This British horror film is unusual in a few aspects. It starts by showing the end (or is it?) of the story. It has the main character, Nick, as a narrator, who's more often a commentator who hits the pause button (freeze-frame) when he makes a comment. Nick is considered criminally insane because of the way his lover died 4 years ago in an abandoned asylum, but Nick insists it was due to supernatural causes (involving a weird chair). Early in the film, Nick admits he can be the only one who did it although he doesn't remember doing it. An old professor, his assistant and two students have the "genius" idea to bring back the supposedly criminally insane Nick to the asylum where the murder was committed, to study him. Right there, I had a problem believing such a dumb idea could actually happen.The "devil's chair" in the abandoned asylum is a sinister-looking chair with a skull, initially inoffensive, which "probes" people (creepiest effects of the movie) before shunting them off to another version of the asylum with a demon-skulled tentacled monster roaming. I thought sometimes it looked freakish, sometimes amateurish. The acting was unequal, but I think it might have been intentional. The pompous old professor was atrocious in his line delivery. The main character/narrator was actually good playing it serious, troubled, intense, sometimes mean, channelling Jason Statham. The others were OK, except the brown-haired assistant that was also bad, but nowhere near the level of the professor. There were jarring changes in the tone of the movie with the main character actually admonishing the viewer once. The "normal" version of the asylum was undermined by the irrational, sometimes corny, behaviour of the characters, which in a way got eventually explained. The "other" version of the asylum was sometimes unnerving with interesting cinematography.However, it's the last act (last 20 minutes or so) that was really horrifying with its final twist that I liked but that might frustrate others. For low-budget horror, it does try to be somewhat different but ends up a mixed-bag. I wondered what messages the creators were trying to convey if anything. One of them might be that the true horror doesn't lie in supernatural shenanigans but in the human psyche. Another might be simply what the main character spews out angrily at the viewer near the end. I don't think I particularly liked this movie, but I found it positively peculiar nevertheless.Rating: 6 out of 10 (Good)

With a pocketful of drugs, Nick West takes out his girlfriend Sammy, for a good time.When they explore an abandoned asylum, the discovery of a bizarre device, a cross between an electric chair and sadistic fetish machine, transforms drugged-out bliss into agony and despair.After Sammy is brutally assaulted and murdered by unseen forces, Nick becomes the number-one suspect.Years pass and Nick, who had been locked up in a mental hospital, is released into the care of eminent psychiatrist Dr. Willard, who is hell-bent on exposing the truth behind the killing.Accompanied by Dr. Willard and several of his students, Nick returns to the scene of the crime....This film likes to think that it is clever, with all the breaking of the fourth wall, and the main protagonist talking to us, the viewer, but up until the very impressive final ten minutes, the film is as boring as hell.But then, is this the film makers intention, for making us truly sit through 70 minutes of very, very poor acting, until he decides to give us one of the most disturbing ten minutes committed to DVD? If that was, then the man is a genius.Jason Statham must have busy, as was Luke Goss, as the lookalike actor isn't the best, but does his job with much suffice. The rest of the cast are disposable, apart from the on who played Izzy in Hollyoaks, who makes it all a little more tolerable.So this film could be a genius piece of cinema, but to make the first two acts so mundane is unforgivable.

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.