The Chair

Last night I attended a private screening of ‘The Chair’, an uber-low budget supernatural thriller by Brett Sullivan (Ginger Snaps 2). It was a grand evening and I’d love to write a review for you, but I just can’t back away from it far enough to give an objective opinion.

The thing is, that’s our chair:


My husband Adam, as you may know, is a leather worker who does prop and costume work for television and the movies. Most of the leather you see in old ‘Starhunter’ re-runs or the last two 'Saw' movies - that’s him. He also did the Nemesis costume in ‘Resident Evil 2’, plus some way more visible work in a bunch of other movies that haven’t been released yet.

Adam has done a lot of work with costumer Alex Kavanagh, who has done some work with Brett Sullivan, so when Brett was looking for someone to do leather harness attachments on this chair-thing, Adam got the call. They only had a vague idea of the design (and I can’t give too much away here), but there was to be a mechanism involved that the main character was supposed to put together using everyday household items. Weights. Pulleys. Bike chains. That kind of thing.

Before he became The Leather Guy, Adam spent time as an engineering student, a graphics artist, and a watchmaker. It’s like his whole career was leading up to this.

The best part was, we already had the perfect chair. Adam had garbage-picked a whole set of dining room chairs about 14 years ago with the intent of stripping and re-finishing them. He got as far as the stripping part when he realized they were pretty crappy chairs after all and abandoned the project. They sat in our basement, and then our garage for years, and I kept bugging him to throw them out. He finally got rid of most of them, but insisted on keeping the armchair.

Boy, am I glad he didn’t listen to me.

In the end, the project went from Adam doing a few leather straps and some sort of vest, to designing and creating the central prop that ended up in the title, the movie poster, and even the logo. How cool is that? Our chair, in show business. I’m so proud.

As for the movie itself, what can I say? I liked it. I have a few quibbles which I’ll keep to myself, and it took me a bit to get into it, but once I did I found it quite creepy. I’m hardly objective, though. You’re just going to have to wait for it to get picked up and released and decide for yourself.

And keep an eye on that chair. It’s got quite a career ahead of it.