DVD Review: The Devil’s Chair
The Devil’s Chair (2006)
Studio: Sony Pictures
DVD Release Date: October 7, 2008
Directed By: Adam Mason
Cast: Andrew Howard, Elize du Toit, David Gant, Pollyanna Rose & Louise Griffiths
Brutal As Hell Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Review By: Annie Riordan
Opening with an attention-grabbing narrative by former junkie and current mental institution inmate Nick West, The Devil’s Chair begins its flashback, freeze-frame filled tale of four years past, when Nick and his druggie skank girlfriend Sammy broke into an abandoned insane asylum for a night of urban exploration, acid-dropping and nasty fucking. Unfortunately, the evening ends in tragedy when Sammy unwisely sits her perky little ass in a ghoulish restraint chair and is sucked away into an alternate dimension, screaming and bleeding all the way.
Jump ahead four years and Nick is being released from the nuthouse, labeled a psychopathic murderer. He claims not to remember what happened the night that Sammy was taken, but Dr. Willard and his paranormal research team (consisting of two hot chicks and the obligatory jerk) are determined to uncover the truth. With Nick reluctantly along for the ride, the team returns to the abandoned asylum and settle in for the night, hoping that the restraint chair will live up to its reputation. And sure enough, one by one, the idiots climb into the seat and are sucked away to a grungy, flyblown dimension that makes the dominions of Silent Hill and Hellraiser look like glossy, high tech shopping malls.
Honestly, for the first hour or so of this flick, I was reasonably impressed. The dialog is an absolute shitstorm of melodramatic twaddle, spouted by actors who are all painfully stereotypical. The plot itself is ridiculous, so offensively formulaic that Nick at last acknowledges it, much to my amusement. There’s also a pretty nifty monster lurking in those dank corridors, looking like a cross between Giger’s Alien and that Dog Thing from the remake of The Omen. But…yeah, there’s a “but.” And it’s a Big But, just the way Sir Mix-A-Lot likes ‘em.
By the time this smartass, semi-spoof of a splatter film reaches its twisty psycho-shocker climax, it’s already condemned its viewers for wanting to watch such disgusting fare. This is where the film lost me as it descended into a literally bloody mess of rape, ax-murders and humiliated, sobbing women who can’t fight back. Whilst admonishing the “gore whores” who are watching this slaughter with sick glee, Nick even goes so far as to tell us all to fuck off.
Well, fuck you too, Nick: you and whoever wrote your pretentious climactic speech. If you really think that I watch horror movies out of some perverse, masturbatory desire for carnage, then you have missed the entire point of the horror genre. May I suggest that you stick with the monsters and resist the desire to be arty?
In an effort to prove that gore isn’t glamorous, The Devil’s Chair ends up wallowing in it for no good reason, and the overly long, excruciatingly drawn out ending only serves to irritate and nauseate. Perhaps in different, less sadistic hands, this could have been a really good film, but as it stands, it left me feeling scummy and hollow.
