UNDER THE BED (2012) Dir: Steven C. Miller

Monster movies are cool, Pacific Rim proved that you could make giant monsters cool again but what about the creepy monsters of our nightmares, the monsters in the closet or the monsters under the bed, well director Steven C.Miller (Aggression Scale) has attempted to show us the evil that lurks under the bed with his new film titled...well...Under The Bed, Shawn Francis takes a look at the film after the jump....

“…Not a man, not a human. Something you can’t see and you can’t read about. You can only hear about it or learn about it as it attacks you.”

Written By Shawn Francis

Before I talk about the movie itself I must relate to you all a specific time of my life that’ll make it easier to

understand why I related to the kids in this flick and why I simply loved the movie as a whole.

When I was a toddler we lived in this house where at some point I began to get plagued with “night terrors.” This was before my brother came along, I think, or when he was just a baby. Can’t recall. But for a while when it was time for bed and my mother put me down in the crib I began to see something sinister fleeting around the dark room. I remember I had lots of toys and this gigantic teddy bear that sat over in the corner. I can’t tell you exactly what this “fleeting shadow” was but it made that teddy bear scary at night. I remember being so scared I would scream for my mother.

This seemed to go on for some time. I was okay during the days, even forgot about it all, but when it came time for bed I would get anxious and this would irritate my mother. The only thing that would drive this “fleeting shadow” away was light, and I would beg my mother to keep the door open. She did but never wide enough that made me feel secure; she always shut it so only a sliver got through. And I could never make her understand that it needed to be open a hell of a lot wider.

Not only was I plagued by this “shadow” but also when I slept I felt something lean over the crib and stare at me. And sometimes not just one thing but many things, like a whole audience was gawking at me. I didn’t need to open my eyes to verify this, I could just feel it. Sometimes that feeling of being gawked at by “unknown forces” scared me so bad I would holler for my mother.

There were three different houses I lived in when I was a kid. We eventually moved into another one a short ways away and I was never plagued by those “night terrors” again.

When Under The Bed opens there are two people in this car and from the conversation you understand teen, Neal Hausman (Jonny Weston) has just been picked up from the airport by his father, Terry, and that he’s coming back home after some kind of extended stay with his Aunt in Florida. From the obvious friction Neal does not get along with his father; does not like his stepmother, Angela (Musetta Vander) and that he has a sibling by the name of Paulie (Gattlin Griffith), which he does care about.

As the movie slowly unfolds from here on we learn Neal is “troubled.” The kind of “troubled” that has others around him believing it’s psychological and that he had some hand in this mysterious fire. The only person who believes his “troubles” are not the type you get institutionalized for is Paulie, who is experiencing the same kind of “troubles.” He has been ever since Neal left. What might these “troubles” be? Well, to put it bluntly, the brothers have a monster living under their bed. Yes, a literal monster, which comes out at night and has been terrorizing them for a long, long time.

They can’t tell their father, they can’t tell anyone because the boogeyman isn’t supposed to be real. Their father is at his wits end for he cannot figure out or solve the boy’s mysterious fear of the dark in their room.

This is one of those movies with a certain level of ambiguity that may dissuade some people from liking it. It didn’t bother me. In fact I liked that I didn’t know the exact history these two brothers had with the monster, or what really happened with the fire. I liked that they didn’t flashback to any of those events, and just picked up the story in the middle so to speak. Bad things have happened, family dynamics are fucked up, Neal is back home (never do we find out why he finally returned) and the “boogeyman” is a real flesh and blood creature that lives under their bed. This is what you see and you roll with the bloody punches as the “bad things” pick up right where they left off.

That quote I began the review off with is from a scene in the final act where Neal is finally coming clean about he and Paulie’s “boogeyman,” to a couple of neighborhood kids they are having a reluctant sleepover with. What Neal knows is simply guess work that may or may not be correct.

What we may know is that this “boogeyman” may be feeding on the dead skin cells every human shed at night in their beds. We know it did not follow Neal to his Aunt’s house. We may know it has some kind of rudimentary “shape-shifting” ability as Paulie states in a scene that it tried to trick him using Neal’s form, and during what may or may not have been a weird dream sequence where a deformed father bursts into their bedroom and tries to throttle the younger brother, and in a Freddy Krueger-esque moment where young Paulie falls asleep in school and is terrorized by a nightmarish visage.

Things we don’t know and never know is how much do the parents suspect? What makes Neal and Paulie so special in regards to being picked on by this “boogeyman,” especially Neal whom it has a serious hard on for? And why does it go from stalking/terrorizing the boys to abrupt outright murder in the last act? The last one had me wondering and I liked that I couldn’t come up with any concrete evidence as to why. This last question may also be another sticking point to why some viewers may get turned off to the movie. Before our Man Of Boogey decides to throw caution to the wind and blatantly murder/feed on two characters in the last 20 minutes or so, you get a very cool homage to PG-13 Steven Spielberg/Joe Dante 80s style movies.

Maybe it’s for the best that we don’t know the full motivation of this creature.

There was another nice homage, one that deals with a short story written by H.P. Lovecraft called, From Beyond, which was turned into a 1986 horror movie of the same name and directed by Stuart Gordon. In Under The Bed the kids learn their “boogeyman” cannot sense them if they don’t move and make any sound. In From Beyond the terrors from the Beyond cannot sense the main characters if they do not move.

I also sensed some very slight nods to Dreamscape (1983) and A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984). At a couple of points I wasn’t sure if the boys had fallen asleep and were being accosted by the thing in their dreams or whether it was a really happening. One scene in particular where Neal’s old bed seems to come alive and wheel itself violently and noisily into the hall where the creature manifests itself partially out of it from under the covers. A very effective scene mind you, but if that had happened for real their father would have obviously have come to see what all the commotion was about as he does in a scene prior during another encounter the boys have with the thing. The fact that he didn’t had me wondering if they were dreaming. And I liked this slight “reality” blurring.

We also never learn why stepmother Angela seemed to also attract its attention. There are a couple of scenes where it’s clear this thing is stalking her as she goes about her daily activities near the end. As I mentioned before the not knowing makes the horror of this movie more potent. At least it did for me.

You’ve noticed I have referred to this creature several times as the “boogeyman” or a “boogeyman.” As children we eventually learn about what lurks in the darkness under our beds and in our closets. Monsters live under the bed and the Boogeyman lives in the closet. That’s how I learned it. Sometimes it’s vice versa. I have always wondered if the Boogeyman is like Godzilla, you know the King Of The Monsters; maybe, he’s the King Of The Childhood Terrors? For a long time I have wished some filmmaker would do a worthy movie about the Boogeyman. Thought we had one in the 2005 film, Boogeyman, but I was disappointed on so many levels with that flick. Under The Bed turned out to be the film Boogeyman should have been, despite the fact that the term “boogeyman” is never used, yet it feels like this creature could be that infamous childhood terror.

At any rate Under The Bed is the closest thing I have seen to someone presenting the fabled monsters of our childhood darkness in a worthy light that is sufficiently creepy and relatable.

I read an interview a few weeks ago where Steven Miller stated if this movie does well he has an idea for a sequel. It seems if there ever is a sequel Neal and Paulie might be dealing with something far worse. Miller wanted more than one monster in this film but the budget wouldn’t allow it. I’d also be curious to see where a second film picks up presuming the same surviving characters are used. The film ends with the police showing up. How do you explain to the police how those neighbors got so dead and mutilated? I have a feeling poor Neal might end up in an institution after all, or prison.

Here in the U.S. Under The Bed hits DVD and blu-ray separately from Xlrator Media. The transfer on the blue is gorgeous and is in what appears to be an anamorphic 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 aspect ratio. The Audio is configured to be in English 5.1 DTS-HD, with English subtitles only. The only extra included on both the DVD & the blu-ray is the movie’s trailer.

To date, this movie has yet to be released overseas.