. The object bears an eye-shaped centerpiece that contains a small pendulum carved from a human finger bone. Emily takes the board back to the renovated carriage house she shares with her fiancé Christian, where he is preparing to open a restaurant in the French Quarter. At a dinner that evening, Emily passes the board to Brooke, Christian's ex-girlfriend and a scholar of antiquities, and Brooke studies the carved sigils and archaic script along the rim.

Within days, Emily finds the board helping her locate her lost engagement ring, and she begins to experience visions she cannot immediately explain. Christian's employee Richie suffers a catastrophic accident in the restaurant kitchen when an industrial meat slicer severs his hand and then contributes to his death; the injury is gruesome and sudden. At the same time, a former dealer of Emily's, Jessie, falls from a rooftop and plummets to his death under circumstances that appear to be an accident but take place shortly after the board surfaces in their lives. Christian learns that the board was taken from a local museum and suggests turning it over to the authorities; Emily refuses because of prior arrests for possession and the fear that her record would make her a suspect.

Brooke arranges for Alexander Baptiste, a New Age practitioner with knowledge of occult practices and connections in the area, to meet with Emily and Christian. During an evening session Alexander uses the board to put Emily into a somnambulant trance and, while Emily's body is still present, her consciousness is pulled backward into the seventeenth century. Alexander's ritual facilitates the incarnation of Naga Soth, a woman accused of witchcraft in 1690s Lorraine, into Emily's body. Naga Soth, whose story Emily has recently seen in carvings on the board, returns to the present in Emily's frame and begins to enact the vengeance she once vowed: at Christian's restaurant opening she serves guests mushrooms that induce vivid hallucinations and violent frenzy, and the diners turn on one another in a sequence of slaughter that reproduces Naga Soth's historical fury. Guests panic and kill each other in the dining room; in the chaos Brooke saves Christian and flees with him while the police converge on the scene.

Brooke transports Christian to the estate of Alexander Baptiste, a sprawling house where Alexander's followers of a modern coven gather. Brooke discovers that Alexander is a descendant of Bishop Grogan, the cleric who once drove Naga Soth out of her village, and that Emily is descended from Naga Soth. Alexander reveals that he intends to control Naga Soth's power for his own purposes, to bind the witch's spirit and make her a tool for his coven. Christian fights through cultists at the estate, killing several of them in struggles that erupt in the mansion's rooms and corridors, and at one point he seizes the spirit board and hurls it into the fireplace, forcing its carved surface into flame. Alexander shoots Christian during the confusion; Christian collapses from a gunshot wound and slowly bleeds out as Emily, whose body now hosts Naga Soth but whose mind intermittently reasserts itself, returns to awareness. Emily shoots Alexander dead as he reaches to pull the charred board from the flames, and then she kneels beside Christian to console him while he dies of his wound. Outside, police arrive, and Alexander's body is carried away; later, authorities place him into a body bag, and as the bag is zipped closed his fingers twitch and his eyes open.

When the fire consumes the board and the momentary temporal link snaps, Naga Soth's soul slips back through time to the original pyre where, in the seventeenth century, Bishop Grogan attempts to execute her. In that earlier moment Naga Soth prevents the flames from consuming her and, as Grogan tries to behead her, she overpowers him and drags him into the flames as they both burn. After the events at Alexander's estate, Brooke and Emily surrender the bone pendulum from the board's eye to a priest at the Vatican in exchange for the priest's promise to guard it; they hand the pendulum to him and leave with the charred remnants of the board. The priest begins to experiment with the artifact on his own, placing the planchette over fresh words, and the narrative closes that sequence with the priest leaning over the piece as a presence appears behind him.

Elsewhere in a quiet apartment building in an unnamed city, a different family of events unfolds around the same kind of object. Julie, who lives with her boyfriend Brian, grows suspicious after Brian changes behavior and isolates himself. Brian disappears from Julie's life in spirit while his body remains in the apartment, apparently controlled by an entity. Julie comes into possession of an old Ouija board that Brian used and uses it to contact Brian's spirit. In the ether Brian's disembodied voice tells Julie that something else is animating his body and instructs her to find him at a mirror in the apartment and then to travel to 346 Clark Street. Julie follows his directions and, before heading to the address, uses Brian's allergies--he is severely allergic to shellfish--to stall the occupant of his body: when the man possessing Brian devours shrimp a surge of Brian's presence weakens the possession.

Julie drives to 346 Clark Street and finds Dora, the widow of Francis, who once lived with Francis before he himself became possessed. Dora explains that the demon Nagor is a fertility spirit that seeks to sire a child with a human female and that Nagor previously possessed Francis to that end. Dora shows Julie a spearhead on a necklace that has been used by shamans to harm malignant spirits and tells Julie that the spear will remain harmless to her as long as she wears it. Dora says the weapon can kill Nagor and free Brian's soul if Julie first powers it with Brian's blood and then pierces the host's flesh after removing a black ring that Brian had been given by Francis. As Julie pleads for help, Nagor arrives at the house: Dora pushes Julie out the back door to safety, and Nagor breaks in and kills Dora in the living room.

Julie returns to the apartment and prepares to draw out the demon, but Nagor eventually returns to Brian's body and assaults Julie in the apartment. Brian's trapped spirit causes a mirror to shudder and then shatter, sending a shard into Nagor's face that draws blood. Julie smears the blood onto the spearhead and loads it into a crossbow that hangs on the wall. Nagor taunts Julie, saying that killing him will also kill Brian, and he telekinetically removes the crossbow. With Brian's help from across the veil, Julie manages to retrieve the weapon. When the black ring on Brian's finger refuses to slip off, Julie takes a meat cleaver and chops Brian's pinky finger free; Nagor emits an agonized scream and then sheds Brian's body to reveal his true demonic form. Brian's spirit commands Julie to bring the planchette toward the mirror; Brian uses the planchette to cross back into his body in a sudden, violent return. As Nagor attacks Julie to try to complete his intended impregnation, Brian loads the spearhead into the crossbow and fires. The spearhead strikes Nagor, and the demon collapses and dies. Julie and Brian embrace after the fight, and several days later they remove their things from the building and throw the Ouija board and planchette into the basement furnace. The board burns, but the planchette explodes from the furnace and shoots upward, striking the metal furnace screen and continuing to move across the room in a final, defiant arc.

A third thread of events begins in Fairfield, California, at a bustling house party where Brandon Sinclair produces a Ouija board in an attempt to reconnect his ex-girlfriend Linda Brewster with the spirit of a child named David, a ghost both Brandon and Linda remember from an earlier communication. Jim Morar, Linda's current boyfriend and a construction worker, scoffs at the idea of contacting a spirit, and when he mocks the board the planchette moves to spell out a warning. Immediately afterwards, someone slashes Brandon's car tires outside the house. The next day Linda uses the board again, hoping David will tell her where she left her engagement ring, and she becomes more controlled by the board's sessions.

At Jim's construction site a stacked section of drywall collapses and kills his friend Lloyd; the boards fall and crush him. Lieutenant Dewhurst questions Jim about Lloyd's death on site, and the investigation adds pressure to Jim and Linda's fragile relationship. Linda begins to experience severe nausea and other physical symptoms and worries she might be pregnant; hospital tests, however, show she is not pregnant. Concerned for Linda, Brandon enlists Zarabeth Crawford, a psychic medium well-known in the area, to conduct a séance to disperse whatever spirit might have latched onto Linda. Zarabeth channels and declares the presence they contacted to be the spirit of a ten-year-old boy named David. Watching Zarabeth channel David, Linda experiences a maternal surge and grows increasingly protective and attached to the boy's apparition.

Zarabeth returns home after the séance and, later that night, someone hurls her body through a front window and leaves her impaled on a sundial on her lawn. When Brandon discovers Zarabeth's corpse arranged on the lawn the following morning, he assumes David is responsible and brings his fears to Jim, who treats the story with skepticism. A short time later Jim witnesses Linda convulsing violently against a wall; he and others rush her to the hospital. Medical staff determine Linda is not pregnant and attempt to stabilize her. Jim and Brandon, forced together by the escalation of events, begin investigating David and his history. They learn that a decade earlier a boy named David drowned in a nearby lake. As they dig deeper into the home where Jim and Linda live, they reveal a different haunting: the house has a history tied to a man named Carlos Malfeitor, an axe murderer who was killed in his home in 1930--the layout and room in which Malfeitor died match the modern house's floorplan.

The violent spirit haunting Linda reveals itself more aggressively. On the docks one day Jim nearly dies when a precarious stack of fishing barrels topples onto him, rendering him unconscious. While Jim lies out cold, Brandon confronts the malignant force and is attacked with a hatchet; Brandon sustains fatal wounds and dies from the assault. Jim awakens to find his friend dead and becomes consumed with avenging Brandon and saving Linda. He traces the violence back to Malfeitor's spirit and learns that the ghost is not content to merely frighten them but is using Linda as its host.

Linda arrives home from a hospital visit and is subjected to a brutal attack by Malfeitor's spirit that leaves the apartment in disarray; Jim finds the scene and is immediately assaulted by Linda while she is possessed. Lieutenant Dewhurst comes upon the ransacked house and, seeing the violence and Linda's injuries, mistakes Jim for the aggressor and levels accusations against him. In the ensuing chaos Linda strikes Dewhurst with a fire poker, knocking him down; the state of Dewhurst after the blow is collapse and incapacitation but the record shows no on-screen final confirmation of his death. In a decisive act Jim seizes the Ouija board--the object that first allowed Malfeitor to attach to Linda--and fires a gun at it. The bullet propels the board through a living-room window; the board sails across the street and lands on the hood of a passing car. That impact and the board's apparent destruction break Malfeitor's hold, and Jim and Linda regain themselves. They work together to rebuild their lives, get married, and attempt to leave the terror behind.

Several months after Jim and Linda marry and move on, their landlady, Mrs. Moses, is cleaning the house with her young granddaughter when she finds a dusty box containing the same planchette and board the couple thought they had destroyed. Curious, Mrs. Moses picks up the planchette and places it on the board; her granddaughter asks whether it works. The planchette slides under Mrs. Moses's fingers and spells out the single word "yes," indicating to them and to the audience that the malignant force tied to the board has not been fully eliminated.

Across these locales and episodes, other deaths accumulate around the board's path. In New Orleans Richie dies in a kitchen meat-slicer accident that dismembers his hand and takes his life; Jessie plunges from a rooftop to his death in circumstances linked to the board's influence. In Fairfield Lloyd dies after a drywall stack collapses on him; Zarabeth is thrown through window glass and impaled on a sundial; Brandon is killed with an axe or hatchet strike during Malfeitor's attack; Dora dies in her own home when Nagor breaks a door and murders her; Dora's death is immediate and violent. In Julie and Brian's case, a woman named Lisa is reported as having died in an apparent accident but is in fact slain by Nagor as part of the demon's campaign; Brian's pinky is severed when Julie chops it off to remove a ring, and Brian nearly dies before his spirit returns and Nagor is destroyed by the spearhead. In the New Orleans climax Bishop Grogan and Naga Soth are engulfed by flame in their seventeenth-century execution sequence; Alexander is shot and later shows signs of life after being bagged; Christian dies of his gunshot wound; and Alexander himself ends up in a body bag and then gives a sign of postmortem movement.

At the end of the combined accounts, objects tied to the board continue to surface in new hands. After the Julie and Brian sequence the planchette springs back from furnace embers and flies across the room. After Jim and Linda's homecoming sequence Mrs. Moses lifts the planchette and watches it move. After Emily and Brooke leave the Vatican with a priest who is entrusted with the bone pendulum, the priest begins a private session with the planchette, and as he reads letters spelled out by the device he feels a presence at his shoulder and the figure of Naga Soth appears behind him. The film closes on that presence standing behind the priest as he speaks into the planchette, leaving the board's malign influence poised to continue its cycle of possession and violence.

The pendulum made from a human finger bone is contained within the Witchboard's eye centerpiece and is a key mystical element of the board. It symbolizes the board's dark and cursed nature, linking it to the spirit world and the malevolent forces it unleashes. Emily discovers it early on, which deepens her connection and obsession with the board's supernatural powers.

Naga Soth is the creator of the Witchboard, a powerful witch persecuted and outcast in 1690s France. She cursed the village that banished her, causing its inhabitants to turn on each other and die. In the 2025 film, she appears in visions to Emily and represents the ancient evil tied to the Witchboard's curse, driving much of the supernatural conflict.

Alexander Babtiste is a cryptic occult scholar and Wiccan who Christian enlists for help. Although he presents himself as a scholarly expert, he harbors dark and sinister intentions. Babtiste's scheme to harness the Witchboard's malevolent energy culminates at a masked ball, where he becomes a central antagonist in the struggle to break the board's curse.

Richie, Christian's friend and employee, dies in a violent kitchen accident where his hand is dismembered by a meat slicer, and Jessie, Emily's former drug dealer, falls to his death from a rooftop. Both deaths are caused or influenced by the Witchboard's dark powers, demonstrating the deadly consequences of the board's curse and its influence over those connected to Emily and Christian.

The masked ball is a climactic event where Alexander Babtiste's plan to wield the Witchboard's dark power unfolds. It serves as the setting for the final confrontation where Emily and Christian must fight to save her soul from the coven of White Witches and break the Witchboard's deadly curse. The ball symbolizes the height of supernatural tension and betrayal in the story.

The 2025 movie Witchboard is not family friendly and contains content that may be upsetting or inappropriate for children and sensitive viewers. It is a supernatural horror film with intense themes and scenes.

Potentially objectionable or upsetting aspects include:

• Supernatural horror and possession involving an evil spirit and witchcraft, which may be frightening or disturbing.
• Graphic gore and violence, including over-the-top and sometimes poorly rendered CGI gore effects.
• Dark themes such as death, possession, and malevolent entities tormenting characters.
• Scenes of psychological tension, fear, and suspense that build a disturbing atmosphere.
• Some characters acting recklessly or incompetently, leading to violent consequences.
• The film includes witchcraft rituals, a historical coven, and a cursed spirit board that drives the horror narrative.

Overall, the film is designed for mature audiences who appreciate horror with supernatural and gore elements, and it is not suitable for children or viewers sensitive to horror violence and occult themes.