The Devil's Chair

Nick West (Andrew Howard) is a troubled soul. He's spent the last four years in a mental institution for a horrific murder that he says he can't remember committing. Dr. Willard (David Grant) decides that it's a good idea to take Nick, along with three college students, back to the scene of the crime. Willard believes they can figure out what really took place. So, the group sets up for a long weekend in the huge, abandoned building in question.

All is well until the titular chair enters the picture. Weirdness escalates into nightmare and ultimate doom. All hell breaks loose, resulting in madness and inescapable death.

Sound like fun?

THE DEVIL'S CHAIR is Director Adam Mason's grimy, foul follow-up to BROKEN. Mason seems dead-set on making movies that extinguish all hope. This film has a tricky, pseudo supernatural thing going on, that twists the plot, leading to a confoundingly unsettling finale. After watching this one, the viewer may feel compelled to watch a Disney film or romcom, just to reset the mind...

Im a huge horror fan and after watching this it left me feeling very uneasy towards the end it doesn't make sense none of it does but when you grasp the ending you begin to realize the devil chair/torture chamber wasn't real the entire movie was based on nick wests demented sociopathic mindset it was merely in his mind that was infact confirmed when the scene showed him kissing the student Rachel who resembled his first girlfriend only to realize she was not there thats when the movie is put in its true perspective that it was all in his mind that every scene was not real it has a clever story plot but the CGI monster wasn't scary at all and the gore seemed somewhat repetitive i give it a 3/10

I just got back from seeing this movie at the TIFF and I will start out by saying that if you are the type of person who likes to have everything clearly spelled out for you in a movie, this film is not for you. Likewise, if you are looking for a non-stop gorefest, you are likely to be disappointed. All of that aside, I thought the movie to be very interesting and certainly worth the watch. I've never been a fan of movies with narration, but this one executes it quite nicely. The narrative dialogue is witty and often injects a bit of humor into the film. The main story follows a man (Nick) in a mental facility for the criminally insane after he and his girlfriend enter an abandoned asylum and she dies. Nick insists that she was taken by a demonic chair. 4 years later, a doctor has him released, so that Nick, the doctor and his team can explore the scene of the murder and thing quickly go down hill from there. The cinematography in this film is interesting and the sound effects give the movie a lot more edge considering the gore is minimal aside from the liberal use of blood. Overall, this movie was definitely worth watching and I look forward to its release on DVD so I can watch it again!

People in an old abandoned asylum ? Going crazy ? Dying ?

We've already seen it all before, and this time, although the production and cast are decent (the overall sound design is actually quite good despite too many squishy noises), I just can't help but think of Brad Anderson's excellent (if flawed in its own ways) "Session 9". Way better.

Sorry, but since braincells don't work on cash, a low budget doesn't excuse a poor script.

So let's make it short : if you want gore & predictable "twists" you might enjoy this one ; if you'd prefer a better film go for "Session 9". My vote is 3 out of 10, however totally unreasonably raised to a 5 due to Matt Berry's appearance (I'm a Boosh fan), and Zoe Keating's beautiful score.

This British horror film is unusual in a few aspects. It starts by showing the end (or is it?) of the story. It has the main character, Nick, as a narrator, who's more often a commentator who hits the pause button (freeze-frame) when he makes a comment. Nick is considered criminally insane because of the way his lover died 4 years ago in an abandoned asylum, but Nick insists it was due to supernatural causes (involving a weird chair). Early in the film, Nick admits he can be the only one who did it although he doesn't remember doing it. An old professor, his assistant and two students have the "genius" idea to bring back the supposedly criminally insane Nick to the asylum where the murder was committed, to study him. Right there, I had a problem believing such a dumb idea could actually happen.

The "devil's chair" in the abandoned asylum is a sinister-looking chair with a skull, initially inoffensive, which "probes" people (creepiest effects of the movie) before shunting them off to another version of the asylum with a demon-skulled tentacled monster roaming. I thought sometimes it looked freakish, sometimes amateurish. The acting was unequal, but I think it might have been intentional. The pompous old professor was atrocious in his line delivery. The main character/narrator was actually good playing it serious, troubled, intense, sometimes mean, channelling Jason Statham. The others were OK, except the brown-haired assistant that was also bad, but nowhere near the level of the professor. There were jarring changes in the tone of the movie with the main character actually admonishing the viewer once. The "normal" version of the asylum was undermined by the irrational, sometimes corny, behaviour of the characters, which in a way got eventually explained. The "other" version of the asylum was sometimes unnerving with interesting cinematography.

However, it's the last act (last 20 minutes or so) that was really horrifying with its final twist that I liked but that might frustrate others. For low-budget horror, it does try to be somewhat different but ends up a mixed-bag. I wondered what messages the creators were trying to convey if anything. One of them might be that the true horror doesn't lie in supernatural shenanigans but in the human psyche. Another might be simply what the main character spews out angrily at the viewer near the end. I don't think I particularly liked this movie, but I found it positively peculiar nevertheless.

Rating: 6 out of 10 (Good)