SomeoneThe Devil's Chair
May 28th 2009 06:29
Warning! Spoilers!
Premise: A healed mental patient is released to the care of a psychology professor, who along with 3 students takes the man back to the abandoned mental hospital where the man claims a chair took his girlfriend 4 years prior, in an attempt to discover what really happened.
As I mentioned in my previous review, twists are a hard thing to get right in a movie. If done badly, and they're hard to do well, they can ruin a movie (think M. Night Shyamalan. The Village, The Happening... eugh). However, if done well, they can define a movie, elevate it, make it stick with you long after the movie is over, and make you watch it again and again. Think back to the first time you saw Fight Club, or The Usual Suspects. Hell, even The Sixth Sense.
Back to the movie at hand. The first hour and ten minutes is fairly standard Hollywood horror-by-numbers... the chair is a gateway to another realm, in which a blood-demon is killing whoever comes through. There are the standard cliched twists, like the evil professor and the man not actually being crazy, and you are thinking wow, what a waste of a promising movie.
I am warning again of spoilers, I am about to totally ruin the movie.
And then the last 10 minutes just blow you away. Turns out the majority of the movie, borrowing heavily from Identity, is just a representation of the main character's mental struggle. What follows this realization is a brutal 10 minute sequence in which the main character slaughters everyone else with an axe.
Now, the last 10 minutes are easily the most disturbing of the movie, even though there is little gore. There's alot of blood splashed around, but the actual gore is always just off screen... What makes it disturbing is how the first hour-ish of the movie is spent building the main character up as a hero, who risks his own life to try and save one of the students, and then cutting to reality, in which he is raping said blood-soaked student. Creepy stuff.
What also makes it believable is the acting. Now, I have a couple of bones to pick with the casting, which I will get to shortly, but overall the acting was above average. Best among them is the lead (Andrew Howard),
who does a good job handling the shift from sane hero to psychopathic killer. I also didn't mind the blonde student (Elize Du Toit), who isn't half bad.
However, what the hell were they thinking when they cast Matt Berry in a serious movie. It could be because I'm a fan of The IT Crowd, but I cannot possibly ever take that guy seriously. Ever.
Also, the Professor was way too melodramatic to be realistic... however, seeing as he was part of an illusion, and seeing how the Narrator (Howard) himself comments on how it's like a crap B-grade movie, it's entirely plausible that this was done on purpose.
Overall... probably not one of the twists that will stick with you for the rest of your life (come on, you know Fight Club will), but if you get 50 minutes through the movie and you're about to turn it off... just let it run. The last 10 minutes I feel more than make up for the rest of the movie. Especially the ending, in which the main character, soaked in blood, drives away with his imaginary girlfriend. Probably worth a watch, but there are definitely better movies out there.
Premise: A healed mental patient is released to the care of a psychology professor, who along with 3 students takes the man back to the abandoned mental hospital where the man claims a chair took his girlfriend 4 years prior, in an attempt to discover what really happened.
As I mentioned in my previous review, twists are a hard thing to get right in a movie. If done badly, and they're hard to do well, they can ruin a movie (think M. Night Shyamalan. The Village, The Happening... eugh). However, if done well, they can define a movie, elevate it, make it stick with you long after the movie is over, and make you watch it again and again. Think back to the first time you saw Fight Club, or The Usual Suspects. Hell, even The Sixth Sense.
Mmm... Comfy.
Back to the movie at hand. The first hour and ten minutes is fairly standard Hollywood horror-by-numbers... the chair is a gateway to another realm, in which a blood-demon is killing whoever comes through. There are the standard cliched twists, like the evil professor and the man not actually being crazy, and you are thinking wow, what a waste of a promising movie.
I am warning again of spoilers, I am about to totally ruin the movie.
And then the last 10 minutes just blow you away. Turns out the majority of the movie, borrowing heavily from Identity, is just a representation of the main character's mental struggle. What follows this realization is a brutal 10 minute sequence in which the main character slaughters everyone else with an axe.
Now, the last 10 minutes are easily the most disturbing of the movie, even though there is little gore. There's alot of blood splashed around, but the actual gore is always just off screen... What makes it disturbing is how the first hour-ish of the movie is spent building the main character up as a hero, who risks his own life to try and save one of the students, and then cutting to reality, in which he is raping said blood-soaked student. Creepy stuff.
What also makes it believable is the acting. Now, I have a couple of bones to pick with the casting, which I will get to shortly, but overall the acting was above average. Best among them is the lead (Andrew Howard),
who does a good job handling the shift from sane hero to psychopathic killer. I also didn't mind the blonde student (Elize Du Toit), who isn't half bad.
However, what the hell were they thinking when they cast Matt Berry in a serious movie. It could be because I'm a fan of The IT Crowd, but I cannot possibly ever take that guy seriously. Ever.
Also, the Professor was way too melodramatic to be realistic... however, seeing as he was part of an illusion, and seeing how the Narrator (Howard) himself comments on how it's like a crap B-grade movie, it's entirely plausible that this was done on purpose.
Overall... probably not one of the twists that will stick with you for the rest of your life (come on, you know Fight Club will), but if you get 50 minutes through the movie and you're about to turn it off... just let it run. The last 10 minutes I feel more than make up for the rest of the movie. Especially the ending, in which the main character, soaked in blood, drives away with his imaginary girlfriend. Probably worth a watch, but there are definitely better movies out there.
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