ironhorse_iv Review of Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977)

The strangest bedtime story ever told

[5/10 · 2 May 2013]

Honestly, this is one of the strangest movies I ever saw. It felt like absolutely surreal, dreamlike cult film. At the edge of a grand estate, near a crumbling old mansion lies a strange stone building with just a single room. In the room there lies a bed. The major imaginative thrive of the movie is that it is narrated by the Victorian artist Aubrey Beardsley who is held captive inside the wall behind one of his paintings next to the bed. Born of demonic power, the bed seeks the flesh, blood and life essence of unwary travelers. My favorite victim in the film was the gangster who tries to shoot the bed with his gun, as if that will help. Well, three girls then arrive on vacation, searching for a place to spend the night and find themselves sleeping on the bed that eats people. George Barry's uniquely weird journey into horror through a world of carnivorous furnishings was a bit out of this world! Comedian, Patton Oswalt once quote that this movie was one of the most awesome movies he ever saw. By watching it, I can clearly say, he might be putting a bit of a sarcasm tone into that. Still it was pretty entertaining. Who knows, a bed can drink Pepto Bismo, fried chicken and orange soda?! The bed can also make flowers grow out of a skull, lock doors, give jewelry to dead people and even masturbates for some odd reason. This movie is a true testament that every horrible idea for an object-based horror movie has been nearly done. I wasn't scare at all, but laughing. The movies take it-self so serious, but for me, it felt like a comedy horror. It could have been better, with a better writer. The concept is good. Truly a bed that eats people can be scary in the right hands. A good example of that is 1984's Nightmare on Elm Street with what happens to Johnny Depp's character. In this film, the writing is a lengthy, monotonous, rather incomprehensible story, related by the ghost about two-thirds of the way through the film, about how the bed came to be a bed that eats people. There is another strange series of scenes displaying a woman inside an underground coffin on the estate of the cottage and nearby mansion that I have yet to figure out how it fits into the story. The gore effects in this movie were pretty bad. I like how you can clearly see where the pins connect one fake bone to the other on the clearly fake skeleton hand on the guy after the bed eat him. The sound mix is a bit annoying. The acting is dreadful. The actor who speaks Beardsley's voice is a little bit better than the other cast. His pacing, accent, and inflections are hypnotic alright. Pay attention if you buy this, the dad from "Boy meets world" is in this as one of the characters brothers. In fact, I'm more awestruck by the fact that they started shooting in 1972 and took 5 years to finish this movie. Then nobody would release it for two more decades after its completion. When it finally came out, according to the DVD extras, Barry seems to have even forgotten he made it. It's one of those movies, so bad, it's good. So give it a try, and sleep on it.