Death Bed: The Bed That Eats – aka Death Bed – is a 1977 American horror feature film written, co-produced, and directed by George Barry; it was his only feature.
The film, which cost $30,000 and was shot in Michigan, was begun in 1972 and completed in 1977.
Death Bed was not officially released on DVD until a Cult Epics US release on April 27 2004, and in the introduction to this edition, Barry claims to have essentially forgotten he had made it. Apparently the incredibly obscure 1980s British VHS release on the Portland video label was an unauthorised copy of a screener. This release was in turn bootlegged, Barry reading about it for the first time on an internet forum.
A large, black, four-poster bed, possessed by a demon, is passed from owner to owner. The Demon was a tree, who became a breeze and seemingly fell in love with a woman he blew past. The demon then took human form and conjured up a bed. While he was making love with the woman she died and his eyes bled onto the bed, causing it to become possessed.
Those who come into contact with the bed are frequently consumed by it (victims are pulled into what is apparently a large chamber of digestive fluids beneath the sheets). The bed demonstrates a malevolent intelligence as well as some psychokinetic and limited telepathic abilities to manipulate dreams…
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Reviews:
“Death Bed goes toe-to-toe with Doris Wishman’s A Night to Dismember as one of the most detached low budget horror films of all time. I wasn’t completely taken with the film as a whole, but at least one watch is mandatory. Just don’t forget to wash the sheets.” Bleeding Skull!
“There’re lots of “What the Hell?” moments. The film is a virtually incoherent, boring mess. I’m not sure if the plan was it would be arthouse or what, but a movie about a deadly bed can only be one thing: A comedy. And Death Bed isn’t funny. There’re a few mildly amusing moments, both intentional and not, but they’re not worth wading through the film for. Even a movie about a bed shouldn’t need this much padding.” Digital Retribution
“For any fan of unsettling, semi-comic ’70s horror cinema (fans of Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, you know who you are), this comes highly recommended.” Mondo Digital
Buy Death Bed: The Bed That Eats on DVD from Amazon.com
There is a whole chapter about Death Bed in Stephen Thrower’s epic tome Nightmare USA
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