Sometimes, what starts out as fun and games takes a turn into terror!

Under the Bed is a curious little creature feature. If you’re typically critical while watching films, you’d be better off skipping it. But if you just like to be spooked, you’ll probably appreciate this little slice of “horror lite.”

I call Under the Bed horror lite because it virtually seems like a “family” scary movie…right up until the sudden dark, violent, and grisly final moments.

The plot is pretty simple. A teenager comes back home after some time “away,” resulting from emotional problems following his mother’s death. His father, now remarried, doesn’t want him negatively influencing his younger brother, who seems to be having the same problem he was having; he regularly sees something under his bed.

The dad in the film is a downright prick throughout the movie, very often putting the brothers in danger due to his refusal to believe anything they say about the threat in their home. Oddly, the stepmom, who is quite nice, experiences supernatural shit in the house herself but never says anything! These types of plot issues might really infuriate nitpickers.

But the bonding relationship between the two brothers and the surreal creature with which they keep having close brushes move the story forward, even though much of the film is more about the dysfunction in the family than it is about the creature. You start to wonder if the “monster” is a classic metaphor for the meanness of the father. But nope. That ain’t it!

Holy crap! In the last fifteen minutes of the film, the creature crawls out into the real world, looking like something from The Descent! There are plenty of freaky creepy shots, bodies pile up within a matter of minutes, and it’s an absolute gorefest! What a payoff! Then things get a little fantastical as the older brother has to travel to the creature’s dimension (under the bed). And it gets even weirder when they discover exactly what it is that will defeat the creature….

Okay. So it’s not the most logical plot. But it is good old scary fun.