Director(s) – Greg Lamberson (Killer Rack, Slime City) and Michael O’Hear (Something Dark)
Starring – Debbie Rochon (Axe to Grind, Dollface), Michael O’Hear, and John Renna (Porkchop 3D, Snow Shark: Ancient Snow Beast)
Release Date – 2013
Rating – 3.5/5
Tagline – “Sometimes you shouldn’t go home alone”
Greg Lamberson has had one hell of a career in indie horror after he directed the 1988 splatter classic Slime City. He has been making indie horror films for almost 30 years. I can’t say that about many indie filmmakers but this man has been doing it for almost 3 decades.
Several months back, possibly even a year ago, Alternative Cinema sent me the creature feature Dry Bones to review about the monster under your bed from the mind of Lamberson. I was excited about checking it out especially since I was mostly let down by the Steven C. Miller film with a similar story. I could not wait to review it but several things came about in my personal life and the film was forgotten on my shelf until I saw horror sites posting reviews for Lamberson’s new film Killer Rack. I remembered the film was there and went ahead and dusted it off for review.
**Spoiler Alert**The film begins with a mother telling her two children, her son and daughter, a bed time story before bed. When she finishes the story she sends her son to his room for bed. However, he is not alone and something dark and sinister crawls out from under the bed and climbs on top of him. The young boy panics and the beast retreats but the scream disturbs his drunken father who comes in to discipline his whiny son. He looks under the bed and finds the beast that pulls him in and kills him.
We jump to present day and the young boy is now a heavily medicated man who is seeking psychiatric help for the event that took his father. His mother recently passed and he is meeting his sister to sell their home after he does a few repairs. He goes out a few times and brings home a lady and the following morning he awakens to find her gone. Then he is visited by the thing under the bed. He flees and calls his doctor who ups his meds. Afraid to go back to his home, he stays with a friend that night.
His friend picks up a girl and can’t take her back to his place now and takes her back to his friends how. However the thing under the bed gets them both. The beast finally reveals itself as an ancient succubus that feeds on the energy of men. He must now fight the thing or face a slow death.**Spoiler Alert**
Slime City is a film I usually watch every other year since I first saw it and I have to say it is a fun film. This lead me to purchasing several other of his films but I have, sadly, not been able to check them out yet. With that being said, I could not wait to check out Dry Bones. The film felt like the perfect Halloween film with the monster under the bed story. The film did deliver some great entertainment but it just wasn’t the film I was expecting.
The acting in this one is fun and fits the flow of the film very well. The entire cast offers up some great performances and work very well with each other. That is something very rare in the indie horror community. Most indie horror films have a cast of people trying to be the next De Niro from Taxi Driver while others lack experience to actually deliver their lines and not just read them. Dry Bones has a solid cast that does make the movie feel bigger than it was.
The story for this one is solid and does flow well but it is not that original and goes a route I did not expect. When I first heard of the film I thought it would be a child’s horror flicks in the same line as Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of the Dark, and The Monster Squad. The film is not like that and actually follows a grown man battling the monster under the bed that turns out to be a succubus. This was fun but it feels like it could be two different films. The monster under the bed angle would have been a great horror film aimed at children for Halloween or the film would have been amazing if it followed the man/succubus relationship in just a sleazier manner. Combined they just don’t feel right.
Finally, the film has no real on screen kills for the viewer to enjoy once again making it feel like a horror flick aimed for children. The film does have some great practical effects however. The succubus looks great along with corpses. These looked great. Overall, Dry Bones is a fun creature feature with a beast we rarely see in horror flicks anymore. This was fun and something different. The story was a little off but was still a great watch. If you like your monster films with substance then this is one you will want to check out.
