The Chair

Danielle (Alanna Chisholm), a young psychology student, is trying to rebuild her life when she sublets a century-old Victorian house. Unknowingly, she awakens an evil specter lurking in the dark recesses of her new home.

From director Brett Sullivan ("Ginger Snaps II") and distributed by the now-defunct Alliance Atlantis, this is a relatively low-key film that does not command one's attention. Indeed, it is subtle, and really only exists to showcase the so-called "panic chair" (which only shows up later on).

There is some interesting back story about a mesmerist, a child killer and a professor, but it is all sort of strange. May be brilliant or awful, just too hard to say.

To me this is a film of two halves or really should I say a film of three thirds, whichever way you look at it, this film had a lot of potential. The story, a haunted house, which I liked and the director played this really well. The idea about he history of a chair found in the attic, not bad, still a good story. Then the film leaves the house to carry on with it's story, not so good. Now this is what I mean by a film in thirds. Also let's see about the other things that dipped in the film. The acting, every now and then it went into a b - movie zone but this can happen with a low budget film. The story when it left the house, the tension went out the window and I felt it spoilt the movie as a whole. The two main actors, who played Danielle and Anna did a very good job at the film. A good film overall but I dropped some stars because the film dipped when the story left the house. Worth a watch.

Although a bit confusing, I found the chair to be an alright movie for such a low budget film. It started off with a bit of creepiness and led to some confusing twists and turns and I only say confusing because some audio wasn't all that great but maybe that is what they were going for. Ovverall though it had a nice psychotic/ possession feel and the ending although predictable was kinda what I was hoping for. If you have seen a lot of the horror lately I am sure you are disappointed but this was higher than my expectations for it. I would recommend if you have like Blockbusters movie pass or a friend is paying to watch it. Not a complete waste of time.

This film was almost good. It had a really cool concept about being possessed by a spirit and becoming them. It was also strange for it was a girl being possessed by a male spirit. But the film is based around building this torture chair and learning something from the past from the house that the main character is staying in. Here is the problem though, parts of the film just made no sense. Something would come up and you would wonder why it even happened. Also the film had scenes for the jumping scare factor, but seemed to ruin it. A girl sees a blanket, yes we all know there is something under the blanket because we saw earlier in the film, something was put there. So no, it was not scary on parts that worked out like that. I do respect the story of the film though, it was really a good idea. It just wasn't portrayed right.

At the 30 minute point of The Chair, I was truly getting enjoyably creeped out. It was relatively standard "strange phenomena in creepy old house" fare, but it was done with just the right combination of discomforting lighting and sound to get under my skin. The lead actress was extremely appealing too, both easy on the eyes and approaching her character from a refreshingly intelligent standpoint. The quote on the case that led me to rent it said something along the lines of "achieves the same atmosphere as the Changeling or Amityville"... and for those first 30 minutes or so, it really did. There's one scene with a chair in a hallway that is frankly terrifying.

But then a possession-style plot kicked in which, while still fairly entertaining, was nowhere near as powerful as the opening. The final half of the movie fell into a more mundane indie movie style, lost almost all of its creepiness, and sadly got a little unbelievable too. If the director had had the restraint to follow the tone of the first half through to the end it could have been a masterpiece in the haunted house genre. As it stands it's just another indie - far above average at first, then just average after that...