‘Bed of the Dead’ VOD Review
Stars: Colin Price, Alysa King, Gwenlyn Cumyn, Dennis Andres, George Krissa | Written and Directed by Jeff Maher
Bed of the Dead begins with a fun premise; two young couples spend the night in a sex club to indulge in some four-way shenanigans. Before anyone can barely get a shirt off, however, they find themselves stuck on a haunted antique bed where getting off now means a horrible, and delightfully gruesome, death.
Director Jeff Maher’s script does something I wouldn’t have expected, and that’s make these characters interesting. Maybe it’s because this is a Canadian movie, but our four bedridden victims are actually likable. Many horror movies confuse unpleasantness for dramatic. If the characters shout at each other enough then that must be interesting, right? But Bed of the Dead attempts to make the characters real people with fears and faults and even a little humor.
Bed of the Dead doesn’t shy away from the scares, either. There is plenty of blood and gore to satisfy any horror movie aficionado. I found the deaths pretty revolting and winced at the brutality more than once. The monster effects were very good. Think John Carpenter’s The Thing and you’ll have an idea of what awaits them.
No matter how interesting the characters are, blood sopped women sitting on a bed for 84 minutes will grow dull. Thankfully the film works in a second story about a washed up, coked out, detective investigating a arson resulting in four deaths. Do these plot lines meet up? Of course they do! But it’s entertaining to see how they weave in and out of one another. The acting is strong and that’s a relief because this isn’t an action movie. There is nothing to distract us from a terrible performance. The burden of this film rests entirely on the actor’s shoulders, and thankfully, they carry it to the very end.
While Bed of the Dead gets many things right, it’s not perfect. I found the “rules” to be muddled. One of our victims has a phone that can call and text through time. How? This bed may be haunted but I doubt it knows how to cosmically jailbreak a phone. And what is the beds deal, anyway? The movie begins with robed monks mutilating people on a giant tree. Who are these monks? Why are they doing this? What am I even witnessing? Nothing is explained. In fact, that whole first scene could have been cut from the movie and nobody would have noticed.
Even with some minor detraction, Bed of the Dead does a lot of things right. The visuals are great and the gruesome deaths are wonderful. You wouldn’t think that a movie about a haunted, killer bed would deliver any horror thrills, but Bed of the Dead is a fun flick that’s worth watching.
Bed of the Dead is available on Sky Store, Virgin FilmFlex, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Microsoft Video Store and Google Play, courtesay of Grimm Entertainment.
