Watch The Chair For Free

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

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...

The Chair starts as psychology student Danielle Velayo (Alanna Chisolm) moves into 216 Archwood Drive, a large three storey Victorian house. Initially excited at moving in Danielle starts to get second thoughts when strange, ghostly & supernatural occurrences begin to happen. Doing some research on the house Danielle discovers that 100 years ago a mesmerist named Mordachai Zymytryk (Paul Soren) hypnotised sadistic child killer Edgar Crowe (Adam Seybold) at the point of his death leaving his soul in limbo. However Crowe's soul is back & begins to possess Danielle in order to carry on his murder spree, can Danielle's loving sister Anna (Lauren Roy) save her from Crowe's evil soul & influence?This Canadian production was directed by Brett Sullivan & I am constantly amazed at how much an audiences opinion can differ, I mean I had a quick scan through the other IMDb comments for The Chair & quite frankly I'm wondering if they saw a completely different film than I did! I'm sorry but I can't see how anyone could use words like 'awesome', 'great' & 'I loved it' to describe The Chair, I just can't. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course but even so. Anyway, I personally thought The Chair was a pretty slow going fairly dull supernatural horror flick that I admit passes the time but there's not enough story here to fill a 90 odd minute film, it's pretty repetitive & I will probably have forgotten everything about it by the end of the weekend. There are a couple of plot holes that I found distracting here, for start how was Danielle connected to the house & the plot twist at the end when her tutor turns out to be Mordechai is just daft beyond belief & doesn't make a blind bit of sense. I mean if Mordechai knew that Crowe's evil spirit was still around & he knew how to stop him (obviously he does since he does at the end) then why didn't he kill Crowe before? Why wait until Crowe possessed someone & started to kill innocent people? Also there is supposedly footage shot by Mordechai back in 1902 when he first hypnotised Crowe & he talks to the camera & explains everything in a quick & easy exposition scene. Right, well that's OK if it wasn't for the fact film cameras couldn't record speech back then in 1902! In fact the very first 'talkie' film was The Jazz Singer & wasn't made until 1927. I usually don't mind the odd goof in a piece of fiction but this really bugged me & I picked up on it straight away, it irritated me the entire film! Then there's the question of how an unemployed student could afford to rent & run a huge three storey house on her own, lets keep it real people OK? Then there are some truly bizarre scenes like a shot of a hand pushing Danielle under water while she takes a bath but the film suddenly cuts & the next time we see Danielle she's alright & the hand is never mentioned or seen again. There's also a strange scene in which Anna comes home & her sister Danielle is hiding from her on the top shelf in the bathroom! What's wrong with a cupboard or something simple like that? Then Danielle gets down & walks around the house naked for no apparent reason! What makes it even stranger is that Danielle isn't even hiding from Anna so why the top shelf? The first hour or so is pretty slow going, the last thirty odd minutes is better & at times is even quite good but overall The Chair didn't do much me at all & a glaring plot hole or two doesn't help.According to the IMDb this was shot in director Brett Sullivan's own house, I suppose it keeps the budget down. There is very little variety in The Chair & the film takes place almost entirely in this one location which becomes boring. The chair of the title refers to a torture device the killer Crowe made & uses in the films best moments. Gore wise there's very little here, a screwdriver in someone's head & a bit of blood on a cut. Director Sullivan places his camera all over the place, there are extreme close-ups, there are lots of shots from the ceiling looking down presumably to give some impression of space & he thankfully keeps the CGI computer effects down to a minimum. There's nothing that scary here & as a whole you won't be on the edge of your seat!Shot in Toronto in Canada the film actually looks quite nice, it certainly looks a lot better than a lot of recent low budget horror & the lack of awful CGI really helps too. The acting is average, I thought the leading lady lady Chisholm looked nice but her performance was wooden, there wasn't any difference between her being possessed by Crowe & not being possessed by him.The Chair is a film that is just about watchable but isn't anything great, I think it would have worked much better as a thirty minute Tales from the Crypt style episode with a dark twist ending which the material lends itself to perfectly. Not to be confused with The Chair (1989) which is another horror film & is about a cursed electric chair in a prison.

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.

After reading lots of positive reviews for THE CHAIR, I just had to order the DVD. Now I have seen it I got to say it's a decent effort...although not brilliant.The film was shot entirely in Director Brett Sullivan's apartment, which is a brave thing to do if you ask me, because can you imagine having an entire film crew living in your house for a few weeks! But considering the budget he obviously had he's done a remarkable job, the reason I gave 6 out of 10 was because the first half of the film was very good, but the second half fell away I thought it did'nt capture the great atmosphere that the first half had. But nethertheless well worth seeking out.