Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing Monsters, which aired in syndication from 1988 to 1991. The entire show is streaming on Tubi.
Tonight, a bed demands to be fed.
Episode 1.10 “Pillow Talk”
(Dir by David Odell, originally aired on December 24th, 1988)
Miles Magnus (John Diehl) is one of the most successful horror authors in the world, writing best seller after best seller. All of his books seem to involve a “master” who forces other people to do something terrible. This episode opens with Miles bringing home his date, Barbara (Ruth de Sosa), and immediately taking her to his bedroom.
Barbara is impressed, especially with the fact that Miles keeps all of his books in his bedroom. Miles is more interested in pointing out his rather large bed. Miles tells her that, like Marcel Proust, he does all of his writing in bed. Barbara’s reaction indicates that she’s not sure exactly who Marcel Proust is. Despite the fact that Miles is kind of awkward and geeky, it’s not long before Barbara has stripped down to her underwear, rolled around on the bed, and invited Miles to join her.
Then the bed eats her.
Seriously. The mattress opens up like a mouth and two rather phallic tentacles wrap around Barbara and pull her into the gaping hole. All that’s left behind are her high heels because, apparently, the bed does not like shoes.
It turns out that Miles has been using the old trick of writing about what you know. Miles does have a master and it’s his bed. Of course, the bed itself is possessed by a creature that Miles describes as being the last of “the Great Old Ones.” So, Miles’s bed is possessed by Cthulhu?
The next night, Miles brings home another woman. Vicki (Mary Woronov) is a writer herself. She writes romance novels and she tells Miles that she feels as if they are kindred spirits because her novels also often feature a master/servant relationship. Miles tries to maneuver Vicki over to the bed but, instead, Vicki finds Miles’s diary and leaves with it.
Vicki later calls Miles and tells him that she hasn’t been able to put down his diary, which she apparently believes to be a rough draft of his newest novel. She invites him over to her apartment so they can discuss it. Mostly wanting to get back his diary so his secrets are not revealed, Miles goes over to Vicki’s place. Vicki says that she thinks they should collaborate on a new novel and more. After checking to make sure that Vicki’s bed is not alive, Miles agrees.
Ha! The joke’s on Miles. Vicki’s bed may not eat people but her refrigerator does! When Miles gets a beer, he’s dragged into the refrigerator by a familiar set of tentacles and only his shoes are left behind. Cthulhu really does not like footwear!
This was an enjoyable piece of Lovecraftian-style whimsy, with John Diehl giving an effectively jittery performance and Mary Woronov stealing the entire episode with her more cool and icy turn as the femme fatale, Vicki. Just as being confined to bed gave Proust the time to perfect his talent, having to feed his bed has made Miles into both a successful author and a mental wreck. More than just being a show about a bed that eats people, this is also a story about the isolation of being an artist. In order to keep his talent and inspiration from fading, Miles has to literally destroy every human relationship that he has. He can blame it on Cthulhu all the he wants but, in the end, Miles is the one who made his bed and must now sleep in it.
Through the Shattered Lens 