Killer Sofa (2019)

Killer Sofa Horror movies turning objects into murderous creatures is nothing new. We’ve gotten killer tomatoes, deadly beds, murderous cars, cursed costumes, a possessed laundry machine (here’s our review of The Mangler) and the list goes on. But a killer “sofa” (which is actually a recliner chair) now that’s something new to check off the list.

 

This movie is director Bernie Rao’s feature debut, but prior to this he’s made quite an impressive amount of shorts in various genres. In Killer Sofa (killer chair, really, but I digress) we follow the story of Francesca, an attractive young woman who seems to unwillingly make certain men fall head over heels for her, and they become obsessive and stalking. One of her admirers is found murdered (or, they find body parts of him which should make it obvious he’s been murdered), and soon thereafter, Francesca receives a new chair as a gift. She puts it in her living room, but soon her new furniture appears to be living a life of its own…

 

Now, the actual appearance of the Killer Sofa strays pretty far away from what the cover might lead you to believe. The recliner is given two round black buttons for eyes, giving it an appearance which is actually kind of cute…and it could have fitted well within some kind of TV show for kids. However, as this is a horror movie, the “cute” recliner is killing people, especially if they get too close to its new owner. One of Francesca’s friends, Maxi, has a grandfather who is a disgraced Jewish rabbi, and he becomes convinced that the recliner is possessed by a “Dybbuk” (a malicious possession spirit from Jewish mythology).

 

Now, I’m sure you think everything described so far makes this movie sound hilarious and quite ludicrous. While that is somewhat true, I think it’s fair to point out that the movie doesn’t spend its time trying to chunk out one gag after the other, and the humor is sometimes quite subtle as the movie appears to be taking itself a bit too seriously considered its overall wacky premise. There are some rather amusing scenes, but it isn’t really an over-the-top crazy movie, so if you expect something of that kind you might be disappointed. It’s not really one of those traditional “so bad it’s good” movies where you can expect to laugh your ass off, although there are some pretty funny scenes here and there – including a scene where the chair keeps blowing out Francesca’s matches, which is actually quite hilarious!  So, to sum it up, Killer Sofa is a weird low-budget indie horror, and must be seen under the correct expectations. It’s a good bunch of stupid fun, if you know what to expect from movies like this.

 

As a final note, here’s a little bit of trivia: the original title for Killer Sofa was actually My Love, My Lazy Boy. Which probably doesn’t make much sense to you unless you know that there’s a furniture manufacturer called La-Z-Boy (and if you type the term into Google Image Search, you’ll get a lot of pictures displaying recliner chairs of the similar looks as the one displayed in this movie). This makes the original title somewhat more “correct”, I guess…but it’s probably much more catchy with a title like Killer Sofa.

 

Killer Sofa

 

Directors: Bernie Rao
Country & year: New Zealand, 2019
Actors: Piimio Mei, Nathalie Morris, Jim Baltaxe, Jed Brophy, Stacey King, Angelica Thomas, James Cain, Jordan Rivers, Harley Neville, Sarah Munn, Sean Fleming, Trae Te Wiki, Hamish Boyle, Grant Kereama, Adrienne Kohler
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt10927122/

 

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEAGRASS – Short Horror Film

Picking up trash along the beach, a girl discovers items left behind that become increasingly ominous.

 

Sea Grass is a great example of one of those horror shorts that are simple and straight forward, with no hocus pocus or jump-scares, and still manages to be quite creepy.

 

SEAGRASS - Short Horror Film

 

Director: Dylan Clark
Country & year: USA, 2019
Actors: Charlotte Butcher, Karen Butcher
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt10993446/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOE – Animated Horror Short

A starving young boy eats a human toe that he finds in the ground. Later that night, something dead comes to his bedroom wanting its toe back.

 

Toe is a pretty cool and atmospheric stop-motion animation horror short. It’s based on one of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark stories which is called The Big Toe (which was also referenced in the movie Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark).

 

TOE - Animated Horror Short

 

Director: Neal O’Bryan and Chad Thurman
Country & year: USA, 2020
Actors: Cassie Carey (voice actor)
Creators Twitter page: twitter.com/workshedanimate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DINAH – Short Horror Film

Before Dinah Kent committed suicide she left behind an innocent video on YouTube. If you’re heartless enough to dislike it you’ll join her in the afterlife.

 

In the horror short Dinah we meet a guy who has a habit of browsing YouTube videos just to press the “dislike” button. When he comes over a video with footage of a young girl who took her own life, he’s still being an a-hole and goes straight for the “dislike”…something he’ll regret bitterly afterwards.

 

DINAH - Short Horror Film

 

Director: James Williams
Country & year: USA, 2019
Actors: Scott E. Brosius, Sofia Plass, Amanda Terman, James Williams
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt11169918/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STREET TRASH – Original Short Film

When the  owner of the local liquor store in Brooklyn finds some old, greenish booze in the basement, he decides to sell it to the hobos for a cheap buck. But little does he know that this liquor is a toxic waste which makes anyone melt, in a very messy and gooey way.

 

This horror short was shot on 16mm with a dirty lens by James M. Muro and some of his friends on a hot summer day in the mid 80’s. Muro also turned it into a polished full length feature that was released in 1987.

 

STREET TRASH Short Horror Film

 

Director: James M. Muro
Country & year: USA, 1984
Actors: Mike Lackey, Robin France Shilling, Bruce Torbet, Bernard Perlman, Eddie Bay
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31458010/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haunt (2019)

Haunt (2019)It is Halloween, but Harper isn’t really in the mood for a scary celebration as she is already struggling with a real fright in her life: an abusive boyfriend who keeps sending her angry text messages. However, her friends are determined to have a fun night out and enjoy themselves, so she covers her black eye with make-up and they all head over to a costume party. They meet up with two other guys, and the six of them ends up looking for a haunted house attraction in order to make their Halloween night complete. Very much on random, they encounter the sign for such an attraction on a lonely country road, and decide to check it out. Upon entering this Haunted House attraction, they’re forced to leave their cellphones and have to sign liability waivers (which probably sounds like big red flags right there for our naive protagonists, but in real life there are such attractions that actually requires you to sign liability waivers before entering. Like for example McKamey Manor, which requires a 40-page waiver before you’re allowed inside). They do as they’re told, and is shown some rather mainstream horror effects upon entering…until they suddenly witness a scene where a “witch” is branding a girl with a red-hot poker (which they of course think is just an act). From there on things start going more and more wrong, and the attraction goes from fun to deadly in no time.

 

Haunt is a “haunted house attraction” horror movie, a little bit in the same vein as Hell Fest. With the writers of A Quiet Place as directors and Eli Roth as producer, it certainly did sound like something that could be both suspenseful and gory. And you see quite early in the movie that there is a lot to appreciate here: the cinematography is quite eye-candy, and there is a lot of claustrophobic atmosphere once our protagonists enters the Haunt. There are some rather interesting characters who are inhabiting the place: people in several costumes, wearing masks and behaving in creepy ways which makes you wonder who, or what, they really are…

 

Now, while Haunt manages to pack in a good amount of suspense, it feels like there is a little bit of lost potential here where the actual killing scenes felt very toned down…especially with one of the kings of gore (Eli Roth) being the producer and all. The killing scenes come and go rather rapidly, some of them even proceeding to the next scene so fast that you’re barely able to get a glimpse of what really happened. The movie doesn’t dilly-dally with its audience though, or try to be “smart”…instead, it delivers a straight forward slasher where teens are killed because they make dumb decisions and freaks are murderous because…well, because they’re freaks, I guess.

 

However, despite not being the most memorable movie in the genre, Haunt was a fun ride all in all!

 

Haunt

 

Directors: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Country & year: USA, 2019
Actors: Katie Stevens, Will Brittain, Lauryn Alisa McClain, Andrew Caldwell, Shazi Raja, Schuyler Helford, Phillip Johnson Richardson, Chaney Morrow, Justin Marxen, Terri Partyka, Justin Rose, Damian Maffei, Schuyler White, Samuel Hunt, Karra Rae Robinson
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt6535880/

 

 

Vanja Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

City of the Living Dead (1980)

City of the Living Dead (1980)City of the Living Dead is the first part of the Lucio Fulci Gates of Hell trilogy, which followed up with The Beyond and House By the Cemetery. But apart from sharing the theme of the dead being brought to life, with some small doses of inspiration from H.P Lovecraft and with actress Catriona MacColl starring in all three, they work well as separate films.

 

The film starts at a cemetery in the small town of Dunwich where a priest hangs himself, and reappears as an evil deathstaring zombie. At the same time, Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl) witnesses a New York apartment suicide during a vision under a seance, which scares her to death. Yes, literally to death. And why, you might ask? Well, because his act of sin causes all the dead in the cemetery of Dunwich to rise from the dead as zombies. And these are not the traditional carnivorous zombies…here, they have the ability to teleport themselves and use telekinesis to make people bleed tears and spew up their own inner organs. Miss Woodhouse’s death is seen as a mysterious case, which captures the curiosity of newspaper journalist Peter Bell (Christopher George). The day she is to be buried, he sneaks around the cemetery when she suddenly comes alive in the coffin and screams. Peter hacks up the coffin to save her, but unlike the ordinary dead who resurrects as zombies, Mary wakes up like from a normal night’s sleep and is straight back into her old self again. Well, good for her. After they learn that the gates of hell must be closed and this evil priest must be stopped, they take a roadtrip to Dunwich. And this must happen before All Saint’s Day. If not, the dead will take over the world.

 

Meanwhile, the evil priest has already started terrorizing Dunwich, while rubbing mud filled with worms in peoples faces as he teleports around the city. While strange and macabre things continue to happen in the city, a group of men sit in the local pub, suspecting Bob, the city’s outcast who has a taste for inflatable sex dolls, to be behind all of this. And this side plot with Bob (Giovanni Lombardo Radice) is completely useless which is nothing but filler scenes that could easily have been cut out. Even though City of the Living Dead doesn’t work all that well with its serious pacing issues, the film has some great ghoulish atmosphere with a fitting soundtrack by Fabio Frizzi, who’s scored several of Fulci’s films. There’s also several memorable gory scenes to enjoy, and some of the actors were dedicated enough to get isolated in a room to be attacked by ten kilos of maggots via two wind machines. Trivia: one of the crew members decided to pull a prank on Mr. Fulci by stuffing some of the maggots in his pipe tobacco. Everyone but Fulci found it funny and he blamed the incident on the heart surgery he had years later with health problems that escalated to ventricular aneurysm, contracted viral hepatitis and liver cirrhosis. No more maggots on set, I guess. And of course don’t forget the drinking game: take a shot every time there’s a close-up of the actors eyes, and you’ll surely die of alcohol poisoning before the first twenty minutes. In advance, rest in peace.

 

City of the Living Dead

 

Director: Lucio Fulci
Original title: Paura nella città dei morti viventi
Country & year: Italy, 1980
Actors: Christopher George, Catriona MacColl, Carlo De Mejo, Antonella Interlenghi, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Daniela Doria, Fabrizio Jovine, Luca Venantini, Michele Soavi, Venantino Venantini, Enzo D’Ausilio, Adelaide Aste, Luciano Rossi, Robert Sampson, Janet Agren
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0081318/

 

Related reviews:
The Beyond (1981)
The House by the Cemetery (1981)

 

Tom Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ATTIC – Supernatural Horror Short

Toby believes he can make things disappear into the darkness of his attic. Maybe even his stepfather.

 

Attic is a nice little horror short about a boy who is getting more and more tired of his aggressive and abusive stepfather. Upon exploring the attic, he discovers that the darkest part of it can make things disappear.

 

ATTIC - Supernatural Horror Short

 

Director: Andrew Montague
Country & year: USA, 2016
Actors: Mary Beth Albers, Michael Diamond, Joseph Anthony Sudol
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt4378118/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mørke Sjeler (2010)

Mørke Sjeler (2008)During a morning jog through the woods, the teenager Johanna is attacked by a guy in an orange dress, who is wearing goggles and a mask. After a quick chase with some running and stumbling, he drills a hole in her head, and then places some black goo in her brain. Despite having been pronounced dead, the murder victim suddenly wakes up in the morgue and goes back home to her father: the music teacher Morten Ravn. But Johanna is not at all the same girl, but has been reduced to a disoriented, apathetic lifeless shell with a blank stare. In the meantime, more and more victims are being reported, all of whom come to life again with the same symptoms. Since the police are just a bunch of incompetent fools, Morten decides to investigate the mystery himself, uncovering an apocalyptic conspiracy that revolves around a large oil company.

 

Mørke Sjeler (Dark Souls) was the passion project of two French guys, César Ducasse and Mathieu Peteul, with the intention of creating a Norwegian satirical zombie-comedy. And the result was a stumbling, amateurish, hopeless little trainwreck that looks more like a cheap student film. The acting is goofy, bad and just absurd. Karl Sundby (rest in peace), who was a profiled, seasoned and professional actor in little Norway, is surprisingly giving us the most memorable scene in this movie as a homeless hobo.

 

The directors promoted this as a comedy, as mentioned. And yes, it’s a comedy for sure, and has some entertainment value, but not in the intentional way in the slightest. The weird tone is all over the place, which makes it impossible to separate the “satire” elements from the seriousness. Sloppy camera work, with lazy, uninspired killing scenes that happens mostly off-screen, which makes it look like there was not enough budget to hire a single competent makeup artist on set. In other words: this doesn’t impress much. The zombie growls sound like pigs squealing. I’m sorry, but that’s just pathetic. It took three years to shoot this film, but it feels far more like something done in a short week, all in one, quick take, Ed Wood-style.

 

Mørke Sjeler is distributed in the US by Lions Gate, and in Germany under the titles Dark Souls and Zombie Driller Killer. It also found its way to France and Japan.

 

Mørke Sjeler

 

Director: César Ducasse, Mathieu Peteul
Country & year: Norway | France, 2010
Actors: Johanna Gustavsson, Kristian Holter, Ida Elise Broch, Morten Rudå, Kyrre Haugen Sydness, Lise Froyland, David Hernandez, Christopher Angus Campbell, Bård Eirk Nilsson, Trine Dürbeck, Eirik Halvorsen, Kristine Braaten, Marianne Rødje, Jan Hårstad, Henrik Scheele
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt1617145/

 

 

Tom Ghoul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HUMAN FORM – Korean Body Horror Film

Feeling alone in a world where everyone looks exactly the same, a young girl decides to take extreme measures to change her appearance.

 

Human Form is a Korean body horror short, where a girl is living in a world where everyone is getting plastic surgery, and she feels more and more out of place. This short is a commentary on plastic surgery and humankind’s obsession over what is supposed to be “beauty”, where we often idolize appearances that are impossible to achieve naturally, and deeming natural appearances as not looking “good enough” (which makes everyone a potential “fixer-upper”, and giving the beauty industry more and more profits). And with this short coming from South Korea, it’s a perfect comment on all of this considering how several Asian countries have insane beauty standards. Just look up some “Asian makeup transformation” videos on YouTube, and you’ll see…

 

HUMAN FORM - Korean Body Horror Film

 

Director: Doyeon Noh
Country & year: South Korea, 2014
Actors: Si Yeon Kim, Ye Eun Lee, Jinseon Son, Sun Hee Kang, Ae-Jin Kim, Seung-il Hong, Jung Do Hur
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt3662666/