SDCC 2018: Terror Films Acquires Alterna’s The Chair
Terror Films has acquired The Chair for distribution to streaming on demand and video on demand services. The film follows the plot of the Alterna Comics psychological horror comic book created and written by Peter Simeti with art by Kevin Christensen.
In both the film and the comic book, a man named Richard Sullivan struggles to escape a grisly fate on death row in this intense story of betrayal, revenge, and humanity’s horrifying capacity for evil. The film features an ensemble cast featuring indie horror icon Bill Oberst Jr., Zach Galligan (Gremlins), Naomi Grossman (American Horror Story), Noah Hathaway (The Neverending Story), Ezra Buzzington (The Hills Have Eyes), and most notably –the late Roddy Piper in his final feature film role before he passed away on July 31, 2015.
Over the past two months and change Alterna Comics have been publishing comics on newsprint paper, which has had the effect of dropping cover prices on these bi-monthly titles to as low as $1 in the case of The Chair, but the majority have been priced at the still ridiculously low price of $1.50. Consequently, despite Graphic Policy probably receiving some review copies, the following comics were all reviewed from the print versions that were purchased at a physical location. This had the benefit of allowing me to have a multilayered experience not only reading the comics but literally feeling the newsprint between my fingers as the distinctive smell drifted toward my nose; yeah, it’s safe to say that these gems tugged at my nostalgia for a bygone era (and bygone prices).
Absolutely worth your time and money. Overall: 8.25
Wednesdays are new comic book day! Each week hundreds of comics are released, and that can be pretty daunting to go over and choose what to buy. That’s where we come in!
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.
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.
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.
Roddy cared so much about this role and we had multiple phone calls going over the character as he took notes and offered his own spin on things as well. But the absolute best part about those calls was the fact that they’d turn into longer talks about family and life and our experiences working against the odds and following a dream. He was a great guy and due to an awful snowstorm in Boston at the time, I wasn’t able to fly out during filming and shake his hand and thank him for his time and friendship. Texts and phone calls, as great as they were, just aren’t the same thing. It’s something I’ll always regret.
