Art hid with art, so well perform’d the cheat,
It caught the carver with his own deceit:
He knows ’tis madness, yet he must adore,
And still the more he knows it, loves the more:
The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft,
Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft.
Fir’d with this thought, at once he strain’d the breast,
And on the lips a burning kiss impress’d.
~Ovid, Metamorphoses (Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al)

In a twist of the Pygmalion story, German film director Karl Freund’s sculptor is a skilled surgeon shown as a benevolent doctor healing deformed children in his last film, 1935′s Mad Love. His Pygmalion, Dr. Gogol, played by Peter Lorre, is a study in loneliness and obsession; short, bald and, well, Lorre-esquely strange looking, Gogol never misses a public beheading or a night at the horror theater where Yvonne Orlac plays the role of a tortured dutchess.

The film opens with him ogling a wax statue of her character in the Parisian Theatre des Horreurs before her final performance. After the show, he brings flowers to her dressing room and professes his love and deep upset at her leaving the stage. She explains that it really must be her last performance as she is meeting up with her husband, famous pianist Stephen Orlac, that very night so that they can finally begin their life together as a married couple. After an awkward, creepy exchange, someone comes in to bring her down to her farewell party that has begun downstairs, and seeing her biggest fan the respectable Dr. Gogol there, insists that he come join in the festivities.

At the party everyone is stepping up to give her farewell kisses (in exchange for cake) and yet another oblivious numskull suggests Dr. Gogol have a go — which he uses as an invitation to introduce her to his tongue. The assembled French actors shrug it off assuming it is some custom from his strange foreign country full of short creepy fellows, and they proceed to emulate what I can only imagine becomes a new trend in fashionable molestation.

Perhaps mortified by her reaction, or upset by the frenzy of ridiculous kisses that he’s started, Dr. Gogol leaves in a hurry, passing some workmen taking down the wax display of Mrs. Orlac. He bribes them to deliver it to his home instead of the melting pot. There are all sorts of other things happening in the film, but for our purposes here you only need to know that he has his housekeeper brush her hair and maintain her see-through flow-y robes, while he plays the organ to her, calls her Galatea and discusses with her his crazy scheme to get Stephen Orlac into the loony bin and have the real Mme Yvonne for himself. You’ll have to watch the film yourself to see the Pygmalion/Galatea story played out in its tragi-comedic way. This was Lorre’s first American film, and it is no wonder he became a horror favorite.

Parting ways with the original book, Maurice Renard’s The Hands of Orlac, the story here is not about Gogol as a scientist/medical genius playing God. Initially he saves Stephen Orlac with the best of intentions. He did it for Yvonne, and because he was the only one who could. The results (as preposterous as they are) could not have been known to him, silly horror-”science” aside, he’s accomplished something miraculous — the first successful hand transplant. This is the story not of his scientific obsession, but of his misguided idea of love making him a monster.

“I have conquered science! Why can’t I conquer love?”

In the following scene we watch the further unraveling of Dr. Gogol:

Why is he so crazy? Which came first, the craziness or the loneliness? Surely someone would be so impressed by his brilliance, and his kind focus on treating unfortunate children and mutilated soldiers, and being surrounded by the lovely nurses at his practice, he could find someone to be with? Is his mistake thinking he could attain a gorgeous actress? Does your pity end when he persists after discovering she is married? Or does it linger, tugging your heartstrings over his sad eyes and obvious mental illness? I, myself, am not sure when or if I ever stop feeling sorry for this fellow. Clearly we are meant to think him out of his mind to consider that Mme Yvonne would return his feelings; her a beauty, and him an odd foreign unlovable beast.

Ignoring the superficial aspect of the film entirely, let’s look at a redeeming quality. Perhaps this does not do anything to further the Hollywood image of scientists as non-creeps and people with normal, fulfilled lives capable of healthy relationships — but I was surprised by the fact that this wasn’t about a lost soul wearing blinders to keep out everything but his great work that will help the world while destroying the lives of those around him. The Pygmalion addition to Renard’s story gives it more depth than if Freund had followed a more familiar science fiction tale. Even the other film paired on the dvd with Mad Love, Devil Dolls, is a heavy-handed tale of Evil Scientists too single-minded to even know how evil they are. Mad Love is not a brilliant film, and the story of recycled body parts has been done over scores of times before and since. But it does stand out for me after being positively buried in anti-science films. I don’t normally like remakes, however I would love to see this done with a different type of casting for Dr. Gogol, but with the same treatment of love being the monster-maker.

After bouncing around in my queue for several months, bumped by the Heartbreak of 2008 (Doctor Who, Series 4) and stuck behind The Riches (a series I think is absolutely fascinating but is so painful to watch, for me, that I haven’t been able to finish), the weekend in Ohio with friends over the holidays was the kick in the butt needed to finally get my hands on Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. With Kara’s animated description and enthusiastic review I was entirely sold on it. It would be a couple more weeks before I had time to get to the disc that was holding it up, and then Netflix bursts my bubble with a “not available from your local shipping center … on its way and should arrive within 3 to 5 days” message, and so this much anticipated viewing was put off again until this past weekend.

I’m saddened by all the hate this movie has gotten. Why is anyone knocking the effects on a low-budget indie film from the 70s? No seriously. Could you have done better with the same limits? And for a directorial debut, and first and only production? I’m even more saddened that it took the theft of George Barry’s work to get this released leaving him creditless for over two decades. Think of what he could’ve done in that time.

Forget all of your glossy effects snobbery and look at Death Bed: The Bed That Eats as a truly unique story, with a remarkable set up. The monster cannot hunt screaming girls through the woods. There’s no heartthrob hero. One of the strongest characters is a kick-ass black woman — the only one who actually fights back! Then, mid-”Yeah!” moment, your fleeting joy is brought down in a sloooowww and twisted way. Just when you’re asking “how did this bed even happen?” the narrator launches into the history. There’s a fantastic moment when the bed has a “pleasant” dream; character development for a bed. Barry is brilliant. We’re talking about a genre that is built entirely on crap no one was meant to pay attention to at drive-ins. I love crappy gross-outs with all their flaws and eye rolling dumbness, but this — I couldn’t take my eyes off it! This, I would watch again.

The reviews I’ve read have missed key points in their synopsizes while insisting that the backstory and plot makes little sense. I can think of a few minor holes, (namely how does it make munching sounds without teeth? Answer: I don’t really care! It’s a bed that eats. There’s digestive-fluid vision!) and they did little to mar my enjoyment of this fun, ridiculous, original flick. I wish the big budget horror Hollywood darlings could come up with something this creative and different on their own instead of churning out weak remakes of Asian films. I can’t think of one decent American horror movie made recently. Plot holes in Death Bed: The Bed that Eats? Have you seen M. Night Shyamalan’s stuff? Victor Salva’s? Rob Zombie’s? C’mon.

I’ve been thinking about Santa Claus, ever since it came up in conversation over dinner with my boyfriend about two weeks ago. He said he wouldn’t lie to a kid, and I was intensely disturbed for several minutes. Here, I’m the adamant skeptic and he’s the on-the-fence leaning-towards-there’s-something-bigger-out-there sort, and he’s the one saying Santa Claus is a dirty trick.

At first, I couldn’t figure out why I was bothered by the notion that our hypothetical (hopefully to stay that way) children would miss out on the elf, the myth, the legend that is the jolly fat man. Was it just the warm and fuzzy memories of my very merry holidays growing up? Why was I so insistent that “they” would miss out and resent me later?

So I’ve been turning these ideas over and over in my head ever since, and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel. I do know the following:

• I was sad for about three days when Mom finally let me in on the Big Secret.
• Once I really thought about it I realized that my parents had given up credit on the most exciting and fun gifts under the tree all that time, just to make it more fun for all of us.
• Mom asked me not to spoil it for my brother or for any kids at school who didn’t know. “That is for their parents to do. Don’t take that away from them. It would’ve made me very sad if someone had ruined our fun.” I got it, promised I wouldn’t, and never did.
• However, I also felt really dumb for having believed it. There’d been so many funny things grownups had told me in the past that I knew were silly jokes or just a “because I said so” brush-off/avoidance tactic. Why hadn’t I seen this coming, I chided myself.

How would my childhood have been different if I’d never believed in Santa or the Candy Rabbit or the Tooth Fairy? Would I also have been less terrified that perhaps the creepy looking dolls in the glass cabinet opposite my bed would at some point come to life, find or create their own makeshift weapons and murderously attack me in my sleep? This is actually quite likely, as the weird magic-y elf stuff made me wonder what else lurked about. It couldn’t all be flying reindeer and generous bunnies, I figured. And why wouldn’t I? If there can be a castle made of teeth, and beings that can travel the world-over in a single night, why couldn’t they have some wicked-awful contemporaries? Mom said there were no such things as monsters, but was she just saying that to make me feel better? I slept with one eye open, and made sure my limbs never got too close to the side of the bed. You just never could be sure, apparently.

Are a few nights of joy a year worth the 360 or so plagued with potential nightmares? Maybe, maybe not.

It took only a short while after the Claus was let out of the bag, for me to start to question everything they’d told me. Maybe the cats really could eat people food — Samantha did seem interested in my sandwiches. Maybe the police didn’t arrest children out after dark that weren’t directly in front of their houses. How did they know what kids belonged to which house anyhow? Maybe there really were cooties. Maybe grownups weren’t just lying about things — maybe it was worse. Maybe they just didn’t know.

I started getting into trouble at Sunday school. I wanted to know how everyone was so sure the monks got the Bible straight. Wouldn’t it be like whisper-down-the-lane? How was anyone to know if it was even close? And who was this lady Cain went off and started a family with? Where’d she come from if his parents were the only people in the world?

“Beth, don’t you dare question the teachings of Jesus,” is all Miss Elsie would say. But Mom’d told me it was important to ask questions when you didn’t understand something, even if the other kids rolled their eyes or laughed. “There are no stupid questions,” she said, “The bigger mistake would be to try and keep going without all the information.”

At 8 or 9 years old, they stop saying “bless her precious soul” when exasperated. You’re difficult and a disruption, even more so than the kids who chatter without paying attention, and the ones snapping rubber bands or drumming on the table. By 11-12 you’re pulled aside and told to keep quiet. “Don’t ruin it for the other children. You keep your mouth shut and speak when spoken to,” hissed Mr. D, who made sure I wasn’t spoken to again. Disappointed and frustrated, I started sneaking down into the church cellar as soon as I was out of sight from my mom and step-grandmother, to hide in the supply closet or the ladies’ room and read whatever book I smuggled in.

By 13 I was fed up with getting up early on Sundays to go and do something I could just as easily do at home in my pjs. I finally realized Mom would be really pissed off if she knew why I’d stopped wanting to go to church, and it wouldn’t be at me. I never had to go back, after that and after a few weeks of her coming home, agitated and narrow-eyed, she stayed home with me. Weekends were suddenly much more enjoyable, but I felt bad she’d lost a social outlet because of me.

Around that time we went on a trip to see our extended family who live in snow-country. It was summer time, and my younger cousin who was about three at the time runs through the meadow that is their backyard at me with something clasped in her hands.

“I have a bird!” she squealed.

“Oooh, whatcha got there? Let’s see,” I said cupping her hands as we peered in, a little worried she’d snatched up a fallen chick. Fuzzy brown antennae emerged, followed by the velvety body and wings of a particularly dazzling moth.

“Oh! That’s not a bird, though it does have wings and can fly too. Do you know what else can fly?”

“Bats!” she said. One of her favorite books was about a bat, Stellaluna, who lived with birds. “It’s so small.”

“Maybe it’s a baby bat,” I said. “Go show Aunt Jo!”

“Lookit! I have a baby bat! I have a baby bat!” she chirped as she ran into the kitchen, to the horror of my Aunt. Because of the distance between our states and our infrequent visits, well over a decade later, my cousin still raises an eyebrow when I tell her something. “Yeah right, Beth! MOM. . .”

I totally get the appeal of lying to children, and think I want to do it as often as possible. It is probably a good thing the kids are going to stay hypothetical. But maybe not.