Cursed objects, carnivorous appliances, or just ugly furniture in the wrong place at the wrong time, sometimes that living room set is killer. On a special Fright Club recorded live at the Blue Couch Bookshop, Hope reads a bit from her novels Roost and Killer Pictures, signs some copies, and then she joins George to count down the best killer furniture in horror.
5. Killer Sofa (2018)
A lot of movies about flesh hungry furniture are bad. Writer/director/kiwi Bernie Rao’s Killer Sofa is bad, often charmingly so, but inescapably bad. Plus, it’s a recliner, not a sofa.
A very mediocre dancer (Piimoi Mei) arouses the dybbuk living in her newly salvaged recliner. It kills a lot of people.
The absurd humor is often delightful, and at about an hour and 15 minutes, the film ends before it wears out its welcome.
4. Battle Heater (1989)
Jôji Iida tosses the chaos of punk rock, a DIY spirit, and Japanes mores in a blender and the resulting slurry is this tale of a salvaged space heater hungry for human flesh.
What is going on in this apartment building? Insanity waits cheerfully in every flat and, as the weather turns colder, there’s even more carnage than usual.
3. Oculus (2013)
Mike Flanagan’s 2014 new effort follows a pair of siblings looking to prove that their childhood family horror was actually the fault of a cursed mirror.
Flanagan braids present day events and flashbacks effectively, not just to illustrate the ghastly deeds of the siblings’ youth, but to emphasize the growing madness of the brother and sister as they revisit the scene of the crime and set about proving their theory.
Flanagan has some real skill weaving the rational world with one full of madness, and he knows when to rely on FX and when to be craftier with his scares.
2. Hausu
If Takashi Miike’s Happiness of the Katakuris were to marry Pee-wee’s Playhouse, this would be their offspring.
A spoof of sorts, Hausu tells the story of six uniform-clad high school girls named Gorgeous, Fantasy, Sweet, Melody, Kung Fu, and Mac. The nomenclature alone should clue you in on the film’s lunacy. The giggling sextet spend spring break at an aunt’s spooky house – or, in fact, a cheaply made set of an aunt’s spooky house. Not a single thing that follows makes sense, nor is it really meant to.
Expect puppets, random musical sequences, remarkably bad backdrops, slapstick humor, and an amazingly sunny disposition given the sheer volume of human dismemberment. Humans are attacked by a piano, mattress, mirror, and grandfather clock, among other unnaturally sinister furniture.
1. The Coffee Table (2022)
A remarkably well written script fleshed out by a stunning ensemble becomes utter torture as you want so badly for some other outcome. Co-writer/director Caye Casas ties threads, builds anxiety, plunges the depths of “what’s the worst that could happen?” and leaves you shaken.
David Pareja and Estefania de los Santos craft indelible, believable, beautifully flawed characters so convincing that their experience becomes painful for you. Casas salts the wounds with dark comedy, but the tenderness and tragedy collaborate toward something far more crushingly human.
