Under The Bed [DVD]
Director: Steven C. Miller
Cast: Jonny Weston, Gattlin Griffith, Peter Holden
Release Date: Now Available on Blu-Ray & DVD
A Review By: Kevin Lovell
Film Rating: 6/10
Disc Rating: 6/10
Plot Summary:
Two brothers team up to battle a creature under the bed, in what is being described as a “suburban nightmare” tale.
First off, please forgive me if I’m a bit judgmental on this review. For anyone that hasn’t already noticed we try to make it a point not to review DVD’s of titles available on Blu-Ray and DVD as we do our best to only cover the highest
quality release available of a title, but unfortunately things don’t always work out, and Blu-Ray product for review was limited, therefore this time we will unfortunately be covering the DVD release of this title.
‘Under The Bed’ is directed by Steven C. Miller (The Aggression Scale, Silent Night) and for the most part plays out as a more child themed horror film in the style of older classics like 
‘Little Monsters’ and ‘Gremlins’ but more sinister and has a somewhat similar feel to Joe Dante’s latest ‘The Hole’ as well. The one key difference between those titles and this one is this film is actually R rated. While it is not an overly offensive film, it does have a number of F bombs and a couple moments with violence in which things get surprisingly gory for what one would imagine in this sort of film. Pretty much the entire cast is unknown to me and the budget seems relatively small. The creature effects are impressive at times and this is certainly a movie that you get into more and more as it progresses and is quite fun even if it’s not a masterpiece.
While ‘Under The Bed’ is not a film that I would say everyone needs to rush out and see immediately, I will say it’s a fun little film that is certainly worth a watch if you come across it. It deals with issues in a family that has been reunited after hard times and is trying to find its way back to some form of normalcy while dealing with the unknown and should keep most entertained.
VIDEO:
The DVD release of ‘Under The Bed’ is presented in a 16×9 friendly Widescreen presentation utilizing the 2.35:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio of the film. For a DVD release the film looks pretty decent, though I watch almost no movies on 
DVD these days and while squeezing this one into a viewing session with a couple of Blu-Ray’s I can’t help but notice a dullness present. The only real issue I found in the video presentation is that in dark scenes with dim lights present (which occur a lot in this film) there is a lot of banding and huge circles in the center of walls that should be smooth. It is decent enough quality for a DVD release and I’m certain the Blu-Ray would look far better. For those who still purchase DVD’s I can’t imagine most will have any problems with the video quality aside from the heavy banding present in a number of scenes.
AUDIO:
The DVD release features a lossy 5.1 channel Dolby Digital soundtrack which holds its own and is for the most part pretty capable. Some moments of this one give the back channels a bit of workout, but for the most part the film is pretty quiet, and some dialogue can be a bit hard to discern, especially with one of the main characters who tends to mumble a lot. I’m not certain if this is simply intended because of the character or a fault of the audio soundtrack, though since I only seemed to only have issues understanding the one character, I’m going to assume that was the intended effect, though it can be a bit distracting and you may want to turn the volume up a bit louder when watching this than you normally would.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Aside from the theatrical trailer, no special features are included on this release.
Film Rating: 6/10
Disc Rating: 6/10
‘Under The Bed’ is now available to own on Blu-Ray & DVD from XLRATOR Media.
