Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

The film depicts the spirit of artist Aubrey Beardsley, who is spared by the bed and damned to oversee it from behind a painting

Writer-director George Barry, a native of Royal Oak, Michigan, based the idea for the film on a nightmare he had about a bed consuming human beings.[4] Recounting the dream, Barry said: "I don't even remember if I was the subject of the dream or if I was an observer, but it was just this bed that was engulfing. There was nothing that I remember that was specific, but it was the engulfing bed. There wasn't any digestion; it was just the bed coming in, over. I wrote from there."[5] Barry has said he was inspired by exploitation filmmakers such as Roger Corman and Jack Smith, as well as European arthouse films shown at local drive-in theaters.[6]

The film depicts the spirit of the visual artist Aubrey Beardsley as a character (credited as "the Artist") damned to bear witness to the bed's devouring of humans from behind a painting.[7] Barry characterized Beardsley's inclusion in the film as not literal, but rather "sort of like Beardsley by way of having a dream about Beardsley. If you dreamt about Bearsley in a dream, and he was riding a bicycle and selling you soft drinks—that's the Aubrey Beardsley that's in the movie."[8]

Dave Marsh, a journalist and editor of Creem magazine, appears in the film as the Artist.[9] Barry's grandmother appears briefly in the film in a flashback sequence as one of the bed's victims throughout the decades since its genesis.[10] In the primary role of Diane, Barry cast Demene Hall, a film and stage actress who later went on to have a long-running career in theater productions in Seattle.[11]

The film was shot in and around Detroit, Michigan in 1972 on a budget of $30,000.[2][12] To avoid paying union fees, many of the cast and crew members were hired from Canada.[13] Among them were Canadian cinematographer and documentary filmmaker Robert Fresco, who later worked as a camera operator on Prom Night (1980).[14] Some filming took place at the historic Gar Wood Mansion on Grayhaven Island, which was leased for the production from a rock music group who was staying in the home.[13][15] The sequences filmed in the stone chamber room where the bed is contained were shot in a makeshift studio.[16]

Principal photography lasted only two weeks, and Barry spent the subsequent four years editing the film.[13] A mural by the English occultist Austin Osman Spare appears in the film.[17]

Following the film's completion in 1977, Barry sought a theatrical release for Death Bed but failed to find a willing distributor.[18] Later on, Barry received an offer from an Los Angeles-based distributor to release the film on VHS in the United Kingdom, after they had seen Barry's answer print of the film. The distributor offered to pay Barry $1,000 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 Films, an obscure British label, released a bootleg VHS of the film in the United Kingdom circa 1983[19][20] without Barry's knowledge, with the film eventually receiving further VHS releases in Australia, New Zealand and Spain.[21] The film garnered an underground cult following in Europe due to this release.[13][22] The Spanish release is dubbed into Spanish and is considered quite rare.[5]

Despite its pirated VHS releases outside of the United States, 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."[23] 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 (2007).[24]

The film was given its first official theatrical exhibition on February 15, 2003 at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival.[1][12] For this release, Barry incorporated new theme music to the opening and closing credits, performed by Thrower's band Cyclobe,[25] as he was never satisfied with the original theme composed by Mike McCoy.[26]

Following Barry's discovery of the film's bootlegged releases, Death Bed received its first official home media release in the United States in 2003, through the independent home media distributor Cult Epics.[18] In 2013, they 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 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 musical theme by Mike McCoy.[27]

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."[1] 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."[28] Brian J. Dillard from AllMovie called it "a major classic in the what-were-they-thinking school of horror".[29]

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."[30] 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.[31] 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.[32]

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".[33] 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."[34]