Spookies (1986)

Nine people who don't seem to have much in common besides all having been kicked out of the same event earlier decide to party in an abandoned mansion, but they soon come to believe that playing with a Ouija board they find in the living room is the reason various monsters show up to stalk and kill them. Meanwhile, in another movie filmed in the same house, a possibly delusional old man believes he is controlling the party people's deaths with his chess board and his meowing, rotting, shapeshifting sidekick. Who is right?

The answer is E) all of them are right. Spookies is a Frankenmovie. The partiers and their monsters really were in one movie, which was unfinished. Later, a different director finished the film by adding the footage with the old man, the cat thing, an evil little kid, a stupid little kid, and the ghost of Laura Palmer.

But even knowing this, viewers are left with one huge unanswered question. How did all the victims from the party, who seem so at odds, know one another?

I think I can explain this. Duke, the Guido who got them all thrown out of the first party, was a D.J. at the club inside the Ramada Inn on Highway 49, Frenzy's. He met Linda on her first night waitressing there, and she wasn't very good at it, so he had her fired, then slipped a drug in her drink while consoling her (she didn't know he had her fired). He also knocked her up after she passed out, so to avoid paying child support he convinced her he loved her and they moved in together. Rich was the dishwasher who believed he was going to make it big as a ventriloquist comic, and Duke hung out with him because Rich had a steady supply of nitrous oxide thanks to playing D&D with the younger brother of Adrienne, a dental assistant. Adrienne, who spent two weeks on exchange in England in tenth grade (but retained the accent) met Megan at community college and convinced her to change her name to Meegan. Meegan introduced Adrienne to her former stepfather Dave and they immediately began an abusive relationship.

Because of the name change, when Meegan graduated and went to work as a transcriptionist for the law firm to whom Peter was the top salesman from his office supply company, Peter believed that she was sophisticated enough for him despite their thirty year age difference and he was making plans to leave both his first and second (secret) families for her at the time when they were killed. Carol won the Linda Blair lookalike contest at Steverino's Donuts on the college campus, and Lewis was the newspaper reporter who interviewed her. Lewis and Carol only thought they were thrown out of the first party and so got a ride with Peter and Meegan. Meegan and Linda thought they went to church camp together in sixth grade and reconnected over this mistake at the original party; when Duke got them all thrown out they decided to caravan to another party together but they would have made the awkward realization that they didn't know each other once they sobered up if they hadn't been killed.

You can learn so much if you just make up imaginary backstories for characters from bad movies. You're welcome.

Oh, and if anyone has a copy of the fan-made version of Twisted Souls, the original movie with only Duke, Peter, Linda, Meegan and the rest to share, please let me know.