Death Bed: the Bed That Eats (1977)
I first heard about this movie from comedian Patton Oswalt, and knew immediately that I had to see it. He mistakenly listed the subtitle as “The Bed That Eats People”, but honestly I think that would have been a more apt title. The bed does eat other things, but human definitely seems to be its favorite snack. How does a bed eat people, you ask? The answer is simple: by absorbing them through the top of the mattress into a pool of digestive fluids underneath the surface. How does a bed gain such a power? The answer to that is a little more complicated, but it’s as stupid as you could imagine. Basically, a demon fell in love with a human woman and created this bed so he had a place to have sex with her. Unfortunately, he accidently killed her during the act. This caused him to cry tears of blood which brought the bed to life and gave it the aforementioned powers.
I will give writer/director George Barry this much credit: the idea is certainly creative and amusing in its own way. Plus, the kills were definitely fun to watch. There’s just something fantastic about watching a bed literally devour someone, and the stock munching sounds that accompany it don’t exactly hurt either. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t have a lot to offer apart from this. Most of the dialogue is severely under-acted, making the whole thing kind of monotone and boring. Even when someone is supposed to be screaming for their life there isn’t enough behind it to elicit any real response. Beyond the acting, the characters themselves are boring and mostly forgettable. The only really interesting character is the man behind the painting in the bedroom (an early victim of “Death Bed” whose soul was forever trapped in the room with it), who only exists so he can act as a narrator.
This brings me to one of the biggest flaws in this movie: the main villain being an inanimate object. The bed doesn’t move, or speak, or do much of anything at all. It just sits there and devours anyone who lies down on it. (To be fair, it does have some sort of telekinetic powers which it uses to lock the door and cause damage to the house, but they really don’t amount to as much as they could have). Since it obviously can’t act or emote, the writers had to shoehorn in a narrator who could speak for everything the bed is supposed to think or feel. The result is essentially 90 minutes of bland descriptions and heavy-handed exposition.
I get that it’s more challenging to convey certain information if the main character is literally incapable of doing so, and I almost wanted to give this film a pass because of it, but I decided against doing so. If you’re writing a movie and the only way for the audience to know anything is to literally have it tediously explained, then you have done something wrong.
Finally, I wanted to briefly touch on the special effects in this movie. During the scenes where the bed is eating the effects were pretty decent. From the way the mattress “absorbs” the victims, to the shots of the digestive fluids underneath, to the actual process of digestion, they were interesting and about as good as they could have been. Other effects though, are not so great. I’ve seen them described as “cheap Halloween props”, and I have to agree. A notable example is a scene where somebody’s hands get sucked into the bed and are stripped down to the bone. He pulls up his skeleton hands, and it’s painfully obvious that they’re made of plastic. This is easily explained by the fact that this was made in the 70’s and on a small budget, but still.
After its initial limited release, this movie didn’t see the light of day again for over 30 years. Barry claims to have put it in his attic and forgotten about it, and it’s not hard to see why: If I were the one responsible for this, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to have people see it either. As creative an idea as it is, it’s not very good, and the execution leaves a lot to be desired. This movie is just really stupid in general and not necessarily in a good way. Granted it’s not the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen, and it certainly isn’t the worst, but it’s still pretty far from what I would consider quality.
