Rating: 
Summary: Words cannot convey just how bizarre this movie is...
Review: The premise- A demon falls in love with a maiden and takes on human form in order to make love to her. She dies, and the saddened demon cries tears of blood upon their bed. The bed absorbs this blood and becomes a living predator...an antique canopy bed which consumes anyone unfortunate enough to rest upon it. A strange concept for a horror film, but the way it's presented is far, far stranger... This no-budget oddity was made with a very peculiar artistic finesse...not so much pretentious as self-consciously esoteric, it combines the sleaze of 70s trash cinema with several oddball ingredients of dreamlike surrealism(it's largely narrated by a spirit held captive in a painting on a wall opposite the killer bed). These elements really don't work perfectly together, but that is certainly not to say that "Death Bed" is a BAD film...it is merely very bizarre and obvious of it's restrictive budget. I personally think it's one of the most original and inventive amateur horror films I have ever seen. Opinions about this one will be all over the board, but there's no denying that "Death Bed- The Bed That Eats" is unique. I recommend it to all fans of the outre. Four stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Gives new meaning to the term "midnight snack"
Review: Death Bed - The Bed That Eats - it sounds like something a second-grader would write, doesn't it? Obviously, this is not your typical horror film. The title alone compelled me to watch the film, and what I discovered is a sort of mystery. There's nothing mysterious about the film, really; the mystery comes in the reactions other people have had to this long-lost film of the 1970s. Some treat the film as some macabre work of art, expound upon supposedly enlightening fairy tale elements of the story and presentation, play up the erotic nature of the theme, and comment on the macabre humor underlying such a rich presentation. Folks, I won't lie to you - I didn't see any of that stuff in this film. It's a bed, and it eats people - that's about all there is, except for the increasingly weird story of the bed's creation and ultimate destruction.
We find this huge, ornate, hungry bed inside an old stone grotto somewhere on an abandoned estate. No one comes here anymore - apparently a slew of missing persons in that locale scared everyone away long ago, so the bed sleeps (and snores and makes other disturbing man-like sounds). Then an amorous couple shows up, only to find out that they were looking for love in all the wrong places. That's Breakfast. Lunch and Dinner come in the form of a trio of young women who have decided to drive out to the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason. One of the girls disturbs, even scares, the bed, and this leads us into a discussion of the bed's origins. Of course, the bed can't speak for itself; fortunately, decades ago it trapped the spirit of an artist who painted the bed while he was lying in it dying of consumption. Let me tell you, this bed got around in its younger days, even serving at one time as the central element in an outdoor "sexual rejuvenator" scheme.
I won't tell you how the bed actually eats its victims, nor will I explain the really weird story of its origins - I don't want to take away what little fun you might have with this weird little film. There is a little blood and gore involved, but none of it is very graphic in nature. In my opinion, this really isn't a very good film. Some viewers may talk about some sort of Death Bed epiphany, but I didn't take much of anything away from this cinematic experience.
The story of the film is an unusual one, though. A college student named George Barry made this film in the early 1970s on 16mm color film; he finally finished it in 1977, but he was not able to generate any interest in distributing it. Without Barry's knowledge, however, a pirated version of the film found its way into the market in the late 1980s; he only learned about this - accidentally - in 2002. Now the film has been released properly, giving credit where credit is due, as a Lost Horror Film of the Seventies. This is all well and good, but in my opinion Death Bed just isn't a very good horror movie.
Rating:
Summary: A cult film for cult film fans
Review: Death Bed is a slow-paced, off-the-wall flick. The scenes with the bed in acton (and I don't mean sex) are funny/macabre. The history of the bed is also fun to watch along with the characters who battle with the mattress monster. Not big on gore, but good for the story and its weirdness. The ending kept this from being a 5 star review, but this film is a good find, give it a chance.
Rating:
Summary: A cult film for cult film fans
Review: Death Bed is a slow-paced, off-the-wall flick. The scenes with the bed in acton (and I don't mean sex) are funny/macabre. The history of the bed is also fun to watch along with the characters who battle with the mattress monster. Not big on gore, but good for the story and its weirdness. The ending kept this from being a 5 star review, but this film is a good find, give it a chance.
Rating: 
Summary: A '70s lost horror classic!
Review: Epic, surreal, funny, weird, fantastic! If you're into 70's horror films, you can't miss this one. A true original that absolutely deserves it's place among the greats of the era.
Rating:
Summary: The Strangest Bed-Time Story Ever Told!
Review: I first saw Death Bed: The Bed That Eats in 1988: a friend discovered it whilst browsing at a cheap video sale and decided to spring the film on me. I was straight away smitten by its weird aura, and mystified too. Who on Earth made it? What was the director playing at? How did such a movie get made? Death Bed, with its cheesy cover and 'you're kidding me' title, was devoid of any credits, save for the words "(c) George Barry 1977." The mystery of Death Bed's origins was intensified as the film gathered momentum, from creepy comedy to poetic folk-tale to surreal horror: its mood ricocheted between registers in a way that defied categorisation, either as mind-warped outsider art, insane student project, or exploitation film gone berserk. There was a streak of comedy, but the film wasn't just a cheap laugh: instead there was a loose, wayward dreaminess which gave Death Bed an impact all its own. I remember thinking 'I must find out who made this!'. But no-one knew anything about Death Bed: the video label had disappeared, the name 'George Barry' was anonymous enough to belong to a hundred thousand Americans. And so the trail went cold...
In 2002 I began work on a book about maverick American directors and my desire to find out more about Death Bed was re-ignited. Through the auspices of film researcher Marc Morris and a British web-site, Lightsfade, I finally had the chance to talk to George Barry and hear the full Death Bed story...
George Barry was born in 1949 and raised in Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit where he still lives today. He began making films whilst studying at University, and in 1972 - after working on a few b/w 16mm shorts - he decided to go for broke with a colour 16mm feature film to be blown up for theatrical release. Using $10,000 of his own money he began filming Death Bed, a project that would eventually span five years and cost around $30,000. Barry decided to weave his story around a dream he'd had - about an engulfing, possibly carnivorous bed...
With cameraman Robert Fresco, he headed for the Gar Wood Mansion outside Detroit, commencing the shoot in late Spring 1972. The core of the movie was then filmed over three weeks in the spring and summer. Assembled during 1976 by experienced Detroit TV editor Ron Medico, Death Bed's 16mm answer print was finally struck in '77.
Unfortunately, Barry's problems were only just beginning. Over the next few years he travelled to L.A. and New York several times, making the rounds of the small distributors. But with slasher films on the rise, Death Bed was always going to be a hard sell. Those who did show interest were put off by the blow-up costs, or were offering virtually no return for Barry's investment.
The next convolution in the Death Bed saga would lead to the film at last reaching a few devoted fans: although it all came as a great surprise to Barry himself. In the early 1980s he'd sent the answer print, which was still without credits at the time, to a small LA company interested in obtaining video rights. He was offered $1000 for a finished video master. But Barry was chronically short of cash and unable to shoot the missing credits. Time passed, and the answer print was eventually returned.
What he didn't know was that the 'interested party' had pirated a copy of Death Bed before sending it back. It was this version that snuck out onto tape in Great Britain in the late-1980s, on the supremely obscure 'Portland' label.
Those who did notice it were tuned not to the noisy gore frequencies of the "video-nasties" but to a stranger, more elusive bandwidth. Death Bed isn't a gorehound movie - viewers are required to spin their mental wireless to the space between stations, where the shipping forecasts, foreign signals and dream-voices live.
In 2002, Daniel Craddock of the British website Lightsfade published an on-line review of the film, which at last alerted its director to the existence of the pirated version. "Death Bed came from a dream and, to begin with, I wrote the story as more a fairy tale than a horror film. We shot the story as possibly more horror film than fairy tale, then in the editing process Death Bed tried to return to its fairy tale origins." - Barry
The best movies leave something elusive behind, a lingering haze that drifts through the mind like Haven Gillespie's "haunting refrain": a special something that seems to dance out of reach when you look directly. There are skilled directors whose work, for all its craft, will never possess this quality, which is a dream quality and far from common. Other films are steeped in this strange pleasure, even when their conventional limitations are readily obvious. It's in this way that a cheaply produced film, made at the very fringes of the industry, can stay with you after a major production has hurried faceless out of your memory.
The lines crossed by Death Bed are an index of its quality. Set in the twilight between certainties - between comedy and horror, art and artless, mundane and insane - it draws on energies lost to more sensible films.
"People not only forget their dreams, they often forget *about* their dreams. They forget about the process of dreaming.", says Barry. If this is true, how great it is to see this DVD release, a dream thought lost and forgotten, now magically recalled in miraculous detail. Here's to the unique and lingering spell of Death Bed! Stephen Thrower (this is a condensed extract from my forthcoming book Nightmare, USA, in preparation from FAB Press).
Rating:
Summary: The story behind the strangest DVD release of the year...
Review: I first saw Death Bed: The Bed That Eats in 1988: a friend had discovered it whilst browsing at a cheap video sale and decided to spring the film on me. I was smitten by its weird aura right there and then, and mystified too. Who on Earth made it? What was the director playing at? How did such a movie get made? Death Bed, with its cheesy cover and `you're kidding me' title, was devoid of any credits, save for the words "(c) George Barry 1977." The mystery of Death Bed's origins was intensified as the film gathered momentum, from creepy comedy to poetic folk-tale to surreal horror: its mood ricocheted between registers in a way that defied categorisation, either as mind-warped outsider art, insane student project, or exploitation film gone awry. There was a streak of comedy, but the film wasn't just a cheap laugh: instead there was a loose, wayward dreaminess which gave Death Bed an impact all its own. I remember thinking `I must find out who made this!'. But no-one knew anything about Death Bed: the video label had disappeared, the name `George Barry' was anonymous enough to belong to a hundred thousand Americans. And so the trail went cold...
In 2002 I began work on a book about maverick American directors and my desire to find out more about Death Bed was re-ignited. Through the auspices of film researcher Marc Morris and a British web-site, Lightsfade, I finally had the chance to talk to George Barry and hear the full Death Bed story... George Barry was born in 1949 and raised in Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit where he still lives today. He began making films whilst studying at University, and in 1972 - after working on a few b/w 16mm shorts - he decided to go for broke with a colour 16mm feature film to be blown up for theatrical release. Using $10,000 of his own money he began filming Death Bed, a project that would eventually span five years and cost around $30,000. Barry decided to weave a story around a dream he'd had - about an engulfing, possibly carnivorous bed...
With cameraman Robert Fresco, he headed for the Gar Wood Mansion outside Detroit, commencing the shoot in late Spring 1972. The core of the movie was then filmed over three weeks in the spring and summer. Assembled during 1976 by experienced Detroit TV editor Ron Medico, Death Bed's 16mm answer print was finally struck in '77.
Unfortunately, Barry's problems were only just beginning. Over the next few years he travelled to L.A. and New York several times, making the rounds of the small distributors. But with slasher films on the rise, Death Bed was always going to be a hard sell. Those who did show interest were put off by the blow-up costs, or were offering virtually no return.
The next convolution in the Death Bed saga would lead to the film at last reaching a few devoted fans: although it all came as a great surprise to Barry himself. In the early 1980s he'd sent the answer print, which was still without credits at the time, to a small LA company interested in obtaining video rights. He was offered $1000 for a finished video master. But Barry was chronically short of cash and unable to shoot the missing credits. Time passed, and the answer print was eventually returned.
What he didn't know was that the `interested party' had unscrupulously pirated a copy of Death Bed before sending it back. It was this version that snuck out onto tape in Great Britain in the late-1980s, on the supremely obscure `Portland' label.
Those who did notice it were tuned not to the noisy gore frequencies of the nasties but to a stranger, more elusive bandwidth. Death Bed is not a gorehound movie - viewers are required to spin their mental wireless to the space between stations, where the shipping forecasts, foreign signals and dream-voices live.
Eventually, In 2002, Daniel Craddock of the British website Lightsfade published an on-line review of the film, which at last alerted its director to the existence of the pirated version. "Death Bed came from a dream and, to begin with, I wrote the story as more a fairy tale than a horror film. We shot the story as possibly more horror film than fairy tale, then in the editing process Death Bed tried to return to its fairy tale origins."
The best movies leave something elusive behind, a lingering impression that drifts through the mind like Haven Gillespie's "haunting refrain": a special something that seems to dance out of reach when you try and look directly. There are skilled directors whose work, for all its craft, will never possess this quality, which is a dream quality and far from common. And there are films built on such uncommon lines that they're steeped in this strange pleasure even when their conventional limitations are readily obvious. It's in this way that a cheaply produced film, made at the very fringes of the industry, can stay with you after a major production has hurried faceless out of your memory.
The lines crossed by Death Bed are an index of its quality. Set in the twilight between genres - between comedy and horror, art and artless, mundane and insane - it draws on energies lost to more sensible films.
"People not only forget their dreams, they often forget about their dreams. They forget about the process of dreaming.", says Barry. If this is true, how great it is to see this DVD release, a dream thought lost and forgotten, now magically recalled in miraculous detail. Here's to the unique and lingering spell of Death Bed! Stephen Thrower (this is a condensed extract from my forthcoming book Nightmare, USA, in preparation from FAB Press).
Rating:
Summary: Jack Pot!
Review: I never bought a single VHS tape over the years. But with the advent of DVD I find myself spending unreasonable sums of money on DVD's. These things beg to be collected, and it is the horror genre where I seem to be spending most of my efforts and cash. Most of the time I buy DVDs where I've previously seen the movie, but perhaps a third of the time I'm buying based on the favorable reviews given on Amazon, particularly where key words, phrases or concepts are mentioned by the reviewer which I find appealing.
The key words, phrases, concepts for "Death Bed" are: psychedelic, astmospheric, bizarre, sensuous, comfortable, surreal, dreamlike, artistic....and obscure. This is the type of movie I search out. I can't believe there isn't more buzz about this film as I've shared it with a few friends and they've responded with similar enthusiasm. This is just a hidden gem. It is not insanely scary, but it has a elegant weirdness to it that I think many people will find satisfying.
The story line has already been explained: hidden little cottage out in nowhere, with a big, beautiful bed in it which invites intruders to either nap on or get naked in. The bed then consumes them. At first I thought the "eating" scenes were cheesey, but then the movie showed some scenes inside the bed as it "digested" its prey, and these scenes are very well done and surreal.
The major artisitic fluorish 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. He reveals to you the history of the house, the bed, and many of the historic victims over the past century. The elegance with which this is presented can not be overstated, especially for a film which did not have a big budget. The bed gives Beardsley gifts of the deceased's jewelry, but Beardsley still yearns to be free. The actor who speaks Beardsley's voice was BRILLIANT, his pacing, accent, inflections are hypnotic and perfect.
There is another strange series of scenes displaying a woman inside an underground coffin on the estate of the cottage and nearby mansion. I can't recall her exact role, but the scenes of her emerging back to consciousness are very effective and scary.
I hesitate to criticize this movie at all because it was so satisfying. I think it is an American film, and I perhaps wish it had a little more erotic emphasis such as you would see with a European film of the same era. I believe sexuality is an important component in horror, contrasting life with death as it does. I also did not fully understand the ending of the movie, it ended a little unexpectedly and possibly a little anti-climacticly. But, given the overall excellence of the movie itself that was only a marginal detraction.
The director, whose name I now forget, gives a little introduction about the making of the film and his failure way back when to get the movie successfully marketed. He tells about how he actually heard about his film in underground internet chatrooms 25+ years later where bootlegged copies were being exchanged or discussed. He had all but forgotten about his little movie. This man's modesty, his sense of humour, and his total lack of affectation had me wanting to buy him a very good bottle of cognac. He may not take his little movie too seriously, but I see it as a serious artistic accomplishment (I'll call it "poetic horror") and it is in the top five of my voluminous horror collection along with Suspiria, The Haunting (the 1964 original), The Legend of Hell House, and Burnt Offerings.
Rating:
Summary: The Strangest Bed-Time Story Ever Told!
Review: I watched this film expecting something silly, but it turned out to be a very accomplished film. Taking a very bizarre concept (a bed that eats people), the director has managed to make a film filled with David Lynchesque surrealism that is equally intentionally humourous and frightening. The effects showing how the bed eats are very well done. The movie (largely seen through the eyes of the ghost of Aubrey Beardsley, Oscar Wilde's favourite illustrator) is divided into three sections: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. The first part sets up the fact that the bed eats people as a couple stumble upon it. The second part, also taking place in the "present" shows another group of friends coming upon the bed. Scenes of these new visitors falling victim to it one at a time are intercut with scenes of the bed's history and its origins. The bed, despite its immobility, manages to kill each victim with far more imagaination than the average movie serial killer. The third section deals with the final fates of the bed and the film's heroes. Unfortunately, after watching the film once, all the surprises are gone, and the dreamlike pacing of it then becomes a negative instead of a positive. Despite this, I have no hesitation in recommending that this film be watched at least once. The extras include the director explaining how this film became "lost", illustrating how dirty the film distribution business can be. If he had been able to release it in the early 1970s like he intended, this film would have been a classic, instead of something seen by only a few people with access to pirated copies.
Rating:
Summary: Surpisingly Good
Review: I watched this film expecting something silly, but it turned out to be a very accomplished film. Taking a very bizarre concept (a bed that eats people), the director has managed to make a film filled with David Lynchesque surrealism that is equally intentionally humourous and frightening. The effects showing how the bed eats are very well done. The movie (largely seen through the eyes of the ghost of Aubrey Beardsley, Oscar Wilde's favourite illustrator) is divided into three sections: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. The first part sets up the fact that the bed eats people as a couple stumble upon it. The second part, also taking place in the "present" shows another group of friends coming upon the bed. Scenes of these new visitors falling victim to it one at a time are intercut with scenes of the bed's history and its origins. The bed, despite its immobility, manages to kill each victim with far more imagaination than the average movie serial killer. The third section deals with the final fates of the bed and the film's heroes. Unfortunately, after watching the film once, all the surprises are gone, and the dreamlike pacing of it then becomes a negative instead of a positive. Despite this, I have no hesitation in recommending that this film be watched at least once. The extras include the director explaining how this film became "lost", illustrating how dirty the film distribution business can be. If he had been able to release it in the early 1970s like he intended, this film would have been a classic, instead of something seen by only a few people with access to pirated copies.
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