User Reviews

'Under the Bed' opens with dark, moody undertones that establish a sense of foreboding which fade almost unnoticeably into the slightly upbeat homecoming of the teen lead and his reunion with his kid brother under very tense circumstances. With the young ages of the two protagonists the plot leads you into a false sense of security believing that the film is perhaps targeted at a younger audience and will thus treat the viewer with kid gloves. However, such is not the case, and for serious horror fans, the third act will not disappoint.

The film is well made. Settings are clean and all of the actors give believable life to their respective characters. In particular Peter Holden is convincing as the father of the two boys who plays well a man who seems to want to be a good parent, but who has much road left to travel along the process of healing from a tragic event that took the life of someone very close to him and ripped apart his small family.

Jonny Weston's performance as 'Neal' brought to mind Jason Patrick's struggling teen role in 'The Lost Boys'. Weston really projects the fear and turmoil and disgust of a young man forced to live for years on the edge an abyss. He's jumpy, outwardly disturbed and exhausted from lack of sleep.

The film is essentially divided into two acts - the first which runs for around two thirds of its length and the second which makes 'the reveal' and brings resolution. I enjoyed this structure as it provided plenty of time to introduce and develop the characters, and tension was slowly increased along the away, although I was expecting a shock in some form to happen sooner than it did.

Additionally, while the premise has been used before, normally such stories involve parents who prance around as if completely unaware that something horrible is happening to their children. Here we have a father who cannot ignore the psychological and physical turmoil his sons are experiencing and so he must react and does so in what seem like extreme or last resort parenting efforts. I found this to be refreshing in light of the usually clueless parent characters in similar films.

I also agree with one other reviewer of this film in that the negative reviews seem misplaced. In 'Under the Bed' we have a film with dark, tense atmosphere populated by characters on the edge of breakdown, harried by a presence which cannot be explained by the laws of what we understand to be the natural order. In other words - a really good journey into horror, which takes us far away from the overpopulated genre of slasher films and into the living nightmares of two children who just want to lead the normal lives they haven't had for years.

I highly recommend 'Under the Bed' to horror movie buffs searching for their next fright fix. Make some popcorn, turn off the lights and let yourself be drawn in. You'll never see "it" coming.

Five out of ten stars for overall quality, plus one for character development and capable acting, and one more for no use of CGI to convey horror.

UNDER THE BED (2012)

This film was all very 80's-family movie at the start and came over like a cross between The Goonies and E.T (hey, that older brother was also the older brother in The Goonies and E.T wasn't he?). But then imagine a film where the young cast of The Goonies get sliced and diced by the ugly pirate at the end or where E.T isn't cute and cuddly but evil and cruel, and eats Elliott instead of asking to help him phone home - this is that movie!

It worked, I felt, as an entry in the domestic stitch-up horror genre. The film had a subversive wisecracking feel. There was some genuine relationship developed between the older brother and the frankly (at times) hilarious kid brother (Gattlin Griffith), who was outstanding in his role. The cast played the film dead straight, which I liked. There were a few cute girls on the scene for the older brother (returning from a period of recovery after a breakdown) but this direction wasn't especially pursued as it would have been in many an 80's horror, I like to think this was another act of deliberate subversion. If it's just hasty plotting, I apologise.

The next door neighbour and his doopy kids were fun. I liked what happened to some of this family at the end of the film. In fact, I cheered the horror on. Out of all the cast, I half-hoped the stepmom would survive, I'm not sure if that's because she walks around the garden braless and seems like she actually cares about the kids, or because she's the only one in the family without 'issues', in fact - she's outrageously normal in a suburban garden of barking. At the end of the movie, she's the one holding the rope for the kids as they try to escape from hell, while the real mother is in ashes in the garage - if that's not subversion of the all-American family, I don't know what is.

The bed itself wasn't especially scary, but the plot, about the monster that lives under the mattress so you have to sleep on top of cupboards and things (but surely after all those years living with a monster in your house, that dumb dad would have spotted something odd going on, I mean,at the dinner table wouldn't you be asking your kid why he looks so traumatised every night?) was suitably creepy and weird, like a bad nightmare after too much Stilton and crackers.

The monster was decent enough but the scenes in the demon's world were wonderfully surreal and full of energy and realisation, as good as the underwater sequences in Argento's Inferno. It looked like these scenes were originally intended for 3D - if they weren't, they should have been.

This was a horror film with a subversive touch - The 'Burbs meets The Beast in the Cellar and Disney's Don't Look Under The Bed (imaginary X-rated version), with some outrageously yucky special effects and squished heads at the end (hey - this was a family-friendly horror movie waiting to stab you in the neck just before the end credits rolled, mid-popcorn and cherry pop finishing off). Most of all, my God - I had fun!

mark gordon palmer

This movie was garbage. I gave it 1 star cause it won't allow 0. The premise was old and overdone, the acting was cheesy at best (especially by the father who reminded me of Russell Crowe too much) and the movie had no explanation of why the monster was under their bed or where it came from. The worst was the ending though, killing the monster with their dead mom's ashes GROAN!

This movie is way under-rated.

The monster in this movie is awesome, first off, it's one of the better (if not best) original monster creations in recent horror movies. What's more is this movie remembers a time when a monster could be set up, through darkness and shadow play. Teased at, only to be revealed in the climax of the film. It's an art that has been forgotten by most in the genre. And this movie knows how to use gore without overusing it, another balancing act long forgotten.

There were a few things that didn't make sense, the biggest being what the dad is so mad about through the whole movie. The only reason for this (plot-wise) being that he pushes the children into confronting the monster.

We don't really get any sense of the motivation of the monster, but what are you gonna do? Sit down and try to ask him why he wants to eat you? We all know the tropes that are widely used to explain back-story in these films, but this movie sidesteps those, and I don't find it that detrimental to the film as a whole.

Overall, this movie isn't a masterpiece, but it's worth watching with a bag of popcorn.

This film was alright truth be told, if you have read other reviews on IMDb then you'll see a lot of criticism towards plot holes, continuity issues and a sometimes jumbled jumping story. Two brothers who are menaced by a monster under the bed during the night and have to endure their constantly angry dad during the day. Unable to prove the monsters existence everyone doubts them as crazies until the two worlds meet. This wasn't a spectacular movie by any accounts but it was okay, you did get a sense of something lurking in the shadows constantly but you also got the feel good 'us VS the world' feel as you follow the two brothers throughout their plight. All the action came in the last half an hour of the film. The monster manages to escape and wreak havoc and boys have fight it. While the acting is a bit wooden at times (not all the time, don't get me wrong) I liked that there was no CGI in this film, just old-school effects and man in monster suit.

Give it a go but expect a slow burner which feels creepy at times. It's not 100% original but does offer some nice twists to keep it from being the same old boring 'monster under the bed' story as other titles.

Under the Bed is not your average horror movie. Instead it has the feel of good old films like Fright Night or Lost Boys. The story is that of two young brothers battling a demon that lives under their bed. They have a choleric and frustrated father who is always angry and doesn't believe them and then there is his wife, who is replacing the boys' mother, dead in suspicious circumstances.

I liked in this movie that they didn't go into the usual recipe of people who don't really believe something is going on, but something is always behind them or in a mirror. Well, there is some of that, but not excessively so. The brothers both know the demon is real and they have to battle on two fronts: the demon at night and their asshole father during the day. All in all a very beautiful premise and well played by all actors.

What I didn't like was the end. Suddenly, after years of subtle activity, the monster emerges and starts killing everything that moves. They don't really explain the demon world that the brothers explore for a brief moment, nor the monster's fascination with the older brother. However, even if I didn't enjoy the end as much as the rest of the movie, it doesn't mean it is a bad ending and overall I liked the movie and its feel very much.

Bottom line: it felt like an old school horror movie, that contains good acting as well as a captivating story. They didn't even use CGI, as the monster was a guy in a suit and all the other effects were done with smoke, lightning and rubber props. I thought it was a small distance away from a cult classic and only the rather abrupt and kind of pointless ending spoiled it. I do hope they make a sequel, preferably with the demon returning and saying "Boyyy!" :)

...is the epilogue where the survivors have to explain to the cops at the end of the movie why there are several dead people across two neighboring houses. No physical evidence remains of any monster. If I'm a cop, I'm thinking that the most likely culprit, despite any protestations by other witnesses, is the disturbed kid who burned his house down a few years earlier. What follows is some jail time, a lengthy investigation, and possibly a prosecution. The neighbors' dad certainly is going to want to know who decapitated his kid. I'd bet that a media circus follows and the disturbed kid ends up serving life in prison.