Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977)

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (alternately titled The Death Bed) is a 1977 American surrealist horror film written, produced, and directed by George Barry in his only feature film. The plot centers on the title antagonist as it is passed on through generations, bringing tragedy upon those who come across it.

Plot
Long ago, a demon fell in love with a woman and conjured up a bed on which to make love to her. The woman died during the act, and, in his grief, the demon wept tears of blood which fell on the bed and caused it to come to life. While the demon rests, the bed's evil is contained, but once every ten years, the demon wakes, giving the bed the power to physically eat human beings. Only one man, an artist identified as Aubrey Beardsley, was spared, as the bed condemned him to immortality behind a painting, where he must forever witness the bed taking victims. The bed passed from owner to owner until the present day.

Breakfast
A young couple trespass into the building and discover the bed. They make love on the bed, and the bed devours them. The artist mocks the bed for its stupidity. Enraged, the bed telekinetically destroys most of the house except for the room it is in.

Lunch
Three women discover the now-destroyed house. The bed eats one of the young women, but reacts to one of the other women by bleeding in agony. The artist realizes that the bed reacts with pain to the woman because she resembles its "mother" (the woman whose death caused the bed's creation). Elsewhere, the brother of one of the women goes out looking for her.

Dinner
One of the two remaining women sleeps on the bed. She wakes as the bed begins eating her, but as she tries to escape, the bed snares her in its sheets and drags her back to be eaten. The last woman unsuccessfully tries to save her. The brother locates the surviving woman, only to have the bed trap them both. The brother attempts to rescue the previously eaten woman, only to have his hands eaten to the bone by the bed.

Just Desserts
The demon that created the bed falls asleep, which renders the bed powerless and allows the artist to communicate with the woman. The artist describes a ritual that will destroy the bed. The woman carries out the ritual, which teleports the bed out of the room and revives the bed's real "mother," but at the cost of killing the surviving woman. The bed's mother completes the ritual by having sex with the brother, causing the bed to burst into flames and die, allowing the artist to finally pass on.

Cast

 * Demene Hall as Diane
 * William Russ as Sharon's Brother
 * Julie Ritter as Suzan
 * Linda Bond as The Resurrected
 * Rosa Luxemburg as Sharon
 * Dave Marsh as Artist

Patrick Spence-Thomas as Voice of the Artist

Home media
Following the film's completion in 1977, Barry sought a theatrical release for Death Bed but failed to find a willing distributor. Later on, Barry received an offer from an LA distributor to release the film on VHS in the UK, after they had seen Barry's answer print of the film. The distributor offered to pay Barry $1000 for a VHS release if he could supply them with a print of the film, complete with credits. Barry, unable to afford the $3,000 that credits would have cost, declined, and the print was sent back to him. Despite this, Portland, an obscure British label, released a pirated VHS of the film in the UK, without Barry's knowledge, with the film eventually receiving further VHS releases in Australia, New Zealand and Spain. The Spanish release is dubbed into Spanish and is considered quite rare.

Despite its pirated VHS releases outside of the US, Barry remained unaware that the film had received any sort of release until 2001, when he discovered a forum post about the film by French film journalist Jean-Claude Michel on the website "Scarlet Street." This led to interviews with Barry by Daniel Craddock, who had written a review of the film, and, in turn, author Stephen Thrower, for his book Nightmare USA. As a result, the film received its first two official releases, with a theatrical premiere at the San Francisco Indiefest on February 15, 2003, and a DVD from Cult Epics the same year. For the DVD release, Barry added new music to the ending and opening credits, performed by Thrower's band Cyclobe, as he was never satisfied with the original music in the film, composed by Mike McCoy.

In 2013, Cult Epics released the film for the first time on Blu-ray, which included a new HD transfer of the film, as well as both the original mono and new 5.1 soundtracks. Also included was a new introduction by Stephen Thrower⁠ (in addition to the original one by Barry from the DVD release⁠), an audio commentary with both Thrower and Barry, a conversation between the two, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and the original music used in the credits.

Reception
Death Bed has received little attention from mainstream critics due to its lack of distribution. Reactions to the film during its first official release have been mixed to positive, with some characterizing it as "so bad it's good", highlighting its inherent oddness, along with its surreal and absurdist atmosphere; others have criticized these same merits along with its lack of characterizations and pacing. Dennis Harvey from Variety wrote, "Death Bed is a horror flick destined for some small place in the hearts of psychotronic fans who already treasure such extreme oddities as Blood Freak, not to mention Andy Milligan’s entire ouevre." Barry Meyer from Film Monthly gave the film a slightly positive review, writing, "Death Bed is such a true original that you have to overlook all its faults and just go with it and enjoy this whimsical drug induced nightmare." Brian J. Dillard from Allmovie called it "a major classic in the what-were-they-thinking school of horror". Joseph A. Ziemba from Bleeding Skull! gave the film a positive review, stating that the film "goes toe to toe with Doris Wishman’s A Night to Dismember as one of the most disconnected and impressive low budget horror films of all time." Ain't It Cool News liked the film, calling it "a nightmarish dream existence", and compared the film's oddness to Quentin Dupieux's Rubber. John Staton of StarNews referred to the film as an utterly enjoyable "Z-grade horror movie"; highlighting its acting, premise, story line, special effects, as comparable to camp classics like Troll 2, and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

HorrorNews.net gave the film a negative review, calling it "curious but nothing more than the kind of film that you'd see lumped together on a budget 50-title film set". Adam Tyner from DVD Talk criticized the film's erratic pacing, and minimal characterization. Tyner also wrote, "On the other hand, Death Bed wields a strange and unique charm that kept entrancing me even when I was bored stiff. I'll always take an interesting failure over some uninspired, by-the-numbers horror flick."

Legacy
Death Bed has gained a minor cult following over the years and is now considered a cult classic. Death Bed has been included in multiple lists at various media outlets. In 2014, Paste Magazine ranked the film at #92 in its The 100 Best “B Movies” of All Time, summarizing, "This is one of those great, lost films that finally found its way onto DVD a few years ago and was embraced by bad movie lovers around the world." PopMatters placed the film at #2 in their list of The 10 Weirdest Horror Movies of All Time, calling it "too insane for words".

Comedian Patton Oswalt included a routine about the film on his 2007 album Werewolves and Lollipops, in which he mistakenly refers to the film as Death Bed: The Bed That Eats People.