The Dwelling (2016) User Reviews

Go to bed ...

[kosmasp · 5/10 · 18 May 2017]

Or how about "Rest in pieces"? I know all does sound like you've heard it before. But I don't think the movie claims to be original (even though it does seem to think it is a little bit with the idea of the bed and its history). And I do agree with someone else claiming that the effects are really good. So if you are easily satisfied and don't care much about story or acting, than you will not be disappointed.

Story wise though this actually tries to be wise. With us being thrown back and forth in the time-line (?) of things happening. But of course there is more to it ... well at least the movie tries to sell it that way. Mind not blown I'd say, but neat idea. And overall entertaining. Just not a particularly good movie, just decent

Haunted bed

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 10 July 2018]

Saw 'Bed of the Dead' being fond of horror/thriller regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre), and the cover was cool. The concept, while not original, intrigued. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing.

Unfortunately, do have to agree with the low rating and the poor reviews. 'Bed of the Dead' is one of those films that mostly didn't take off enough, starting off interestingly and with promise, but went downhill in the final third particularly where one loses interest and there was a giving up feel. Never judge a film without seeing the whole thing and wanted to not make 'Bed of the Dead' an exception, so gave it a fair chance.

The film is atmospherically and slickly shot generally and the location is also suitably spooky. The music has an ominous feel while being on the obvious side at times. The acting is surprisingly not that terrible, not amazing and some of the interaction could have been more natural but they seemed engaged and not much is overdone.

It starts off promising, despite the outcome being obvious far too early, with some scares and suspense that is timed well and not hurt too much by gratuity. The visual effects are surprisingly not bad, not spectacular but effort was clearly put into it and some of the direction is assured.

Where 'Bed of the Dead' most underwhelms is the writing and story in the second half. The writing is incredibly lazy, it's awkward in dialogue, is gratuitously crude, confused because of not tying things up or going into full detail and doesn't feel complete. The story suffers from a very erratic pace, and gets muddled and ridiculous in the second half. It further suffers from feeling too much like a short film stretched out with a lot of useless padding. The stereotypical characters are as unlikeable as they come, the inconsistent and illogical motivations bring them down further.

For a film billed as a horror, there is very little interesting and not enough that was scary. The scares and thrills are too few later on, barely any even, and are far too predictable, anaemic and weakly timed to make impact, with the chaotic pacing and intrusive sound editing cheapening them significantly. 'Bed of the Dead' in the later stages doesn't engage let alone thrill, the more it progressed the more chaotic but too much just feels chaotic and hasty, predictable and more nonsensical it became with far too many easily foreseeable moments. The ending leaves very little impact, very contrived and not much of one at all.

Overall, could have been so much worse and is watchable but not much exceptional here. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Possibly the best horror film about a killer bed

[Stevieboy666 · 5/10 · 16 October 2018]

With a title like "Bed of the Dead" I wrongly assumed that this was going to be some kind of silly horror comedy. It is not. The film opens with a pretty gruesome scene involving an execution on a tree, obviously set in the past. Then the tree later gets turned into a large bed. Fast forward to the present day and two couples rent an expensive room at a sex club, which contains said bed. Hallucinations and death replace the fun and sex that they were seeking... Like I said this is not a comedy but played perfectly straight. It's not a bad film, there are some neat visuals and it is pretty gory. In addition to the two couples the story is also as much about the troubled policeman investigating the case. I like the way that the film intertwines the relationship between him and the female victims, for example they are speaking together by 'phone yet at different hours respectively. However the film has some weaknesses, including the characters/actors. It's pretty average, though it's the best bed horror movie that I can recall seeing. But as "DeathBed" is the only other one that does not say much!

Bed of mediocrity...

[paul_haakonsen · 28 August 2017]

Admittedly, I was lured in by the title of the movie; "Bed of the Dead", as it could have been either a comedy addition to the zombie genre, or that it might actually be a movie about a deadly bed. And being a life-long fan of the horror genre, then of course I did opt for sitting down to watch "Bed of the Dead", even without having read the synopsis for the movie.

It was a little bit hard, no pun intended, for me to get fully into the groove and atmosphere of this movie, as it was set in an underground sex club. I am not a prude or anything, but the setting of the movie was just a bit too tacky.

I can't claim to be familiar with anyone on the cast list, for better or worse. Admittably then I usually do find it refreshing and nice to have all new faces perform in movies, as there are no associations to previous characters portrayed in other movies. And such was also the case with "Bed of the Dead". The cast was doing good jobs with their given roles and characters.

Writer Cody Calahan and writer/director Jeff Maher opted for a story that jumps back and forth between what happened in room 18 to the four young people and the present time where the police are investigating the gruesome scene in room 18. Personally, I can't claim to find that to be a particularly good way of presenting a story, because you are already made well aware of the outcome of the movie right from the very beginning, leaving little room for surprises and plot twists along the way.

The visual effects and CGI in the movie were quite good, and there is a fair amount of violence and gore to keep most gorehounds and fans of the horror genre satisfied.

Story-wise then "Bed of the Dead" didn't prove to be spectacular or outstanding in any way. Was it entertaining? Well, sure, it was entertaining enough for what it turned out to be. Just don't expect to be blown away or kept at the edge of your seat. And this is hardly the type of movie that you will return to watch a second time, provided you get through it the first time.

I will say that the movie is fairly well paced, although it loses its momentum some time after the halfway point, where the movie settles down into a slow paced trot. Which only makes it all the more of an ordeal to actually maintain interest and focus on the movie.

All in all, not the best of forays into the horror genre, but definitely not among the worst either. The overall impression with "Bed of the Dead" was a mediocre one for me. As such, then I am rating it 5 out of 10 stars.

Bed of the Dead

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 27 November 2019]

Yes, you've Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. You may or may not have seen Killer Sofa. Now, there's The Dwelling, which is also about a haunted piece of furniture. This time, it's a haunted antique bed. Look out - imagine the nightmares you'd have if the bed you're about to lie down in was spectrally challenged!

Here's the description, straight from the PR people: "Four people find themselves stuck on a haunted antique bed where leaving means suffering a gruesome death. Plagued with frightening hallucinations, they must figure out the bed's secrets before they are ultimately picked off one by one."

I love how seriously this film starts, with a man being killed in a field and then watching someone turn the tree he was hung on into an ornate bed. Pretty fancy for a film that was once entitled Bed of the Dead.

This is Jeff Maher's first full-length movie as a director. He's also written films like Antisocial 2 and been a cinematographer on several other films. It gets into some strange territory, with characters speaking back and forth through time - as long as they are near the bed.

Want To Keep A Girl In The Bed? Then This Is THE Bed For You!!

[Foutainoflife · 5/10 · 5 April 2019]

Four young people get a room in an underground sex club for a shared tryst. The room they obtain has a huge bed. However, this bed is not an ordinary bed. Getting out of this bed is bad for your health.

This is the first horror movie about a bed that I have seen. Looking through some of the reviews I get the impression that there are more out there. Like I said though, this is a first for me.

This is a lower budgeted film but I thought it was filmed well. The acting and effects are just so-so. I thought it was put together well. I think it falls short due to the lack of explanation regarding the powers of the bed. We get an extremely vague look into the creation of the symbol when the film started but that was about it. I think, although I could be wrong, that the symbol was a tree of life symbol and maybe it was thought that the symbol offered enough of an explanation about what was going on. The significance should have been explained better.

It isn't top notch but for me, the film was interesting. I'll probably never watch it again but it was okay.

Junky, zero-budget horror

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 27 August 2018]

BED OF THE DEAD is another junky, zero-budget horror B-movie with a ridiculous premise and even poorer execution. The plot is literally nothing more than a quartet of obnoxious characters visiting a sex club and finding themselves trapped on a bed by evil spirits. In order to pad out this non-story, there are repeated flashbacks to historical events which impact the plot very little, as well as, well, not much else. The emphasis is undoubtedly on the gory special effects, which turn out to be not very special at all, rendering the whole thing a waste of time and effort.

A Cursed Bed...

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 24 July 2016]

Four twentysomethings find themselves stuck on a cursed antique bed where leaving means suffering a gruesome death. Plagued with frightening hallucinations, they must figure out the bed's secrets before they are ultimately picked off one by one.

When I first heard the title and skimmed the plot, I thought perhaps this was a loose remake of "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats", which has become something of a small cult classic thanks to the comedy routine that Patton Oswalt built around that strange little gem. I mean, if you think about it, how many movies can there possibly be about a killer bed? However, it turns out that the similarities are probably coincidental. (These days, not all clown films are "It" and not all shark films are "Jaws"… maybe we're seeing the beginning of a killer bed subgenre?)

Perhaps the most impressive thing about "Bed of the Dead" is the fact that the story is told with a straight face, and actually succeeds in pulling that off. Despite the bizarre premise, it actually maintains a sense of serious dread throughout. At no point does anyone break character and say, "A cursed bed? What the heck?" No matter what supernatural creature lurks in the next shadow, they just roll with the punches.

Unfortunately, the four young people trapped in the bed are more or less disposable, one-dimensional characters, so there isn't much to say about them. Sandy (played by Alysa King, SLASHER) gets the most screen time, but is never really a compelling character. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as slasher films have thrived on disposable teens for decades. The lead detective has more depth to him, enough so we can actually start to like or dislike him as his story unfolds. (Personally, his back story did not interest me much, but actor Colin Price is the lightning rod that holds the cast together, so it's great to see he has many upcoming projects in the works.) I also really liked the club owner quite a bit, but this is probably because he's one of those supporting roles that works best in small doses.

If any person or group working on "Bed of the Dead" deserves singling out, it would have to be the effects crew. The blood and gore is some of the finest ever shown, with one "shower scene" reminiscent of "Nightmare on Elm Street", only even more disturbing. There is a creepy spider creature that comes across as a hybrid of "The Exorcist" and "The Ring", and we even get an offhand comment referencing "The Shining". (To be clear, none of these references come off as "rip-offs", but cleverly tongue-in-cheek homages.)

Around the halfway mark, the plot introduces a twist involving a countdown that is quite clever, but also becomes the film's undoing in its failure to make sense. We are not given even a hint at an explanation and any attempt by the viewer to figure it out will only result in a headache. And why does the detective know so much? Somehow he is able to figure out how to anger the bed, as well as how to survive it. It's simply unthinkable that he would be able to deduce such things, especially in so short a time.

Don't get me wrong. There's no reason to believe this film was meant to be a deep, intellectual thriller and it would not be fair to criticize the creators for something they never intended. If the intent was a fun, fast-paced 80 minutes of blood and gore, they succeeded in spades. A sequel with another detective attempting to uncover the secrets of the bed would even be welcome (in some ways, the bed is not unlike the Lamentation Configuration in "Hellraiser"). This is a series I could really get behind.

"Bed of the Dead", from Black Fawn Films and writer-director Jeff Maher, premieres July 16 at the Fantasia Film Festival. Any fan of old-school (read: 1980s) horror would be wise to give this one a spin.

An Almost Overwhelming Pile Of Refuse!

[wandernn1-81-683274 · 2/10 · 21 May 2020]

Okay....weird start ....

-1 Star for very fast abandoning of why they were in the room in the first place , thats probably what made the room mad, it made me mad

-1 Star for stupid illogical response to first guy getting grabbed....made no sense for them to just linger on the bed at all..

-1 Star for the in-attempt to make a break for the Door when the door was opened

Altho Dude's behavior when he opened the door was perfectly legit! Might have gained a star here if the rest of the scene wasn't absolutely dumb!!!

+1 Star for the 'Can you take this to the lab?' guy...haha the script recovered a mite of dignity

Really the start of the movie was so fast paced and then the pacing of the movie just slowed to that of a plugged up toilet. There was some decent gore and potentially cool story set up in the beginning but then it really turns into a plodding mess near the end.

-1 Star for a very lame ending, cementing this one in the halls of the bottom dwellers forever

Great deaths

[davidt-73859 · 7/10 · 8 October 2020]

Movie opens with a very strange scene just some random being hung and then stabbed, shows the making of a bed then cuts to a scene of cops investigating a crime scene at a "sex club".

Jump to a flashback of the supposed victims, the movie then constantly jumps between the timeline of 4 people on a bed and the cop investigation. Feeling like a saw movie with the whole showing dead bodies then flashing to the scene of how they died.

Who ever comes in contact with the bed seems to hallucinate at some point which then results in their death after leaving the bed. The deaths are very nice if u into very bloody movies then u will enjoy them.

There's also a twist discovered about halfway through the film which to me makes it all very confusing and not knowing how things are possible. Good movie overall probably would score it higher if more was explained about the bed and why it causes hallucinations/death.

Killer Bed

[masonxwhite · 2/10 · 22 May 2020]

I don't know what I expected... It's a horror movie about a haunted antique bed.

My Review Of "The Dwelling"

[ASouthernHorrorFan · 8/10 · 29 November 2019]

At first glance I expected "The Dwelling" to be a spoof, gimmick flick like "Killer Sofa" or "The Selling". What I watched was a cool return to classic horror filled with gothic supernatural themes and 80's spaghetti thriller suspense. The story is unique, filled with contrast, and manages to make an inanimate object truly terrifying.

It starts of with a dark, occult-laden opening sequence that actually makes a story about a possessed bed seem plausible without using humor. It sets the tone. The acting is quality, some characters have more depth than others but the point-of-view, and writing allow the cast to be impressive on screen. Plus the writing is layered, almost meta level story telling.

The horror never really fades away from those captivating first scenes. The asthetics, lighting and suspense flows through the majority of the movie. There is one area in the first half that is a bit dull, offering a very generic character driven plot point- mostly meant to introduce us to the ill-fated cast. Still it is the only real moments that the story falls short, and it doesn't last long.

"The Dwelling" has an almost Clive Barker visceral feel, blended with a surrealist look. The gore is up front and allows for some quality gore moments. The dark tone never gets broken up too much. So everything stays in that traditional horror area. I found myself looking forward to what was coming next. Plus the soundtrack and cinematography is classic.

Overall I enjoyed "The Dwelling". The story is entertaining and interesting. The suspense and horror stays true to more conventional constructs. The movie is fun without needing comedy to legitimize its premise. Plus the layered storyline with the extra supernatural elements is one of the better ones I have seen in cinema. Definitely check this one out!

Interesting concept.

[dlmyst-29813 · 6/10 · 19 July 2020]

This movie story felt a bit original and it was entertaining. The actors were pretty decent but not 100% convincing. Do like the time line thing they had going on. Do to this the ending was predictable though.

This was disappointing and a below average addition to the genre

[kevin_robbins · 3/10 · 25 June 2021]

Dwelling (2016) is another movie I recently watched on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a pair of couples who plan to wife swap but the men chicken out in the process. As they plan the rest of the nights events after their failure they discover as they step off the bed terrible things happen. This movie is directed by Jeff Maher in his directorial debut and stars Colin Price (Still the Water), Alysa King (Slasher), Gwenlyn Cumyn (Chasing Valentine) and Dennis Andres (Star Trek: Discovery). The storyline for this picture was just okay but could have been better executed to make it more interesting. The special effects were a bit inconsistent, some scenes I thought were done well and some were kind of blah. The acting was also up and down throughout the movie and I didn't love the cast's performances. The wife swap scene was particularly awkward and didn't match the characters well. Overall, this was disappointing and a below average addition to the genre I'd recommend skipping. I'd score this a 3/10.

I'm in 18

[nogodnomasters · 7/10 · 6 August 2017]

The film opens with the history of a bed made from a tree used for ritualistic killing. The bed finds its way into room 18 at a sex club. A fire broke out in the room. Five people are dead. Inspector Virgil Carter is investigating the scene. We see a foursome rent out the room, a room with a history as we watch what happened.

The couples scene was boring as they end up as "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice." However the "1408" aspect of the film was interesting especially the way they worked the plot and subplot. Worth a view if you are tired of the same formulas.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

Don't be Put off by the Title!

[fatfil-414-451797 · 7/10 · 23 September 2018]

I have had this movie in my collection for sometime now, but have only just got round to watching it. I was mainly put off by the title, which makes it sound like some glib horror comedy from the '70's. However it is far from it, with an interesting story line, and good old fashioned gore. It does lose its way a little in the last 3rd, involving a time loop with a mobile and a detective which is never really explained and a little confusing, but just about manages to carry it through.

The basic premise of the movie is that a tree is used as a place of sacrifice and hanging, and is then cut down by a woodsman and made into a bed. As this back story takes place in the background of the opening credits, I don't think it can be considered a spoiler! The bed ends up in a sex club, where a guy and his best mate take their girlfriends on a birthday treat for a foursome. Needless to say things go very wrong as the bed unleashes its evil spirit.

This movie could have been a laughable disaster, but for me was a thoroughly enjoyable horror flick that was just that little bit different.

I know who could have killed this bed. Drum roll... A "My 600 lb Life" chubster.

[fedor8 · 3 August 2020]

A very good premise, pretty original, but marred by several clumsily constructed characters and the occasional dumb line of dialog here and there.

The notion of a killer bed and a cop talking with a dead victim trying to save her are nice touches, but balanced out by malarkey such as the preposterously over-the-top hotel owner (played by an actor smirking his bum off) and a cocaine-sniffing detective opting to kill himself because somehow the bed proved to him that he was a "bad person". OK, fine, he was suicidal to begin with, but WHY didn't he first torch the damn thing! Oh... right... someone was hoping for a sequel.

The reactions to the supernatural aren't always good, sometimes they're downright absurd. And that whole cliche white-cop-kills-innocent-black-kid stuff just reeks of PC trash.

Worth the watch

[bobgray-3 · 8/10 · 19 May 2020]

I enjoyed this movie. Wasn't slow and had a good story. Acting was good. The bed was beautifully designed.

OK Horror

[Pairic · 6/10 · 27 August 2018]

Bed of the Dead: Horror film involving time discontinuity and a carnivorous possessed bed in a Sex Club. Four people trapped on a bed, they get killed one by one by a dark spirit as they try to get off (off the bed that is though they had planned a foursome). The bed was made from the wood of a cursed tree, a sinning monk was hung from it and stabbed to death by his Brethren.

A cop gets in contact via mobile phone with one of those on the bed, but realises that he is several hours in her future. He then becomes entangled in the time loop. Bed disembowels, eats, chops up and makes people see visions. Each of them has a reason to feel guilt, the bed uses this against them. Not bad. 6/10. On The Horror Channel.

bot bad

[laheeb_azmey · 6/10 · 20 November 2018]

I don't know why there was not too much audience for that movie as it is fairly good. there is a good story not so good but fair enough. the starring actress is gorgeous. the plot is not well sewed but still acceptable. the effect is good compared to other movies with the same budget.