Bed of the Dead

Saw 'Bed of the Dead' being fond of horror/thriller regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre), and the cover was cool. The concept, while not original, intrigued. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing.

Unfortunately, do have to agree with the low rating and the poor reviews. 'Bed of the Dead' is one of those films that mostly didn't take off enough, starting off interestingly and with promise, but went downhill in the final third particularly where one loses interest and there was a giving up feel. Never judge a film without seeing the whole thing and wanted to not make 'Bed of the Dead' an exception, so gave it a fair chance.

The film is atmospherically and slickly shot generally and the location is also suitably spooky. The music has an ominous feel while being on the obvious side at times. The acting is surprisingly not that terrible, not amazing and some of the interaction could have been more natural but they seemed engaged and not much is overdone.

It starts off promising, despite the outcome being obvious far too early, with some scares and suspense that is timed well and not hurt too much by gratuity. The visual effects are surprisingly not bad, not spectacular but effort was clearly put into it and some of the direction is assured.

Where 'Bed of the Dead' most underwhelms is the writing and story in the second half. The writing is incredibly lazy, it's awkward in dialogue, is gratuitously crude, confused because of not tying things up or going into full detail and doesn't feel complete. The story suffers from a very erratic pace, and gets muddled and ridiculous in the second half. It further suffers from feeling too much like a short film stretched out with a lot of useless padding. The stereotypical characters are as unlikeable as they come, the inconsistent and illogical motivations bring them down further.

For a film billed as a horror, there is very little interesting and not enough that was scary. The scares and thrills are too few later on, barely any even, and are far too predictable, anaemic and weakly timed to make impact, with the chaotic pacing and intrusive sound editing cheapening them significantly. 'Bed of the Dead' in the later stages doesn't engage let alone thrill, the more it progressed the more chaotic but too much just feels chaotic and hasty, predictable and more nonsensical it became with far too many easily foreseeable moments. The ending leaves very little impact, very contrived and not much of one at all.

Overall, could have been so much worse and is watchable but not much exceptional here. 5/10 Bethany Cox

With a title like "Bed of the Dead" I wrongly assumed that this was going to be some kind of silly horror comedy. It is not. The film opens with a pretty gruesome scene involving an execution on a tree, obviously set in the past. Then the tree later gets turned into a large bed. Fast forward to the present day and two couples rent an expensive room at a sex club, which contains said bed. Hallucinations and death replace the fun and sex that they were seeking... Like I said this is not a comedy but played perfectly straight. It's not a bad film, there are some neat visuals and it is pretty gory. In addition to the two couples the story is also as much about the troubled policeman investigating the case. I like the way that the film intertwines the relationship between him and the female victims, for example they are speaking together by 'phone yet at different hours respectively. However the film has some weaknesses, including the characters/actors. It's pretty average, though it's the best bed horror movie that I can recall seeing. But as "DeathBed" is the only other one that does not say much!

This movie story felt a bit original and it was entertaining. The actors were pretty decent but not 100% convincing. Do like the time line thing they had going on. Do to this the ending was predictable though.

Dwelling (2016) is another movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a pair of couples who plan to wife swap but the men chicken out in the process. As they plan the rest of the nights events after their failure they discover as they step off the bed terrible things happen. This movie is directed by Jeff Maher in his directorial debut and stars Colin Price (Still the Water), Alysa King (Slasher), Gwenlyn Cumyn (Chasing Valentine) and Dennis Andres (Star Trek: Discovery). The storyline for this picture was just okay but could have been better executed to make it more interesting. The special effects were a bit inconsistent, some scenes I thought were done well and some were kind of blah. The acting was also up and down throughout the movie and I didn't love the cast's performances. The wife swap scene was particularly awkward and didn't match the characters well. Overall, this was disappointing and a below average addition to the genre I'd recommend skipping. I'd score this a 3/10.

I have had this movie in my collection for sometime now, but have only just got round to watching it. I was mainly put off by the title, which makes it sound like some glib horror comedy from the '70's. However it is far from it, with an interesting story line, and good old fashioned gore. It does lose its way a little in the last 3rd, involving a time loop with a mobile and a detective which is never really explained and a little confusing, but just about manages to carry it through.

The basic premise of the movie is that a tree is used as a place of sacrifice and hanging, and is then cut down by a woodsman and made into a bed. As this back story takes place in the background of the opening credits, I don't think it can be considered a spoiler! The bed ends up in a sex club, where a guy and his best mate take their girlfriends on a birthday treat for a foursome. Needless to say things go very wrong as the bed unleashes its evil spirit.

This movie could have been a laughable disaster, but for me was a thoroughly enjoyable horror flick that was just that little bit different.