Vamp or Not? Killer Sofa

First thing to say about this 2019 New Zealand film that was directed by Bernie Rao is around the title and poster. The title is inaccurate as we are looing at a recliner not a sofa and the poster adds a maw of teeth that are not there in the film. The second thing to say is that I don’t do it on purpose… I watched the film as some horror fluff not expecting that we’d look at this as a ‘Vamp or Not?’ Indeed, not suspecting that we’d get a myth type that we know of old.

The film starts with a moment of mutilation as Frederico (Harley Neville) is tied to a table and gagged, whilst a man (Sean Fleming) takes an electric carving knife to his legs. After this a group of young people in the shifting business come to the garage. There is a strange smell and the recliner is there, chained to the wall, a note suggests it needs to be delivered to a Francesca (Piimio Mei)…

Piimio Mei as Francesca

A band plays (over the credits) with Francesca adding interpretive dance. At the end of the song a pair of cops, Inspectors Gravy (Jed Brophy) and Grape (Stacey King) come in to talk to Francesca about Frederico. She speaks with them along with friend Maxi (Nathalie Morris). A severed foot has been found and identified as Frederico’s and Francesca was known as his acquaintance. She explains that he became obsessed with her and she took out a restraining order. Indeed, she has taken many out over the years, guys just seem to become obsessive about her. The interview ends as she is expecting delivery of furniture.

Jim Baltaxe as Jack

As the delivery guys take the recliner out of the chains one cuts their hand – it is a horror staple (especially in vampire films) and the scene seems to be there for the reason of being a staple and not for any plot reason. One of the delivery guys takes it for delivery but ends up at an antique store run by Maxi’s grandfather Jack (Jim Baltaxe). He doesn’t know who Francesca might be (later in the film he refers to her by the wrong name) but touches the recliner and has a vision. He later tells friend and occultist Ashanti (Angelica Thomas) that it is a dybbuk.

the recliner

We have come across the Jewish spirit/demon before and on both occasions (the Dybbuk and Demon) the being portrayed was not a vampire or vampiric. I have also watched a couple of films around the artefact the dybbuk box, none of which even flickered on the vampire radar. The primary connection between the genre and the dybbuk is it being in Bane’s Encyclopedia of Vampire Mythology, possibly erroneously. Of course, this time around there must be some level of vampiric connection for me to consider another ‘Vamp or Not?’ article.

drawing the soul

Through the story we get dybbuk lore from a viewed website run by Tohunga Makutu (Grant Kereama) – from this we learn that they are powerful spirits that feed on the living, that touching a dybbuk makes a connection between the person and the spirit and that they can also possess corpses when not possessing a living person. It is this feeding on the living that is important from our point of view as they literally eat the soul and we get to see this as an impressive lightshow.

Sarah Munn as Valerie

Through Jack we discover that his vision was of Valerie (Sarah Munn), one of a pair of occultists who ate souls – poisoning their victims to release the soul. Discovered, he was burned alive, but she was chased and killed herself in front of an ancestor (Trae Te Wiki) of Francesca. This ancestor then found men fighting over her, becoming obsessed with her, and claimed it was due to the spirit of Valerie, which had entered into her body. This is one of the dybbuk and has passed along the family. The other is her lover and is attached to the recliner and it was their living vampirism that has caused them to become vampiric spirits in death.

residual ghost

So, we have soul eating and possession, essentially, and it is the soul eating that allows me to confidently suggest that Killer Sofa is a vampire film (of the energy vampire type). The film itself is amusing to watch but don’t expect a terrifying atmosphere – this is aimed at fun and the sofa, by its very nature and design, struggles to raise a scare. The film, rather, carries a particularly antipodean humour but is not an out and out comedy, lacks the bite of something like Braindead and is light on gore.

The imdb page is here.

On DVD @ Amazon US

Vamp or Not? Demon

When I gave an Honourable Mention to the film Dybbuk it was – to a large degree – to highlight an astounding piece of cinema and a wonderful insight into a devastated culture. I did say it wasn’t really vampiric. However the inclusion of the dybbuk in Bane’s Encyclopedia of Vampires opened the door for looking at the film.

To remind ourselves, Bane states: “For the dybbuk to survive, it must gain entry into a human body. It may allow itself to be breathed in through incense or it may embed itself in a piece of food about to be eaten, but typically it will make its own way into the body, by force if necessary through the nostril, although any orifice will suffice. Once it has gained access, the dybbuk will possess the person and begin to feed off the person’s life-force, taking up residence in one of the pinky fingers or one of the toes…” We should also note that none of the other main vampire encyclopedias list the dybbuk.

Itay Tiran as Piotr

In the earlier piece I stated, “Marcin Wrona’s film Demon, about a dybbuk, would seem to have the potential to fall more into the vampire arena”. I was therefore rather excited when I managed to get the Polish DVD of the 2015 film. It’s worth noting that the film is in Polish and some English and the Polish DVD has hardcoded Polish Subs on the English dialogue and soft English subs on the Polish dialogue. The film starts with images of a small Polish town, which has suffered much urban decay and then focuses on Piotr (Itay Tiran) on a river crossing.

future father-in-law

The barge acts as the bridge, carrying Piotr and his land rover. He makes comment about a lack of actual bridge (we later hear there had been one until it was destroyed by the Germans decades before). He hears wailing and sees a woman in the water with a paramedic trying to pull her out of the river. This incident, which bookends with a connected funeral, would seem to be a symbolic inclusion and not directly related to the plot.

Agnieszka Zulewska as Zaneta

Piotr drives to a quarry where he meets his fiancée’s father (Andrzej Grabowski) as things move forward we discover that Piotr (who comes from London) was introduced to Zaneta (Agnieszka Zulewska) by her brother (and his friend) Jasny (Tomasz Schuchardt). They have spoken on Skype but the impression is that they haven’t met (or at least not frequently) and the wedding is planned imminently. Both her father at this point and her mother much later express doubts over the speed of the event. Zaneta wants to live in the old family house (which needs a lot of repair) and wants the reception in the adjacent barn, Piotr plans to build a summer house and even build a new bridge.

Ronaldo and the priest

Having prevented Ronaldo (Tomasz Zietek) from doing some clearing around the house, Piotr sets to work. At this point I want to highlight an issue with the film, which was there was a lack of exposition around the characters. Ronaldo might be an employee of the father-in-law, or a cousin, or a friend… we just don’t know. A throwaway line reveals he probably had a thing for Zaneta (which explains some of his behaviours) but the film does not expand or confirm this in a satisfying way.

having found the bones

Be that as it may, Piotr knocks over a tree and unearths a skeleton. He tries to ring Zaneta, drives to where she is but sees her celebrating with her bridesmaids and decides to fill the shallow grave back up. That night she rings him but their conversation is interrupted when he hears a woman laughing. He investigates, going out into the heavy rain and sees the woman kneeling ahead. He approaches and the ground of the grave is now a quagmire and he sinks. The next day (the day of the wedding) he is found in his car.

St Vitus Dance

So, it is Piotr who becomes possessed and this occurs through the wedding. His hands keep becoming muddy and his behaviour erratic. He does a speech and calls Zaneta by the name of Hana (Maria Debska) – the spirit, who he sees at the back of the hall. Eventually he ends up – during a wedding dance – holding the spirit and then has, what is thought to be, an epileptic fit. The local doctor (Adam Woronowicz) treats him but then he seems, back at the reception, to enter into some form of St Vitus Dance, fits again and then begins to speak effeminately in German and Yiddish.

Wlodzimierz Press as the teacher

As the reception goes on around them, Zaneta finds out about the skeleton and an old Jewish teacher (Wlodzimierz Press) confirms that there was a woman – years before – called Hana who was popular with all the boys, loved only one and mysteriously vanished. In conversing with her he confirms her identity as the spirit possessing Piotr. When asked why him she suggests that he was promised to her. We also hear that a dybbuk may possess someone to fulfil something from their life.

Maria Debska as Hana

This isn’t a horror film and so the lack of clarity in characters, background and what she is doing is probably more of an issue than if it had morphed into some form of hack and slash/possession-fest. The film felt slow in getting to the point (of possession) and the ending is frustratingly lacking in conclusion – there seems to be a multitude of threads to which a narrative expansion, at the very least, or closure would have been desirable. That said Itay Tiran gives a powerhouse performance as the possessed man. But is it Vamp?

possessing Piotr

There is really very little we could class as vampiric – even via the Bane quote. Piotr does suffer a nosebleed, which brings to mind the way Bane suggests a dybbuk can enter a body – but this is before the wedding dance (which would seem to be the point of possession). That said the doctor sees Hana’s hand, passing a dropped ampule from under the bed, when treating Piotr. I was interested in the fact that only the teacher and Hana were Jewish as far as we knew, the wedding was catholic (I’m guessing, Christian at the very least).

possessed

The reaction of the priest (who just wants to leave) and doctor (who is absolutely secular) are interesting but not expanded on – though the priest offers a half-hearted exorcism. There is an “overlook hotel moment” that made little contextual sense really. At the end I have to conclude that it is Not Vamp, it does have a degree of genre interest due to Bane but one wonders whether the inclusion of the dybbuk in Bane’s encyclopedia was relevant or accurate?

The imdb page is here.

Honourable Mention: The Dybbuk

Before we start, the Dybbuk is not a vampire film. Hell I’m not even sure whether we can class the folklore it is based on as a type of vampirism. However the dybbuk is listed as a type of energy vampire type in Bane’s Encyclopedia of Vampires. Bane says:

“For the dybbuk to survive, it must gain entry into a human body. It may allow itself to be breathed in through incense or it may embed itself in a piece of food about to be eaten, but typically it will make its own way into the body, by force if necessary through the nostril, although any orifice will suffice. Once it has gained access, the dybbuk will possess the person and begin to feed off the person’s life-force, taking up residence in one of the pinky fingers or one of the toes…”

graveside

This seems to be the only one of the main encyclopaedias that lists the dybbuk as a vampire type (Curran lists it in the Encyclopedia of the Undead but not in the vampire section), however the Bane inclusion gives me the excuse to feature – as something of genre interest – this astounding piece of film history. (As an aside Marcin Wrona’s film Demon, about a dybbuk, would seem to have the potential to fall more into the vampire arena but is, at time of writing, unavailable.)

Sender and Nisn

From 1937, this Polish film by Michal Waszynski was based on the play by S. Ansky and filmed in Yiddish. Hauntingly the type of Polish shtetl it depicts would soon be utterly destroyed by the evil of the Third Reich. The story sees two friends, Sender (Mojżesz Lipman) and Nisn (Gerszon Lemberger), trying to tell the Rabbi Azriel (Abraham Morewski) of the decision they had made. They are best friends but now live distantly from each other and both their wives are expecting. They have decided that – should the babies be a boy and a girl – the children will be betrothed.

the Messenger (left)

Through the film is a messenger (Ajzyk Samberg) of mystical origin (he does not age, seems to be able to vanish and appear and can travel great distances quickly) who suggests that you cannot pledge that which is unborn. Sender gets home to find that he has a daughter, Leah (played as an adolescent by Lili Liliana), but his wife has died in childbirth. Nisn is crossing a lake or river in a storm and is knocked overboard and drowns and so never meets his son, Khonnon (played as an adolescent by Leon Liebgold).

Khonnon and Sender

Cutting forward through time, Sender becomes a wealthy man and, through the actions of the messenger, meets Khonnon as the young man travels to the shtetl. Sender gives him a lift in his carriage and even invites the young man to take meals in his home – shared with his sister, his daughter and his servant. He never realises that Khonnon is his friend’s son but the two young people fall in love almost instantly. Unaware of this Sender looks to find his daughter a husband and Khonnon, who prefers the kabbalah to the Torah, turns to arcane arts to win his love. When warned by a fellow student Khonnon suggests that every sin is holiness.

calling on Satan

Sender eventually hears Leah singing a song that Khonnon taught her, which he recognises as being written by Nisn, and realises who the boy is – however he has just accepted a groom for Leah and the parents are about to arrive. On hearing that Leah is to be engaged, Khonnon calls upon Satan from the synagogue and dies. It is his spirit that is the dybbuk and he possesses Leah – by invitation, it has to be said – and disrupts the wedding. The girl is taken to Rabbi Azriel to free her from the possession.

at the wedding

The film is not a horror, it is a tragedy with a supernatural basis and the dybbuk is not the evil vampiric creature of Bane’s description but a desperate man in love. However the film is a must watch for several reasons – one being the fact that in just two years the Germans would invade Poland and the Nazis would attempt to eradicate the Jewish culture the film depicts. The wedding scene in particular is a spectacular example of expressionist cinema and the traditional Jewish singing is beautiful (the Song of Songs is sung twice in film).

I do like to bring things here of genre interest, even if the vehicle has no vampiric aspect. This one was a push but worth highlighting I think.

The imdb page is here.