REVIEW: UNDER THE BED (2013)

UNDER THE BED (2013)

Director Steven C. Miller’s low budget horror about two brothers (Jonny Weston and Gattlin Griffith) literally battling a monster beneath the bed, has some potential but, is sunk by a really badly written script by Eric Stolze and some terrible acting by Terry Hausman and Musetta Vander as the boys’ dad and step-mom. That and the fact that nothing much really happens in this plot hole ridden film until the last 10 minutes and despite a cool creature and some good gore, the fact that the story doesn’t seem to be following any sort of constructive narrative keeps it from being the least bit suspenseful or scary. What is going on and why? The creature seems to follow no real detectable pattern of behavior and it’s actions are constantly contradictory. A perfect example is that it scares step-mom, Angela (Vander) in the garage and then again later for no apparent reason as it’s biggest advantage is that the parents don’t believe in it, so, why reveal itself to the parents when the kids seem to be what it wants to begin with and it’s existence remained hidden. We are never given a reason for it’s being in the house or it’s targeting of the brothers and the resolution of the conflict is simply befuddling. If there was some sort of message or metaphor here, it’s buried under the inconsistent story and illogical activities of the characters and creature. If it was supposed to have something to do with the boys’ mom’s death 2 years earlier in the fire set by older brother Neal (Weston), that makes no sense as he set it battling the creature so it was already there before she died. Neal was having problems with ‘it’ long before the fire. And since the creature does claim victims, it’s obviously not a figment of unresolved guilt and is real within the context of the film. Others in the film see it too and fall victim to it. Again, the story makes no sense and the script defeats any attempt to make sense of it. Too bad, the kids perform very convincing, the creature and gore FX are good and with a better script, tighter direction and better actors as the adults, this might have been a somewhat entertaining low budget monster flick. As it is, there is little to recommend.

2 hot dogs… which has nothing to do with the movie but, since the movie makes no sense, my rating doesn’t have to either!