DEATHBED (2002)

 

(Director: Danny Draven. Screenplay by John Strysik, based on George Barry’s 1977 film DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS.)

 

Review

A young couple─children’s book artist Karen (Tanya Dempsey, SHRIEKER, 1988) and photographer Jerry (Brave Matthews, AMERICAN ZOMBIELAND, 2020)─move into a Los Angeles, California flat, unaware that it has a murder-haunted bed in its upstairs room. They find it and begin sleeping on the quaint-looking, metal-framed bed on which the deaths took place. The couple experience waking and sleeping nightmares about the 1920-30s psychosexual killings (shown in black and white flashbacks) of “Ghost Man” (Michael Sonye, billed as Dukey Flyswatter, HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS, 1988) strangling two of seven women (including Louise Astor, played by Meagan Mangum) with silk neck ties.

The effect of Jerry and Karen’s nightmares bleed into their work and relationships─particularly their dealings with their on-site landlord, Art (Joe Estevez, SOULTAKER, 1990).

Produced by Stuart Gordon, Charles Band (Full Moon Pictures founder) and others, DEATHBED is a loose remake of George Barry’s way-different 1977 flick DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS PEOPLE. This remake is a good, makes-great-use-of-its-low-budget work. The production design/art direction (courtesy of Johnny R. Long and others) is mood-consistent with its spare-but-effective soundtrack (composer: James T. Sale, THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY, 2008) and relatively restrained gory special effects (Mark Bautista, MANK, 2020). The direction, Hollywood(land)-centric story (which slyly references H.P. Lovecraft) and flow of the movie is tight as can be, given its mostly well-acted characters and their personalities/histories.

Sonye/Flyswatter, an actor, screenwriter, and lyricist/lead singer of several horror punk/metal bands, primarily Haunted Garage and Penis Flytrap, is fun and ghoulish as “Ghost Man,” the spectral creep/killer whose crimes and spirit continue on well beyond his death. Film nerds may appreciate the brief appearance of Constance Estevez,  billed as Constance Anderson, as a “Maternal Model”─according to IMDb, in 2004 she married Joe Estevez, Martin Sheen’s younger and equally prolific brother.

DEATHBED is a worthwhile movie if you don’t mind its solid-for-its-limited-budget effects, occasional lapses into questionable acting (by supporting players) and its overall low budget. The filmmakers achieve what they set out to do─create a solid, tightly shot and edited minimally funded film─and that's all any reasonable viewer can expect, given the filmmakers' resources.

DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS (1977)

 

(Director/screenwriter: George Barry)

DEATH, whose idea came to director/screenwriter George Barry in a dream, is appropriately surrealistic and unique. In it, a demon possesses a four-poster bed after his true love dies on it. He continues eating people (via the bed’s hellish ability to transform from a regular bed to a bed-framed, yellow-lit vat of digestive acid). Various people break into the abandoned mansion where the bed is and most of them are consumed by the bed. These devourings are punctuated, sometimes narrated by, The Artist, whose spirit is trapped within/behind a painting, tells viewers about the bed’s history, intermingled with his. DEATH is broken into four segments: Breakfast; Lunch; Dinner; and The Just Desert.

After one of the victims, Sharon, becomes a meal for the demon, "Sharon's Brother" (William Russ, billed as Rusty Russ) comes looking for her. One of the most hilarious scenes of this low-budget, dark-humored and slow-moving film involves the brother and skeletal hands.

DEATH is not a good movie by most standards: its narration takes the viewer out of the movie, as do the interior monologues of several characters; there are padded scenes, lots of lag time.

What makes DEATH worthwhile (for intriguing bad flick enthusiasts) is how Barry makes the most of his limited budget, creating an out-there, artsy work (especially during the intensely yellow-bright scenes where the bed dissolves its victims).  What also works is Barry’s intuitive jump cut edits, which add to the natural, odd feel of this standout cult classic, which was started in 1972, but not widely released until 2003 on DVD.

According to IMDb, DEATH was mostly filmed in “Gar Wood mansion on Keelson Island in Detroit[, Michigan].” This setting is gloomy and Gothic, furthering the mood of the flick which mostly eschews a soundtrack. Love it or hate it, you're not likely to forget it. Danny Draven's loose remake, DEATHBED, was released direct-to-DVD on September 24, 2002.