“For every breath out your chest, here creeps death… by panic vest.”

Danielle, a young psychology student, is trying to rebuild her life when she sublets a century-old Victorian house. Unknowingly, she awakens an evil specter lurking in the dark recesses of her new home. To prove to her sister, Anna, that she isn't delusional again, Danielle sets out to document the haunting with horrifying results. She unleashes the soul of Edgar Crowe, a vicious child killer, who quickly seizes control of her life. Hungry to satisfy his taste for torturing boys, Crowe uses Danielle like a pawn to resurrect his ghastly "Panic Chair." Now, Anna faces an impossible task - destroy Crowe without destroying her sister. The solution comes to Anna, but is it buried too deeply in the long dead past for her to reach?

“The Chair” is the new film by “Ginger Snaps 2” director Brett Sullivan. Shot on a modest budget in the director’s own home, “The Chair” is a tight little supernatural thriller that pulls no punches. There are so many things that work in this film! When Danielle starts seeing and hearing things that go bump in the night, one can’t help but be reminded of what was so great about the classic film “The Changeling”. Sullivan manipulates the audience with a deft hand, making us all think “Did I just see that?”. His camera, always on a slow dolly, crawls around every corner, showing just enough to creep the Hell out of the audience. In fact the last time a film creeped me out as much was David Koepp’s “Stir of Echoes”. I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s saying a lot!

Sullivan, also an established editor, cut his picture in a way that I have never seen before. Conversations are abruptly cut up, going from room to room, yet keeping the narrative flow intact. This technique keeps the audience on edge and pretty much tells them that anything can, and will, happen. But his unorthodox approach to filmmaking doesn’t stop there. The script, written by Michael Capellupo, goes far beyond most supernatural thrillers. Director Sullivan stated that he wanted to make a kind of Japanese remake with this film, but make it his own. Well, everything that Americanized versions of “The Grudge” and “The Ring” did wrong, here is done perfectly right. The insanely creepy atmosphere, the subtle, yet beautiful, score (by “Ginger Snaps 2” composer Kurt Swinghammer), and most of all, a main character you give a damn about! Danielle is played by relative newcomer Alanna Chisholm and let me say that her performance is something to behold. Danielle is a troubled soul, hiding behind the face of an angel. You feel her pain, every step of the way. And when her character takes a turn for the worst, Chisholm plays her evil with such glee! But, behind it all, there’s always a bit of profound sadness in her eyes that just breaks your heart. It’s a very complex part, and Chisholm absolutely owns it. She carries this picture with great gusto. I, for one, can’t wait to see where she goes from here! It doesn’t hurt that she is cute as Hell… Not to take anything away from her co-star Lauren Roy, who plays her sister Anna. It was no small task to play the grounded, levelheaded Anna. Roy took what could have been a nothing, second-rate character and fleshed her out with all of the love and compassion one has for their sibling. Through their initial bickering, to little character traits that go mostly unnoticed, to the lengths one willfully goes through for their loved ones, you never doubt for a second that these two are sisters. Theirs is a deep relationship, and it is expertly portrayed. These are not the cookie-cutter characters we’re so used to seeing on screen. You care deeply for these two and, in this age of Demon-fodder-in various-states-of-undress female characterizations, it is a welcome change. And it is long overdue.

All in all, I cannot recommend “The Chair” to you enough. By achieving the creepy atmosphere of films like “The Changeling” and “Stir of Echoes”, and combining it with two very strong female leads, director Brett Sullivan has made a film that is satisfying in every way, and one that is sure to stick with you for a long, long time…