Killer Sofa: the horror movie about possessed furniture that you can genuinely enjoy
We might all be going a bit stir crazy during these self isolation times, but yes, you really did read that headline right.
Killer Sofa is a genuine horror-comedy about a possessed recliner – not an actual sofa, sorry – that has a serious thirst for blood, getting rid of anyone who shows affection to its new owner Francesca (Piimio Mei).
Yep, it's a possessed recliner with a deadly crush and the only people who can stop its brutal rampage is a disgraced rabbi, a Voodoo sorceress and two broken-hearted detectives.
We're not making a single bit of the plot up – and the best thing about it is that you can watch it right now on Prime Video.
Objectively, is Killer Sofa a good movie? No, not in the slightest. But does it fulfil its bonkers furniture-as-serial-killer promise? Absolutely.
In a brief 80-minute runtime, you'll get your fill of a recliner slowly creeping after its victims, killing people with its various springs and generally just being shifty by sneakily watching out of a window.
It's completely bizarre and it never fails to raise a chuckle, and it's made all the more charming by Killer Sofa's low-budget workarounds.
Sure, there's not much gore if that's what you're after as the movie often cuts away from the blood, but you do get an eyeball being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, the recliner blowing out a match and a corpse being reclined off a balcony.
(Sadly, we were robbed of seeing the recliner project blood from its mouth "Exorcist-style" as they only had one recliner to work with during filming.)
What makes the movie really work during its outrageous moments is that the cast plays it entirely straight.
In the vein of other New Zealand horror-comedies like Housebound and Black Sheep, Killer Sofa's humour is completely dry and lets the absurdity speak for itself. For instance, "Whoever has that recliner is in great danger" is said without even a knowing wink.
What is a shame is that the movie gets bogged down in the origins of the deadly furniture, involving Dybbuks and ancient witchcraft. We get frequent flashbacks to flesh out the story and they're just not needed.
The whole origin story does come together in a brilliant and unexpected reveal during the final showdown, but we really would have been happy with one character going, "That recliner is just evil" as an explanation.
Let's face it, no one was settling down to watch Killer Sofa expecting (or even wanting) a watertight reasoning for what was happening. We just want to see some upholstery get bloody.
Killer Sofa might not quite do for sofas what Jaws did for sharks, but it delivers on its nonsense concept and it's a lot more fun than a trip to IKEA.
Well, if we could go to IKEA at the moment anyway.
Killer Sofa is now available to watch on Prime Video UK.
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