text: George Barry's "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats" is, at root, a dark fairy tale told via a horror-movie framework. It is, in my opinion, one of the best films of the 1970s, and it's downright criminal that the picture was basically stolen and distributed without Barry's knowledge (those responsible for this theft should be fed to the bed, ASAP). If you're looking for overt gore or rabid action, "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats" isn't the flick for you. "Death Bed" is a gentler, weirder drive-in picture; it plays like an utterly strange dream, half-remembered. I'd recommend reading Stephen Thrower's summation of "Death Bed" in Thrower's FAB Press book, "Nightmare USA" (he describes the movie's vibe perfectly). Whether intentional or not, I've noticed shades of "Death Bed" in everything from the "Phantasm" films to Michele Soavi's "Cemetery Man" to the magic-realism/slipstream fiction of authors such as Kelly Link. Barry is an original and in a fair world I'm sure he would've followed "Death Bed" with a number of fantastically bizarre films.