After fortuitously stumbling upon the wrong Deathbed movie, I quickly found the movie that I wanted. For weeks it sat on my desk. I wanted the perfect opportunity to watch it. A gem like this has to be shared with friends (and hopefully plenty of beer). Well Halloween night provided that opportunity, and I was not disappointed. A friend of mine was having a Halloween party consisting of scary movies and such, and I brought the newfound raison d'etre for said party's existence: Death Bed: The Bed that Eats. After watching the cinematic masterpiece Jason X: Jason in Space (perhaps worthy of its own blog post), we turned out attention to Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. The full title is an absolute necessity. All requests for shorthand will be denied.
Death Bed: The Bed That Eats opens with a black screen while what sounds like someone eating an apple is heard. The movie is divided into four parts: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and The Just Dessert. The whole thing is narrated by a ghost that lives behind a painting. The basic premise is that this demon had the hots for a "fair maiden" about a hundred years ago. In an attempt to have sex with said maiden, the demon forged this bed from an evil tree (I think). Unfortunately, the demon was so evil that the sex killed her. The demon cried, and his demon tears put a curse on the bed. Now the bed eats people (typically when they're having sex).
If this makes sense to you, stop doing shots of absinthe right now.
Symbolism anyone?"I say! The bed seems to be consuming me. What a predicament this is."
"Indeed. This just won't do. I do believe I'm going to shoot at it."
Hell, one guy keeps smoking his cigar as he gets eaten. Check out this clip.
The fact that this movie is on YouTube fills my heart with untold joy.
Death Bed: The Bed That Eats makes the 2002 Deathbed look sensible. Every element of the 70s is present: the kickass black chick with the power-fro, the weepy hippie girl, the strutting 70s disco star (who bears a strange resemblance to Peter Frampton), the psychedelic editing... it's all here. Also, for some reason, every woman in the film manages to get naked at some point. Either the bed psychically removes their clothes, or the bed creates a dream sequence in which the woman is naked. I guess when you're a bed with an oral fixation, you can do whatever you want.
Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea! YAY PEPTO BISMOL!> The Peter Frampton wannabe gets his hands eaten in such a way that he's left with skeleton hands. He stares at his hands as he calmly remarks, "There's no flesh."
> After a particularly large meal, the Death Bed consumes a bottle of Pepto Bismol.
> The Death Bed eats a couple's box of fried chicken and apples. Upon opening the box and finding bare chicken bones (the Death Bed politely returns the box and apple cores), the man says, "Huh! Must have been a mistake." Yes. KFC mistakenly filled your container with garbage. Some mistake.
> In the same scene, the Death Bed downs an entire bottle of wine.
> An old woman (maybe in her 90s) relaxes in the Death Bed. She opens a magazine clearly titled "ORAL LESBIANS." She is promptly consumed.
> In a tribute to feminist ideals, two women (the black-power chick and the hippie girl) enjoy a picnic of raw sausage and pickles.
While Death Bed: The Bed That Eats doesn't have anyone as awesome as Joe Estevez, I did find an interesting tidbit. The only actor in the movie to appear in anything other than this movie was the Peter Frampton guy. His real name is William Russ (though he wisely used the pseudonym "Rusty Russ" in this movie). He went on to guest star on several sitcoms, but he is perhaps best known for playing the dad on the show Boy Meets World. A true thespian!---------------------------
Rusty Russ: From Peter Frampton wannabe to Feeny's next-door neighbor.
5 comments:
So funny about Russ Williams--"a true thespian" indeed :).
Or William Russ--whatever. It sounds basically the same both ways.
It honestly downs a bottle of pepto bismal?? That's awesome.
I'm so gonna have to netflix Breakin' again for the 80's badness of it all.
William Russ now rocks my world. I won't be able to pass up Boy Meets World reruns anymore.
Sometimes I think movies like this are what film studies need to look at. Batmite, you've got the right idea doing a paper about Death Bed.
I just did an IMDB search for "Breakin.'" I'm already sold. It has the following line: "features ICE-T in his film debut as a club MC." I think I might have known this already, but it was a nice reminder.
Tag! You're it!
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