Death Bed. The Bed That Eats.

Every now and again comes a film that makes you question whether a director had any idea he was making a comedy at the time. Surely, some movies attempt comedy and fail miserably (e.g., Austin Powers Goldmember), but what I'm talking about is the film that sets out to be serious and yet brings more genuine laughter from its audience than it ever intended (e.g., Titanic). And then there's a film like "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats."

"Death Bed" was made by a man named George Barry, who clearly set out to prove that he could make a horror movie less scary than "Night of the Lepus", which featured giant bunny rabbits killing people (and the special effects that would have been state of the art for a Guatemalan high school production in 1972). "Death Bed", of course, involves a bed that eats people by sucking them into some yellow foam and also eating things like chicken legs and flowers and Pepto-Bismol. At one point, a victim is trying to stab the bed with a knife, only to have his hands get sucked into the bed and emerge as skeleton hands. In short, this is no ordinary bed!

Sadly, this bed has apparently had thousands of victims over the years, meaning that none of these thousands could figure out the one way to defeat the bed, which is to NOT SIT ON THE DAMN THING. The bed has no arms, no special force field pulling you in--it just swallows you once you're sitting or laying on it. Wouldn't at least someone say "hey, an abandoned bed in an old house. Pretty creepy! Maybe I won't take a nap on it"? Seems like a pretty simple way to defeat the death bed, but then I've never hung out at an abandoned house.

Also notable for the crunching sounds the bed makes while it eats, despite not having jaws or teeth or anything. Unrealistic! But then, the "skeleton hands" guy just seems to wander around not bleeding to death or anything after all the flesh and sinews are dissolved from his hands. He sort of looks at the damn things as though they were just covered in a rash or something minor like that. Please, fine thespian, if you're going to take a role in a cinematic masterpiece such as "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats" then you'd better show better acting chops than that!