| For a long-time a lost cult horror classic, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats has taken its place among the pantheon of weird cinema. The movie was supposedly begun sometime in 1971 and filming finished in 1972. Yet the first print of the movie wasn't produced until 1977. Then for some unknown reason nothing happened with it. Apart from someone managed to make a copy of it that eventually found its way into the world of obsessive cult film collectors. The first time director George Barry claimed that he'd forgotten that he'd even made it. Which is truly bizarre, considering it the only movie he ever made. Until its release it had only been available on murky bootleg copies doing the rounds among hardcore cult film fans, probably at first on grainy VHS tape copies, and eventually making its way onto the Internet. It was an illegal DVD release of the bootleg in the UK that prompted George Barry to officially release the movie in 2003. |
The bed in question is a large four-poster, that is possessed by a demon, who built the bed originally to seduce a maiden in 1897. Over the years unwary visitors to the mansion where the bed resides, have been literally consumed by the bed. Sucked into the vast pool of gastric juices below. The spectacle is watched and narrated by the ghost of an artist, trapped in a painting on wall of the castle, who the bed has made immortal. The rest of the plot revolves around the eating of naked women, and the discovery of the bed's weakness and its eventual downfall.
All very weird, but not necessarily 100% a pure piece of exploitation cinema. A Death Bed, actually has some artistic merit. Bizarre and often surreal, but despite its low-budget, low production values and low quality acting, it has on some level high aesthetic and artistic values lurking underneath. The movie straddles a line somewhere between cheesy exploitation horror and arthouse cinema. A must see for any true die-hard fan of cult cinema. Who knew? That a movie about a demonic bed that suffers from indigestion because of all the hippy chicks it has eaten, would such a cult gem. Certainly not the direcor, that's for sure.
All very weird, but not necessarily 100% a pure piece of exploitation cinema. A Death Bed, actually has some artistic merit. Bizarre and often surreal, but despite its low-budget, low production values and low quality acting, it has on some level high aesthetic and artistic values lurking underneath. The movie straddles a line somewhere between cheesy exploitation horror and arthouse cinema. A must see for any true die-hard fan of cult cinema. Who knew? That a movie about a demonic bed that suffers from indigestion because of all the hippy chicks it has eaten, would such a cult gem. Certainly not the direcor, that's for sure.
