A film about a hungry bed that gobbles unsuspecting victims is always going to be a point of interest for a film fan such as myself; so seeking this one out was inevitability. This film definitely had a lot of potential; it's always going to be difficult to build a plot around a premise as bizarre as a bed that eats people, but it could be great if done correctly. It has to be said that writer-director George Barry has a great imagination, but the plot doesn't have any coherency, and basically what we have is simply a film about a hungry bed, rather than one with any plot. I suppose there's only so much you can do with it really, and Barry masks his lack of storyline with a story surrounding how the bed came about, and a run down of various people that it has eaten. It turns out that the Death Bed is a result of a broken hearted demon that bled tears of blood into a bed, which then (naturally) gave the bed life, and an insurmountable hunger.
The scenes in which the bed eats people really vary in quality. There are some rather boring scenes in which we don't really get to see much, and then there are some humorous scenes that include a couple of people becoming victims while playing poker. The pick of these scenes in one in which a woman with an afro is dragged into the bed after almost escaping its grasp. There isn't a great deal of blood in the film, but the way that the bed eats is imaginative and done in the best way possible, as we see various thing slip inside it's innards, which appear to be made up of a strange yellow substance. There is a central plot involving a teenage runaway, which climaxes in a very silly, but fun, sequence in which her brother ends up losing his hands. It's clear that the director realises that this plot line isn't going to be taken seriously, and so gives it the most bizarre handling possible. The film has been banished into obscurity ever since it's release, and the only influence it has had on cinema seems to be the bed idea used in Hellraiser 2. Overall, this film is well worth seeking out for fans of cult cinema...but I recommend keeping your expectations in check.
The scenes in which the bed eats people really vary in quality. There are some rather boring scenes in which we don't really get to see much, and then there are some humorous scenes that include a couple of people becoming victims while playing poker. The pick of these scenes in one in which a woman with an afro is dragged into the bed after almost escaping its grasp. There isn't a great deal of blood in the film, but the way that the bed eats is imaginative and done in the best way possible, as we see various thing slip inside it's innards, which appear to be made up of a strange yellow substance. There is a central plot involving a teenage runaway, which climaxes in a very silly, but fun, sequence in which her brother ends up losing his hands. It's clear that the director realises that this plot line isn't going to be taken seriously, and so gives it the most bizarre handling possible. The film has been banished into obscurity ever since it's release, and the only influence it has had on cinema seems to be the bed idea used in Hellraiser 2. Overall, this film is well worth seeking out for fans of cult cinema...but I recommend keeping your expectations in check.