Out in theaters beginning this October, The Chair is based on the graphic novel published by Alterna. An innocent man on death row witnesses savage killings at the hands of the prison’s sadistic Warden. To survive, he must match the brutality in the prison and confront his own horrifying past. The Chair stars Bill Oberst Jr., Roddy Piper, Naomi Grossman, Zach Galligan, Noah Hathaway, Timothy Muskatell, and Ezra Buzzington alongside an electrifying ensemble cast.

The movie would wind up being Roddy Piper’s last film, he passed away in July 2015. Alterna publisher Peter Simeti has penned an article reflecting on casting his childhood hero.

by Peter Simeti

Even if you don’t like horror thrillers, comic books, supporting indie creators, or all of the above – get a ticket to see The CHAIR because Roddy Piper was freaking brilliant in it and the performance deserves to be seen.

Let me take a step back a bit and explain that, for the sake of full disclosure, The CHAIR is based on a comic book I wrote back in 2006 to 2008. But don’t see it because I wrote it. After all, who even cares about who the hell I am? I’m just another comic creator working a 16 hour day – who I am hardly matters at all to the point of this story.  I was fortunate enough to be able to cast the film and I immediately knew that I wanted to cast the actors that I loved as a kid.

Of course, I started out the traditional way – by sending letters and emails to agents.

Well, that got nowhere fast.

After being tired of playing the waiting game, I took matters into my own hands and contacted people on facebook and twitter. Some responded, some didn’t, some said yes, and some said no.  Some of the rejections were from ridiculously nice folks like Tony Todd, Doug Jones, Mark Hamill, Viggo Mortensen, Brian Thompson, Loren Lester, Phil Lamarr, Kevin Conroy, Lew Temple, Clint Howard, Billy Drago – the list goes on and on. Everyone that responded was kind and courteous and every rejection blew my mind because these were all people I loved when I was growing up.  The people that said yes, though – the ones that actually are IN the film – that’s the special stuff.

Reaching out on social media, I managed to contact Zach Galligan (of Gremlins and Waxwork fame, someone that I had on a lunchbox when I was in kindergarten), Noah Hathaway (who doesn’t love Atreyu??), Naomi Grossman (as a big fan of her work on American Horror Story, this one was just so very cool), Susan Eisenberg (the voice of Wonder Woman from the Justice League Unlimited series and just such a truly WONDERful person), Kin Shriner (another voice actor from Justice League Unlimited, this time Green Arrow, just a funny funny guy), Joe Laurinaitis (Animal from the Road Warriors tag team in the WWF days of the WWE), Joe Pilato (Captain Rhodes from Day of the Dead), and of course, the legendary Roddy Piper (does Roddy really need any explanation? if so, just put on the glasses ‘cuz I’m all out of bubblegum).

Now, everyone did a fantastic job on this film, there’s strong performances all around especially given the deep, thought-provoking, and disturbing high tension subject matter in this old-school style horror film. It’s not a torture porn film – there isn’t gore for the sake of shock value here. Deaths of characters MATTER to the plot and characters aren’t just complete throwaways that are fodder for cheap scares. The reason I mention Roddy – is because this was the last feature film he did before he unexpectedly passed away.