Bed of the Dead

Admittedly, I was lured in by the title of the movie; "Bed of the Dead", as it could have been either a comedy addition to the zombie genre, or that it might actually be a movie about a deadly bed. And being a life-long fan of the horror genre, then of course I did opt for sitting down to watch "Bed of the Dead", even without having read the synopsis for the movie.

It was a little bit hard, no pun intended, for me to get fully into the groove and atmosphere of this movie, as it was set in an underground sex club. I am not a prude or anything, but the setting of the movie was just a bit too tacky.

I can't claim to be familiar with anyone on the cast list, for better or worse. Admittably then I usually do find it refreshing and nice to have all new faces perform in movies, as there are no associations to previous characters portrayed in other movies. And such was also the case with "Bed of the Dead". The cast was doing good jobs with their given roles and characters.

Writer Cody Calahan and writer/director Jeff Maher opted for a story that jumps back and forth between what happened in room 18 to the four young people and the present time where the police are investigating the gruesome scene in room 18. Personally, I can't claim to find that to be a particularly good way of presenting a story, because you are already made well aware of the outcome of the movie right from the very beginning, leaving little room for surprises and plot twists along the way.

The visual effects and CGI in the movie were quite good, and there is a fair amount of violence and gore to keep most gorehounds and fans of the horror genre satisfied.

Story-wise then "Bed of the Dead" didn't prove to be spectacular or outstanding in any way. Was it entertaining? Well, sure, it was entertaining enough for what it turned out to be. Just don't expect to be blown away or kept at the edge of your seat. And this is hardly the type of movie that you will return to watch a second time, provided you get through it the first time.

I will say that the movie is fairly well paced, although it loses its momentum some time after the halfway point, where the movie settles down into a slow paced trot. Which only makes it all the more of an ordeal to actually maintain interest and focus on the movie.

All in all, not the best of forays into the horror genre, but definitely not among the worst either. The overall impression with "Bed of the Dead" was a mediocre one for me. As such, then I am rating it 5 out of 10 stars.

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.

Four young people get a room in an underground sex club for a shared tryst. The room they obtain has a huge bed. However, this bed is not an ordinary bed. Getting out of this bed is bad for your health.

This is the first horror movie about a bed that I have seen. Looking through some of the reviews I get the impression that there are more out there. Like I said though, this is a first for me.

This is a lower budgeted film but I thought it was filmed well. The acting and effects are just so-so. I thought it was put together well. I think it falls short due to the lack of explanation regarding the powers of the bed. We get an extremely vague look into the creation of the symbol when the film started but that was about it. I think, although I could be wrong, that the symbol was a tree of life symbol and maybe it was thought that the symbol offered enough of an explanation about what was going on. The significance should have been explained better.

It isn't top notch but for me, the film was interesting. I'll probably never watch it again but it was okay.

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

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.