For context, I watched this with my best friend with the full expectation that it was going to be "so bad it's good." I mean, it's a movie about a bed that eats people! That's utterly ridiculous. The fact that it wasn't released for decades after production just made it more enticing.
But my GOD. Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is a pretentious arthouse film dressed up as horror. (There are many arty films I like, by the way, so this review is not a critique on films as art, just on Death Bed.) It's 77 minutes, but it feels many times that length. Watching it was a torture that physically affected me. I felt so frustrated and impatient and angry with it that my chest still feels tight thinking about it. Why?
Death Bed is a movie that believes it is intelligent highbrow art; it seeks out the lost souls among us who are so desperate to find meaning in life that they'll sink their teeth into something meaningless just because it is eccentric. It starts out like the bad horror movie you expect, following a couple as they inexplicably walk up to an abandoned house to have sex and a picnic. Due to some door-locking shenanigans, the bed draws the couple into its chambers. The bed cannot move, but it does laugh and moan, which is funny the first few times before your own psyche degrades as the minutes drag on. We are subject to watching multiple takes of the worst kisser in history (seriously, this guy sucks on the woman's chin with his flappy lower lip; it's actually nauseating) as the bed starts by eating the food they've brought to the picnic, and then it eats them. This is done by having its food sink into the sheets into a yellow vat of acid until foam bubbles up over the bedspread. Again--some of this is legitimately chuckle-worthy. The problem? This movie believes in cycles. You will see the same scene about a dozen times in excruciating, long-winded detail. It never changes. It never stops. What could have been an interesting (if ridiculous) concept is stretched so thin that it loses all value until it regresses into a void disrespectful of the viewer's time.
...Yet, the movie continues. Three vapid characters are introduced, and the cycle begins anew. Who are they? It's vaguely explained in thought-narration (which is 90% of this movie's dialogue, by the way; characters will exposition-dump everything, even going so far as to explain the current happenings a handful of times as if the viewer is too stupid to catch on) that two of these women work together. Does it matter? No. Why are they coming to this abandoned mansion? I don't know. The women show up and the bed's hungry. So we're subject to over an hour of watching these women walk around and stare while listening to their "thoughts" telling us things we already know until someone's eaten. A good chunk of this time is spent in flashbacks as the man the bed is holding hostage in the wall (yes, really, I don't have the motivation to explain this, I'm already reviewing Death Bed for crying out loud) tries to figure out why the bed eats people and gives him trophies of its kills. We watch--over and over and over and over--people throughout history lying in the bed, having orgies in the bed, and sitting on the bed--then get sucked into it and slowly eaten by the acid. It's the same scene. We get to watch it over and over and over and over--and each death isn't quick. No, director George Barry thinks he has a masterpiece on his hands, so he lingers on each shot like a maggot on the already decomposing beaten horse. Each death has meaning because ART! so we will be subjected to each excruciating second, oftentimes while listening to the guy in the wall thought-speaking something that's already been established many, many (screams "MANY!") times.
The bed's possessed by a demon. There's a woman who has similar eyes (they're not similar at all, actually) to another currently at the house, so the bed fears her. "Why does it fear her? Why?" repeats the thought-speak, as tears roll down the viewer's face because they just don't care anymore after an hour of this hellscape. Deaths repeat. Thoughts repeat. Finally, the final act arrives as the brother of the woman the bed fears. He arrives, tries to save someone--it isn't clear who, really, since he sees only blood, no bodies, and his sister in the room and has no reason to suspect the bed--and loses his hands by reaching into the bed's belly (vat of acid). I kid you not, this guy looks at his skeletal hands with no expression. None. At all. The actor is as dead inside as the movie. There are lingering shots on this woman and her handless brother. One almost believes the end is mercifully near. Then the guy in the wall talks to the two survivors and says that now that the demon sleeps, they can prepare to kill it. How is the demon asleep now? Who knows. Why can the man in the wall suddenly speak to the people when he couldn't warn them before? Who knows. At this point, viewers stop asking questions because they are just holding out for the sweet relief of death.
The survivors gather the supplies necessary to perform the ritual, all of which come from its previous kills (so these kills were required, I assume). A woman rises from a coffin. She was clothed as a corpse, but now she's naked because ART. She walks over to where the bed teleported outside, has coitus with the handless brother, and BOOM! Bed is in flames. By the time the credits rolled, I was so exhausted and devoid of joy. I'm being completely honest when I say watching this felt like water torture. One drip (death/thought exposition/vapid character) at a time, this movie encourages you to go insane by sheer repetition of trifling drivel. This was one of the worst movie-watching experiences I've had in my life. My friend joked after it was finished, "Replay!" and I actually felt real panic. Until watching Death Bed, I didn't know a movie could make me physically ill. Now, the day after, I'm in recovery.
I'm writing this review not to be mean-spirited or simply hate on the movie, but as a public service. Please. Don't watch this unless you like pretentious arthouse films, and even then, do your research. Don't watch this because you think it'll be so bad it's good. It's not. After watching Death Bed, I feel insulted and demeaned.
But my GOD. Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is a pretentious arthouse film dressed up as horror. (There are many arty films I like, by the way, so this review is not a critique on films as art, just on Death Bed.) It's 77 minutes, but it feels many times that length. Watching it was a torture that physically affected me. I felt so frustrated and impatient and angry with it that my chest still feels tight thinking about it. Why?
Death Bed is a movie that believes it is intelligent highbrow art; it seeks out the lost souls among us who are so desperate to find meaning in life that they'll sink their teeth into something meaningless just because it is eccentric. It starts out like the bad horror movie you expect, following a couple as they inexplicably walk up to an abandoned house to have sex and a picnic. Due to some door-locking shenanigans, the bed draws the couple into its chambers. The bed cannot move, but it does laugh and moan, which is funny the first few times before your own psyche degrades as the minutes drag on. We are subject to watching multiple takes of the worst kisser in history (seriously, this guy sucks on the woman's chin with his flappy lower lip; it's actually nauseating) as the bed starts by eating the food they've brought to the picnic, and then it eats them. This is done by having its food sink into the sheets into a yellow vat of acid until foam bubbles up over the bedspread. Again--some of this is legitimately chuckle-worthy. The problem? This movie believes in cycles. You will see the same scene about a dozen times in excruciating, long-winded detail. It never changes. It never stops. What could have been an interesting (if ridiculous) concept is stretched so thin that it loses all value until it regresses into a void disrespectful of the viewer's time.
...Yet, the movie continues. Three vapid characters are introduced, and the cycle begins anew. Who are they? It's vaguely explained in thought-narration (which is 90% of this movie's dialogue, by the way; characters will exposition-dump everything, even going so far as to explain the current happenings a handful of times as if the viewer is too stupid to catch on) that two of these women work together. Does it matter? No. Why are they coming to this abandoned mansion? I don't know. The women show up and the bed's hungry. So we're subject to over an hour of watching these women walk around and stare while listening to their "thoughts" telling us things we already know until someone's eaten. A good chunk of this time is spent in flashbacks as the man the bed is holding hostage in the wall (yes, really, I don't have the motivation to explain this, I'm already reviewing Death Bed for crying out loud) tries to figure out why the bed eats people and gives him trophies of its kills. We watch--over and over and over and over--people throughout history lying in the bed, having orgies in the bed, and sitting on the bed--then get sucked into it and slowly eaten by the acid. It's the same scene. We get to watch it over and over and over and over--and each death isn't quick. No, director George Barry thinks he has a masterpiece on his hands, so he lingers on each shot like a maggot on the already decomposing beaten horse. Each death has meaning because ART! so we will be subjected to each excruciating second, oftentimes while listening to the guy in the wall thought-speaking something that's already been established many, many (screams "MANY!") times.
The bed's possessed by a demon. There's a woman who has similar eyes (they're not similar at all, actually) to another currently at the house, so the bed fears her. "Why does it fear her? Why?" repeats the thought-speak, as tears roll down the viewer's face because they just don't care anymore after an hour of this hellscape. Deaths repeat. Thoughts repeat. Finally, the final act arrives as the brother of the woman the bed fears. He arrives, tries to save someone--it isn't clear who, really, since he sees only blood, no bodies, and his sister in the room and has no reason to suspect the bed--and loses his hands by reaching into the bed's belly (vat of acid). I kid you not, this guy looks at his skeletal hands with no expression. None. At all. The actor is as dead inside as the movie. There are lingering shots on this woman and her handless brother. One almost believes the end is mercifully near. Then the guy in the wall talks to the two survivors and says that now that the demon sleeps, they can prepare to kill it. How is the demon asleep now? Who knows. Why can the man in the wall suddenly speak to the people when he couldn't warn them before? Who knows. At this point, viewers stop asking questions because they are just holding out for the sweet relief of death.
The survivors gather the supplies necessary to perform the ritual, all of which come from its previous kills (so these kills were required, I assume). A woman rises from a coffin. She was clothed as a corpse, but now she's naked because ART. She walks over to where the bed teleported outside, has coitus with the handless brother, and BOOM! Bed is in flames. By the time the credits rolled, I was so exhausted and devoid of joy. I'm being completely honest when I say watching this felt like water torture. One drip (death/thought exposition/vapid character) at a time, this movie encourages you to go insane by sheer repetition of trifling drivel. This was one of the worst movie-watching experiences I've had in my life. My friend joked after it was finished, "Replay!" and I actually felt real panic. Until watching Death Bed, I didn't know a movie could make me physically ill. Now, the day after, I'm in recovery.
I'm writing this review not to be mean-spirited or simply hate on the movie, but as a public service. Please. Don't watch this unless you like pretentious arthouse films, and even then, do your research. Don't watch this because you think it'll be so bad it's good. It's not. After watching Death Bed, I feel insulted and demeaned.