DVD Review: Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

Somewhere out in the countryside, there's an old, old mansion. In the cellar stands a massive canopy bed, so large that you might expect to find it in a castle. The house has been abandoned for many years because of its connection with numerous disappearances of people, none of whom were ever heard from again. Nevertheless, random folks manage to make their way to it on a periodic basis. These people, too, disappear.

There's an artist's soul trapped behind a wall upon which hangs the portrait he painted of the bed in which he died -- the Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. The bed apparently found him not terribly appetizing as he died of consumption, and so it squirreled him away in the wall. He narrates the story (such as it is) for us, explaining that the bed came to life after it was created by a demon in order to facilitate said demon's seduction of a lovely young woman a couple of centuries ago. It has been eating people every time it has an opportunity ever since she died there on the bed, sending the heartbroken demon into stasis where he "dreams your nightmares" and stares a lot with his cracked eyeballs. The story is divided into three acts, appropriately titled Breakfast, Lunch, and The Just Desserts.

Death Bed is truly and awesomely awful. Its appeal lies mostly in its value as a curiosity. The writer and director, George Barry, spent five years from 1972 to 1977 making it. He was unable to find anyone interested in distributing it (not a big surprise, even when you consider how bad a movie could be and still find a distributor for VHS release around that time), and after a few years, he completely forgot about it. Then, one day he was browsing through cult film sites online, and he stumbled across someone who was looking for anyone who had seen his movie. He discovered that it had been pirated and released in several countries and had actually managed to develop an extremely small cult following. He followed up and got it released to DVD in the United States, finally, in 2008.

There is some cheesy humor, and some of it is even almost actually funny -- but there's far too little of it to make watching this film an enjoyable experience. It was terribly, terribly difficult to sit through and ultimately, just a bore.

For the most part, there's no one in this film that you've ever heard of, but surprisingly enough there is one actor with whom you might be familiar. Playing the part of the brother of a missing girl and billed as "Rusty Russ" is William Russ, who has had a long and fairly successful career as a character actor in television and film. Mr. Russ played the father of the main character in the TV series, Boy Meets World. Just goes to show you, I guess, that there's no movie one could be in that is so bad that it kills your chances of ever finding work again.

Title: Death Bed: The Bed That Eats
Director: George Barry
Starring: William Russ and a whole bunch of people you've never heard of and never will
Released: 2008 (but the film was made in 1977)
Genre: Horror/Comedy
MPAA Rating: Unrated, contains some brief nudity, sexual situations, and very unrealistic blood but no gore to speak of.
Runtime: 80 minutes
My Rating: 1 out of 10 stars (but only because I can't imagine giving anything a zero)