A Disappointing Continuation

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Not knowing of how good this film is due to unknown reasons I was glad that a good creep of mine was glad to offer me this flick. so without any expectations I plugged it into the DVD player. First impression, yes, it's an English production, independent and with the dialect I love. Second impression, God, what's all this in the first 11 minutes. Screaming and blood all over the place. And the fun part was with the editing, just freeze it and have a voice over by the so called killer. When there is a twist in the story line you hear him say, "didn't expect that ay". So far the funny part. I agree, after a while when persons sitting in the so called Devil's chair and disappear it's all a bit odd. But after a while you will see that it had his purpose. There is blood and gore all over the movie and once the psycho gets unhinged it's all about the red stuff. It even didn't bother me that you don't see some killings in camera but the impression on the killer's face is so weird. Was I glad that I have seen this great flick. Sadly I have to give it back to him, you bastard, but I will definitely buy my uncut version.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Reckless Nick West (Andrew Howard) takes his girlfriend to an abandoned warehouse to drop acid, but when she sits on a weird chair, she is sucked into a demonic hole, leaving Nick traumatized. Years later, he's in a psychiatric hospital run by Dr. Willard (David Gant) who is the first person to give his story any credence. He offers him escape from the asylum if Nick returns with him to the scene of the mystery to conduct an experiment. But as members of the group go missing, it becomes clear something evil is lurking in the walls of this eerie place...When I first caught sight of this bizarre looking straight to DVD horror film, I soon cleared the sight of it from my mind, but finding it again in the bargain bin at Morrison's, I thought...why not give it a try? While I don't feel I completely wasted my time, it does feel like a wasted opportunity in a lot of respects.Adam Mason's film is unsure whether it wants to play as a straight out mind fu*k, gore porn horror flick or a self referentializing parody of the genre, with the lead character giving voice overs saying how we'll like it 'if we saw Hellraiser or Pumpkinhead' and at one point lamenting what 'a poorly written, badly acted' film it's become, either the way the writing feels uncertain of itself and in turn loses the audience a bit. The gore factor really kicks in at the end, shocking even by horror standards with all the blood/distress on display. Either way, you're more likely to sit lost on The Devil's Chair than be on the edge of it. **

I was pretty disappointed with this one. The story sounded interesting but after a poor beginning with ridiculous editing and 2 characters I couldn't really care less about I thought about switching it off. I stuck with it to the surprisingly good ending but I certainly wouldn't bother watching it again. I know horror movies are supposed to be far fetched and most of the time it is easy to forget how silly the plots can be but I couldn't do that with The Devil's Chair. I just couldn't believe that a man declared criminally insane and charged with murdering his girlfriend would be let out after just 4 years for a field trip back to the place where the murder is committed. And that 4 other people would voluntarily go with him. Oh and this place seems to be in the middle of nowhere. The acting is decent enough (although I did get distracted sometimes by the fact that the actor playing Nick resembles a potato). The special effects aren't bad either but the pacing is so slow. I really struggled to sit through the first hour. As well as it being boring in places, I found the narration really irritating. Especially when the picture would suddenly freeze and Nick would provide some comment. Were these supposed to be funny? Because they weren't. The only reason I rated it as high as 4/10 was because of the ending. The twist at the ending is predictable but that doesn't stop it being violent, gruesome and disturbing - exactly as horror should be. It was the only part of the movie that provoked a feeling in me other than boredom or irritation. It was pretty uncomfortable to sit through and watch and was extremely well done. But is it worth watching the movie just for the last 15 minutes? Personally I don't think so. If you are into blood and gore the movie delivers on that front but unfortunately not really on any other.

The best way to describe this film is totally, absolutely, positively crap, why? I'll tell you, it is one of those horror films that has one of those stupid plot twist in the end, the kind that doesn't put anything into perspective, the kind that leaves you with such a feeling of disappointment at the fact that they had a good concept in their hands and they ruined it completely, only with this film it felt like it was more deliberate, because you have this nice little "B" movie monster thing going for while and well into the film, guess what, it was never real it was all in his head and the rest of the movie doesn't make sense.Frankly I think considering the mood the ending left me in, this film is a disgrace to the horror genre, I saw a quote on this film stating "It turns the genre on its head" this film doesn't belong in the genre, the world would be spared if the makers of this thing would not consider to do a sequel.