Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977)

If you want to survive, don't go near THE BED.

In a one-room stone building near a dilapidated mansion, a demon has condemned an artist to living behind a painting in a state of limbo, forcing him to watch in vain as trespassers' lives are taken by a ravenous bed.

Date of release
1977-10-26
TMDB
5.7 / 10 (91)
Runtime
1h 17m
Genres
Horror, Fantasy
Director
George Barry

Casting

Interesting facts

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is a 1977 American surrealist folk horror film written, produced, and directed by George Barry in his only feature film, and starring Demene Hall, William Russ, Julie Ritter, and Dave Marsh. The plot centers on a demon-possessed bed that is passed on through generations, bringing tragedy upon those who come across it.

Production

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. 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.

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. 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.

Dave Marsh, a journalist and editor of Creem magazine, appears in the film as the Artist. 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. 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.

The film was shot in and around Detroit, Michigan in 1972 on a budget of $30,000. To avoid paying union fees, many of the cast and crew members were hired from Canada. Among them were Canadian cinematographer and documentary filmmaker Robert Fresco, who later worked as a camera operator on Prom Night (1980).

After the principal photography, a process completed within two weeks, Barry spent four subsequent years editing the film. A mural by the English occultist Austin Osman Spare appears in the film.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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