Alitée

Tldr; don't waste your time with this submid movie.

I cannot understand why anyone was raving about this lukewarm mess or why it garnered any high reviews here, unless someone paid for them. A grotesque lack of explanation for a series of illogical setup decisions, coupled with a last-minute plot twist that felt like it wasn't even in the script until halfway through filming because it had zero foreshadowing whatsoever, all amount to an uninteresting slog of a film that's barely worth the talent of the main cast. The jump scares are few, unimpactful and badly timed, there's barely any suspense and what little drama there is comes strictly from a cliché stereotype of a strained marriage. Trying to shoehorn some kind of "letting go" moral into the narrative just made it even clumsier and obnoxious, especially since said moral barely gets referenced again when the supernatural elements actually start playing out. One could easily cut off the first two thirds of the movie and make a much better short film out of just the last twenty minutes or so, since everything relevant to the climax of the plot only comes out at that point. Worse still, it's not bad -enough- to be entertainingly bad, no horrifically bad acting or overly ridiculous practical effects to laugh at, no scenery-chewing or overacting to give it any charm. Overall, the movie just feels like it was thrown together as they were filming by someone too convinced of their own brilliance to accept that they had no clue what they were doing and released with an unironic "nailed it" afterward like a cinematic cake wreck. It's not awful but it's simply not good at all.

Now, I hadn't actually ever heard about this 2022 horror movie titled "Bed Rest" from writer and director Lori Evans Taylor prior to stumbling upon it here in 2023. And with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I wanted to see if it was a good horror movie.

It wasn't. Well, I am maybe a bit jumpy on the trigger here, but I found "Bed Rest" to be a rather mundane, monotonous and generic horror movie about a couple being haunted. Yeah, "Bed Rest" didn't bring anything new to the genre, and what transpired on the screen had already been done numerous times in other similar horror movies. So you're not in for a grand horror experience, should you opt to sit down and watch "Bed Rest".

I will say that the acting performances in the movie were good. It was a very small cast ensemble, but luckily they were talented and were able to carry the movie, despite of having a bland script to work with.

Visually then "Bed Rest" was not innovative. It makes use of a couple of jump scares, but that is it. It wasn't making use of a bunch of special effects.

Sure, "Bed Rest" was watchable, but it was a generic attempt at a movie about a haunting.

My rating of "Bed Rest" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Honestly, my expectations with these low budget, straight-to-streaming horror films is so low, that I genuinely thought a movie where a woman is bed ridden for most of the runtime (at least supposedly) would be a bad imitation of Gerald's Game. (To be fair, that was also straight-to-streaming).

Instead, Bed Rest is a mishmash of a bunch of different horror films: a ghost story, a person-going-crazy story, a conspiracy, a malignant demon story; it's a lot. Being so much actually kind helped the film, to be honest, as I can't say I was ever bored watching it.

Melissa Barrera gives a better performance than I'd expect for a film that looks this cheap and lit this badly. She's really trying despite the material. The rest of the small cast...not so much. There's something about the line delivery by most of these people that felt off.

As I mentioned before, this movie looks, sounds, and is edited pretty terribly. It overuses the grating jump score note every bad, straight-to-streaming horror film uses (you know the one), even when what we're seeing wouldn't be scary within any definition of the word. The effects are bad, there's no atmosphere...it's just not very good.

And yet, for a random watch on a Wednesday, I didn't truly hate it. 2024 has been so bad for horror, I'll take what I can get.

Saw the trailer at a theatre and looked promising. Seen it and I can say that it wasn't what I expected from it.

Throughout the movie nothing really happens except the apperance of a lost child appearing as a ghost or as an imagination? That is out to find by the husband. The problem with supernatural flicks and ghosts is that it's mostly not scary at all. You see the boy and you just see a boy, nothing squeamish at all. It's only towards the end when it all comes clear what is going on that this flick picks up.

What it do has are a few jump scenes if you aren't used to see this kind of flicks. But overall it's all about memories of a lost child and the end it all becomes a bit cheesy.

Sad to say but I better did some bed rest.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 0,5/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5.

Started watching this movie with lot of expectations - Good horror, and captivating storyline.

On the contrary, no major chills, a plain horror movie that picks up only in climax. But the ending is super simple. Melissa looks terrific though and if u r fan of hers, then u won't be disappointed.

Screenplay was tad too straight, no major horror elements at the start till mid, i thought it should be a great build up for the climax but the story never picks up. Some thrill in the mids, but that too was too short. However, it's not a bad movie, direction and production value was good and could be in your list if there is nothing to watch.