Deathbed: The Bed That Eats

Tonight, I watched Deathbed: The Bed That Eats. I watched it solely because my friend and I absolutely love Patton Oswalt's bit on this movie. I finally decided to download it and tnight we watched it together.

Predictably, this was an awful movie. Like, it is as terrible as you think. Laughably bad acting, terrible camera shots, and a ridiculous plot that makes basically no sense. But with all that said, it did do a couple of interesting things.

For one thing, I have to mention the gratuitous nudity. I will not deny for a moment that it was pure fanservice and every woman except maybe one appears nude in this film. That said, there are certain aspects of it that I did find commendable. In the first seen when the horny couple starts having sex on the bed, clothes start coming off. Does it further the plot? Not really. But is it realistic? Yeah. That's what starts to happen when horny couples search desperately for a bed in an abandoned house and find one. Later on in the movie, when another woman changes into her pajamas to sleep for the night, she naturally didn't have her clothes on while she was changing them. Again, it was not really necessary, but the sheer fact that it happened and nobody really cared (it was not a sexualized scene - it was quite matter-of-fact [probably due mostly to the terrible acting]) made it more palatable to me.

For another, I'm impressed that the movie went against the classic horror trope of killing off the black character first. In fact, although she does end up dying, she is the strongest, most resilient character in the whole movie. And it wasn't in any tacky way. When Deathbed tried to eat her, she not only struggled and fought, but she escaped the bed. She crawled with nonfunctioning legs up stairs to try to escape the cellar she was in. I strongly support this movie from 1977 for depicting this character in such a way.

Thirdly, this movie largely passes the Bechdel Test. Most of the characters are women. They have numerous conversations, most of which do not involve men in general or any man in specific. Despite all its flaws, I am again impressed that this movie has women in a number of lights, some of which being positive, and none of whom are merely the objects of men.

All things considered, I by no means recommend this movie. It is so boring it put my friend to sleep. I survived mostly from being amped on caffeine from dinner and making stupid jokes throughout the film.

That said, it is quite surprising that I sat down and watched a stereotypically awful, dated horror B-movie (my friend called it a C-movie) and actually noticed some impressively redeeming values in it. It really makes me appreciate that there is a difference between a terrible story and a story with literally no redeeming values.