Killer Sofa
Killer Sofa is a 2019 New Zealand low-budget direct-to-DVD comedy horror film written and directed by Bernie Rao. Starring Piimio Mei, Nathalie Morris, Harley Neville, Stacey King, Jed Brophy, Jim Baltaxe, and Grant Kereama, the film follows a living recliner that commits crimes in the name of passion for its new owner. The film was released on DVD by American distributor High Octane Pictures on 1 October 2019 and received mixed reviews from critics, though its humour was generally positively received.
Plot
Frederico Olsen performs a voodoo ritual in front of a recliner, while Warren Lee cuts off his legs. A short time later his dismembered foot is found, and the police interview Francesca, his ex-girlfriend, and her friend, Maxi. Meanwhile the cursed recliner is accidentally sent to Maxi's grandfather, Jack, a disgraced Rabbi. He touches it, and experiences a psychic vision about its past. He believes the chair is possessed by a Dybbuk, a kind of evil spirit. Eventually the recliner ends up outside Francesca's apartment, and with the help of her boyfriend TJ she brings it inside.Jack does research on Dybbuks, watching Youtube videos by a psychic called Tohunga Makutu. Francesca has a strange dream about the chair, and in the morning discovers romantic objects laid out; she assumes TJ is responsible, although he is confused. The police discover a large number of objects related to voodoo at Frederico's apartment, and bring Francesca in for another interview. TJ is then stabbed by the recliner, although he survives. He plans to recover at his mom's house, a few houses down the street, but during the night is attacked by the recliner again, this time fatally.
The police now believe there is a serial killer targeting Francesca's ex-boyfriends. Their prime suspect is Ralph, Maxi's cousin. However he breaks into Francesca's apartment, and is killed by the recliner while masturbating on her bed. Jack has discovered more about the history of the chair, and warns Maxi about it, although she ignores it and returns to Francesca's apartment. She sees the chair disposing of Ralph's body, and is then forced to jump from the window, landing unconscious in a dumpster.
Francesca and the police go back to her apartment to look for Maxi, and discover Ralph's corpse. This causes Francesca to flee. She contemplates suicide at the edge of a cliff, then Jack calls her and she returns to the city. It's revealed that in the 1800s a pair of witches named Valerie and Gerard Collette lived in Akaroa, and poisoned many people to steal their souls. When the town discovered this they formed a mob. They burnt Gerard alive, but Valerie killed herself, transferring her spirit into a nearby woman, Francesca's great grandmother. That spirit has passed through the generations, and lives on in Francesca, as does Gerard's in the recliner.
Jack plans to build two dybbuk boxes to contain the spirits, then burn them. He suffers a heart attack however, and Francesca decides to confront the recliner without him. She does it with gasoline, but before she can burn it The police arrive and reveal that Francesco's body was inside it the entire time, and that's what Gerard's soul had attached to. They believe by shooting the chair they've dispelled the spirit.
A short time later Francesca has one of the police officer's over to her apartment, where she poisons him before transferring Gerard's soul from the recliner into his, as Valerie has completely taken over her body. The two murder another police officer, and leave, although Maxi saw what happened.
Production
The recliner cost $100. The initial title of the film was planned to be My Lover, My Lazy Boy, but the production feared being sued by the La-Z-Boy furniture company. After this, the title The Furnishing was then considered, but finally the name Killer Sofa was chosen. Rao faced some limitations while filming as he only had one recliner, which meant he was unable to film the sofa jumping from a window and crushing a person on a car, or a scene of the sofa vomiting blood as he worried it would stain the suede on the recliner.Release
The film was released on DVD on 1 October 2019 by the US-based distributor High Octane Pictures, before arriving to video-on-demand.Reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics, but reception for its humour was overall positive.Flickering Myth reviewer Matt Donato gave the film 3/4 stars and said that it is "weird, sometimes unwieldy, but should delight those who giggled incessantly at the film's properly conveyed trailer". In a less positive review, Mike Phalin of Sciencefiction.com gave the film a 2.5/5 stars and said, "For a quick bit of wacky horror with a twist ending, Killer Sofa delivers on that end. Had the story and some key characters gotten a bit of tidying up in the script process, this could have been much more fun."