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Several years
ago, Nick witnessed his girlfriend
Samantha get brutally slaughtered in a chair of some
sort which was left in an abandoned asylum. He was
blamed for her death as no one believed his story and
was locked away in a mental institution. Now, he's
finally been released and a professor and his students
are anxious to bring him back to the place where it all
started to find out more about the old asylum. Bad idea.
When Adam Mason returned to the horror genre after
several years with the outstanding movie Broken, I was
blown away. His previous movies had been campy,
extremely low-budget and extremely bizarre so I was
definitely pleasantly surprised by Broken (hell, I was
even quoted on the US DVD release). Since then, Adam
has kept busy and made two horror flicks which of none
have been released on DVD yet. The first of which was
"The Devil's Chair", which I've finally gotten around
to watching. The verdict? Well it's nowhere near as
terrific as Broken was. Adam has taken a step backwards
and made a bizarre horror flick which makes no real
sense (and this is intentionally). It's extremely
bizarre and not always in a good way.
The Devil's Chair is an obscure horror flick about a
troubled man called Nick. Several years ago he was
blamed for the murder of his girlfriend Samantha even
though he claimed that a chair killed her. What is this
chair exactly? Well, it looks like an electrocution chair
more or less but without the electricity. Anyway, he's
finally been released from the mental institution and
is now back in the old asylum where it all started
since a professor and his students want to find out
more about the old building. Naturally things quickly
spin out of control but I can't really tell you more
than that without ruining the movie for you.
There are several pro's and con's with this film. Let's
start with the pro's. Adam is a terrific director and
the movie looks technically great considering the
budget. The final 20 minutes are just to die for, they
are simply brilliant - had the entire movie been more
like this I would probably have given it a full 5'er
again. But this is not the case. Anyway, the acting is
okay and the story is rather well written. You know,
I knew exactly what he was going for but I simply didn't
like it as much as I would have liked to. That brings
us to the con's. First of all there are several scenes
of pure campy-ness in the movie and to make things worse
we actually have Nick tell the audience how bad the
movie that we're watching is. He then goes on to insult
the audience by telling them that they're sick fucks
who enjoy torture porn. I'm sorry but that's just not
right - KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE Adam! Why would you insult
your core audience? That's just stupid.
I also hated the fact that Nick talks to the audience
throughout the entire movie. I've never been a big
fan of that as I think that it distracts a lot from
the movie itself (which was probably the point).
A part of me also felt like this was a bit rushed.
Don't ask me why but it just didn't seem as if Adam
devoted as much of his soul and time into this movie
as with Broken. Finally of the con's, there's the
fact that this movie is just too obscure and bizarre
for its own good. Some people may appreciate it,
I didn't. In the end, The Devil's Chair is an okay
horror movie but nowhere near as terrific as Broken.
It doesn't look as good, the plot is far from as
entertaining and they really just screwed a few parts
of this movie up beyond repair. Had Nick not insulted
the audience (me included), I may have considered
giving this a better rating because I really did love
the ending, but I felt struck and it made me mad. So
there you go, it's an okay movie, nothing more.
A lot of blood splatter and some impalements.
Average stuff, wasn't too into it. Remained in the
background for most of the time.
The Devil's Chair will probably entertain some of you
horror fans out there more than it entertained me but
I was personally quite disappointed to see that Adam
had taken a step in the wrong direction. Hopefully
Blood River will be less campy and more (and I can't
believe I'm saying this) mainstream.
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