You get a lot of horror movies that are based around the same central antagonist (more or less): vampires, serial killers, ghosts and zombies. Lots and lots of zombies. But beyond that, and something that makes horror so great, is a plethora of other sub-categories that people know and love. For instance I have a few a friends who are just crazy about scarecrow horror. Sharks, clowns, animals. All ripe for the picking. And this go round, we get the severely under-utilized boogeyman.
Cleaning under the bed is not pleasant but is a job that needs to be done. It is pointless to have a full house clean if you don't take care of that part as well. The good thing about living in an era of technology is that we get help from devices, making our house chores easier to be handled. Under The Bed offers a fresh take on the fabled boogeyman story, delivering an entertaining explanation of what exactly is going 'bump in the night' - along with one hell of a horror finale. The 'monster under the bed' idea may be a familiar hook, but 'Under the Bed' stops itself from cookie cutting the characters out of a typical family TV mold. The description of two young brothers afraid of what darkness lurks in their bedroom conjures a certain type of story in the head.
The boogeyman seems like a no brainer when it comes to horror. Monster who lives in the closet or under the bed who terrorizes children at night. Despite the easy set up, the Man has rarely been done right in movies. The largest attempt, Boogeyman, and it's subsequent sequels seem to consistently fall short of hitting the mark. Most of the time, the concept is handled best by kids movies, such as Monsters Inc., Don't Look Under the Bed, or Rise of the Guardians.
Under the Bed's only real bonus feature is a trailer for Under the Bed (1:54). The disc opens with auto-played, menu-inaccessible trailers for Saturday Morning Mystery, Inbred, and American Mary. The static, silent main menu utilizes the cover art, while the two other submenus pull their imagery from elsewhere. 'Under The Bed' is Steven C. Miller's continued vision of of modern horror that is heavily influenced by classic cult genres. Not technically a throwback film, 'Under The Bed' does seem to bring back a lot of.
With Under the Bed, Steven C. Miller and Eric Stolze try to blend some of the warm-hearted innocence of the kids movies with the dark and gritty overlay of a more adult horror movie. The story focuses around Neal (Jonny Weston) and his little brother Paulie who must face their fears and fight a creature who torments them through the shadows of their house.
It's well over twenty minutes rolling before we get our first 'scare' and at first the movie seems to be headed in the direction of straight up kid's horror flick. Which is not a bad thing, some of my favorite genre movies were made for families and kids i.e. Gremlins and Monster Squad. For a while the creep out moments are pretty juvenile. Things like creaking doors, shaking washing machines and laundry baskets that move on their own. Coupled with the light hearted banter of the brothers and the trickster antics of young Paulie, it's easy to ready yourself for a light hearted horror movie, suitable for The CW or ABC Family. Hell, it even has the young attractive cast that usually ride along with those movies.
Then, almost jarringly, the movie tends to blindside you with surprisingly harsh and tense family moments where curse words are thrown around sparingly and excessively gory sprints. The boys dad seems intensely critical for almost no reason and lashes out angrily numerous times in the movie. At one point he even locks the boys in their room and makes them knock on the door if they want to go the bathroom. A few moments like this are wildly out of place and result in head scratching confusion. Without much of an ease, they throw in the boogeyman, introducing the creature with more childlike pop-up horror. The rest of movie continues like this, a rollercoaster of horror hijinks and then overly harsh creature feature time, as if it's over correcting itself over and over again. Because of this constant back and forth, the movie becomes disjointed and never quite finds its groove.
Steven C. Miller helmed the project and is certainly an up-and-comer in the field. With the fan favorites of Silent Night and Automaton Tranfusion under his belt, he has definitely shown he knows how to work the genre. I think part of his strong direction is a lot of what made this movie a complete miss. A number of the scary moments end up being genuinely frightening and the attempt at 80's family fright fest is noticeable, albeit off. Eric Stolze handled the script and his other big credit is a family film entitled I Love Shakey. As ridiculous as it sounds, it's easy to imagine the movie as a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. 'Hey, you got some horror in my family movie…And you got some family movie in my horror film.'
The acting is above average for a straight to dvd horror movie. Jonny Weston, who pulled lead duties in the more largely advertised Chasing Mavericks, plays an older brother that actually has a lot of resemblance to Corey Haim in The Lost Boys. Gattlin Griffith even holds his own as the younger Paulie and the most forced lines end up coming from both the adults.
By the end of the movie, it loses itself in hypothetical boogeyman theoretical mumbo jumbo that just seems silly and a rushed love interest. Also, they start dumping so much fog into the movie it would make The Fog jealous. The Boogeyman ends up looking pretty horrific, a mix of Freddy Krueger and The Creeper, but even his appearance is a stark contrast to the rest of the seemingly light movie.
Overall, Under the Bed isn't a bad movie. It's far more watchable than a lot of other horror movies (cough, Blood Runs Cold, cough) but it ends up missing it's mark. Steven Miller does the best he can with the script but his brutal offerings end up creating a strange final product when mixed with family friendly tinged undertones. It ends up as a promising but ultimately disappointing addition to the boogeyman sub genre.
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Under the Bed DVD Review
| Under the Bed Video Debut: July 30, 2013 / Running Time: 87 Minutes / Rating: R Director: Steven C. Miller / Writer: Eric Stolze Cast: Jonny Weston (Neal Hausman), Gattlin Griffith (Paulie Hausman), Peter Holden (Terry Hausman), Mussetta Vander (Angela Hausman), Kelcie Stranahan (Cara Evans), Bryan Rassmussen (Mr. Evans), Nikki Griffin (Maggie), Tyler Steelman (Richard Evans), Sam Kindseth (Robert Evans), Ivan Djurovic (The Creature), Ron Rogge (Principal Sanders), Garrett Jones (Garrett), Walter Miranda (Walter), Griffin Kohout (Jim) 2.40:1 Anamorphic Widescreen / Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), Dolby Stereo 2.0 (English) Subtitles: None; Extra Not Subtitled / Not Closed Captioned Suggested Retail Price: $14.99 / Single-sided, single-layered disc (DVD-5) / Black Keepcase in Cardboard Slipcover Also available on Blu-ray ($20.99 SRP) and Amazon Instant Video |
Buy Under the Bed from Amazon.com: DVD • Blu-ray • Instant Video
Horror seems like the genre that's most limited in terms of creativity. There is no shortage of comedic and dramatic stories to captivate, inspire, and make us laugh. Science fiction and fantasy are as vast as human imagination. Many movies win us over by blending elements from different genres. But horror is more specific than all that, setting out purely to frighten and surprise viewers. Those narrow goals explain why remakes dominate the genre and why even most original horror movies remind us of past ones. Occasionally, a horror movie will hit on something clever: first-person found footage, for instance. And, several uses later, that design feels just as routine as more conventional scares. Under the Bed, one of the many horror movies that will fly just below the radars of all but the most devoted of genre enthusiasts, doesn't attempt to turn over a new leaf, instead trying to mine an old source of fright for chills. If the title seems too perfect to be brand new, that's because it isn't, although the odds are that you're not familiar with the 1977 UK comedy, 1988 UK family film, or 2006 horror short bearing the same name. This newest Under the Bed is written by Eric Stolze (no, not the red-haired actor Eric Stoltz) and directed by Steven C. Miller (no relation to any Miller you know). The two have a few years of TV and film credits under their belts and are young enough to appear on the rise, even if a big breakthrough isn't on the immediate horizon for either. Stolze and Miller's first and only collaboration to date opens with troubled teenager Neal (Jonny Weston) returning home to his family after two years of living with his Aunt Sarah. Neal is presently battling some demons, the least of which may be cigarettes, a habit he's sort of trying to kick. The boy's hard-assed, foul-mouthed, widowed father Terry (Peter Holden) has recently remarried and the circumstances of his wife's death seem to involve Neal and a fire, a dark episode that prompted the youth's extended sabbatical. Neal is excited to reconnect with his close, admiring kid brother Paulie (Gattlin Griffith), but the two boys have more than a playful nature and a yearning for their mother in common. Neither boy is eating or sleeping right. Each is being disturbed on a nightly basis by an otherworldly monster who turns up in the titular location in the bedroom they've taken turns holding. Though you suspect this antagonist is a metaphor for something else: the children's enduring grief, the challenges of adolescence, their mother's fiery end, or perhaps their Dad's bad attitude, it just appears to be a literal monster that for some reason is preying on these two brothers. Neal speculates it could be feeding on dead skin cells, a theory that could explain how the monster shows up at their next door neighbors on the climactic night the brothers sleep over there. The film tries to establish some boundaries for the monster. If a light is on and the boys stay awake, their chances of being left alone improve. But the monster can still get to them and inflict serious harm. They don't turn to the police or a psychic medium to rid them of their aggressor. They just try to sort things out, shrugging off Dad's disbelief and hoping they can somehow outwit their unwanted visitor. Probably the best thing that can be said about Under the Bed is that it doesn't feel derivative. That is a quality that pervades horror and makes many of the genre's entries forgettable and more or less interchangeable. Stolze's screenplay doesn't have gripping ideas or compelling characters, but at least they don't immediately remind you of another film. It's not scary as it wants to be (who among us doesn't need more than jump scares to be seriously unsettled these days?!), but it is involving enough and reasonably polished. A year after its Canadian premiere, twenty-seven days after hitting the Internet, and eleven after supposedly beginning a very short and limited US theatrical engagement, Under the Bed hits DVD and Blu-ray today from XLrator Media bearing their Macabre banner. VIDEO and AUDIO The DVD's picture and sound are satisfactory, but no better than that. To someone accustomed to reviewing Blu-rays on a daily basis, the feature presentation's quality is clearly inferior. The 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer's frame occasionally lacks focus. The dialogue is crisp, which makes it slightly easier to overlook the DVD's decision to supply HDMI-inaccessible closed captioning rather than the easier, more standard English subtitles. BONUS FEATURES, MENUS, PACKAGING and DESIGN Under the Bed's only real bonus feature is a trailer for Under the Bed (1:54). Dragon throne game. The disc opens with auto-played, menu-inaccessible trailers for Saturday Morning Mystery, Inbred, and American Mary. The static, silent main menu utilizes the cover art, while the two other submenus pull their imagery from elsewhere. The insert-less keepcase is topped by a glossy slipcover repeating the artwork below. CLOSING THOUGHTS I'm regularly amazed by horror movie fans' ability to be interested in and disappointed by small under-the-radar films. Under the Bed is one such movie seemingly destined for obscurity that instead will win some attention and probably disapproval from voracious customers, impulse buyers, and genre-minded renters. I must give Under some credit for not being just another horror movie, but I can't pretend that it did much for me. The concept isn't too fascinating, the jolts are largely ineffective, and the ending is stupid. Mercifully fast-paced at least, the movie is treated to a lackluster DVD that feels like a $3 value tops. Buy Under the Bed from Amazon.com: DVD / Blu-ray / Instant Video |
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Under The Bed Movie Review
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Under The Bed Review
Reviewed July 30, 2013.
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