13 for 13: DeathBed (dir by Danny Draven)

Posted on March 13, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2002’s DeathBed, Karen (Tanya Dempsey) and Jerry (Brave Matthews) move into a new apartment. Karen is an illustrator of children’s books. Jerry is a professional photographer who occasionally does “nudie stuff.” Their new landlord and building superintendent is Art (Joe Estevez).

At first, the new apartment seems ideal. But then, strange things start happening. Karen starts to have visions of a woman being strangled in the apartment. She struggles to finish her latest illustration project and instead finds that strange and disturbing pictures have been drawn while she was apparently asleep. Jerry gets weird at work, telling models to pose as if they’ve been tied down to a mattress. Jerry and Karen’s sex life gets a bit more adventurous but even that leaves Karen worried. She feels as if she’s losing control.

Could the apartment be haunted?

Or could it have something to do with the creepy bed that Karen and Art previously found in a hidden room and which Karen decided to make the centerpiece of the new apartment?

Karen starts to do research. At first, she can’t find any evidence that a murder was ever committed in the apartment but then she discovers that the name of the street was changed in the 40s and that her new apartment actually has a very long and rather macabre history. Meanwhile, Jerry worries about her sanity. Deadlines are blown. Murders are committed. And the viewer is left asking one question….

Would you rent an apartment from Joe Estevez?

Actually, I’m being way too snarky with that question. DeathBed is surprisingly effective horror film and Joe Estevez gives a likable performance as Art. Personally, I still think Karen was way too quick to explore a previously hidden room with him but, otherwise, Art comes across as being a genuinely nice guy.

DeathBed is actually one of the better films that I’ve seen from Full Moon Pictures. While I wasn’t a huge fan of Danny Draven’s direction of Hell Asylum, he does an excellent job with DeathBed, creating and maintaining an atmosphere of ominous doom and gradual decay. What makes the film so effective is that Karen and Jerry don’t fall apart immediately. Instead, it’s a gradual process. The viewer can see it happening but Karen and Jerry can’t. Brave Matthews and especially Tanya Dempsey are well-cast as the troubled couple. Dempsey gives an especially strong performance, playing a woman who has used her art to create the ideal life that she’s never had.

DeathBed has an interesting story and a few creative twists, even if the film’s actual ending what come as a huge surprise to experienced horror fans. I appreciated that Karen’s visions of the previous murder appeared to carry hints of the infamous Black Dahlia case. It served to remind the viewer that real life can sometimes be just as terrifying and mysterious as the movies.

Would I rent an apartment from Joe Estevez?

Well, probably not. Not after seeing what happened with Karen and Jerry. But I don’t blame Karen and Jerry for wanting the apartment. It’s a nice apartment. It’s just that there are times that hidden rooms should definitely remain hidden.

13 for 13: Hell Asylum (dir by Danny Draven)

Posted on March 13, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Would you watch a reality show produced by Joe Estevez?

Of course not! Reality TV …. hey, that’s the form of entertainment that is destroying our culture and leaving viewers unable to think for themselves! Reality TV is a pox on our house. Thanks to reality TV, the Kardashians are more famous than they have any right to be. Jennifer Welch has become a political pundit despite having all the charm of a sour lemon. People now feel like they have to live every moment as if there’s a million people watching and as a result, it’s become difficult to connect in any meaningful way…..

Eh. Actually, I like reality TV more than I should and I probably would watch a reality show produced by Joe Estevez.

I mean, why not? The best reality shows are always kind of sleazy and there are few actors who are as talented at playing sleazy characters as Joe Estevez. If Martin Sheen often seems as if he’s auditioning to be the Pope, his brother Joe comes across as if he’s auditioning to be the tabloid reporter who writes a slanderous story about the Pope. The fact that Joe Estevez looks like a drunk version of his brother only serves to make him all the more effective as someone who you wouldn’t necessarily want to be associated with. (Unless, of course, he could make you a lot of money….)

In Hell Asylum, Joe Estevez plays Stan, a network television executive. The movie opens with a show being pitched to him. The pitch, like many of the scenes in Hell Asylum, goes on way too long. Basically, a group of models have been recruited to spend the night in a supposedly haunted asylum while being filmed. The pitch is nothing special but Stan needs a hit.

Of course, it turns out that the asylum really is haunted. It takes a while but eventually, the models and the television crew end up being stalked by a bunch of mysterious hooded figures. (Brinke Stevens is credited as being the “Head Spectre.”) The murders are filmed with a blue tint, which is creepy at first but eventually just hurts your eyes. There’s some gore, but it’s mostly just some red gloop and rope meant to stand-in for spilled intestines. It’s not particularly scary but at least it’s only 72 minutes.

Of course, Joe Estevez thinks that he has his hands on America’s hottest new reality show. At first, I thought the movie was being a bit too cynical but then I thought about all of the real-life deaths that I’ve seen posted to twitter and YouTube and I realized that I was probably being naive. We actually did have a reality show in which each episode ended with someone pretending to “die.” Murder in Small Town X was set up like Survivor, except that no one was voted off the island. Instead, they were voted to meet the killer. Even though no one actually died, I would have to think it would be more infinitely more traumatic to know that a bunch of people voted for you to be pretend-killed instead of pretend-exiled. That said, Murder In Small Town X was actually a lot of fun!

I wonder if Joe Estevez produced it.

The Daily Horror Grindhouse: Dead 7 (directed by Garrett Clancy)

Posted on October 4, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recently opened up Decrepit Crypt of Nightmares DVD box set from Mill Creek and went searching for a movie to review for October. The movie that I picked was Dead 7, a slasher film from the year 2000.

Dead 7 — or, I should say, the version of Dead 7 that I saw — got off to a pretty bad start when the douchebag pictured below appeared on the screen.

Speaking in a low, guttural voice that I guess was supposed to sound scary, this guy introduced the movie and explained that it was about a meth dealer who tossed a deaf kid in a hole and who suffered an appropriate fate as a result. Okay great, I thought. But then the guy kept talking and, to be honest, his voice was so annoying that I have no idea what he was talking about. It reminded me a bit of that old episode of Saved By The Bell where the gang found the old radio station and Screech got to host Screech’s Mystery Theater.

However, Dead 7 should not be judged by that introduction. For one thing, I get the feeling that the introduction was tacked on by the film’s distributor, Brain Damaged Films. (In fact, the credits even state that the intro was filmed by a separate director.) And once you get past the intro, Dead 7 is actually a fairly effective slasher film.

Now, don’t get me wrong. According to the imdb, Dead 7 was made for $7,000 and it definitely looks like it was made for $7,000. This is an ultra low-budget film and it really doesn’t do anything to redefine the slasher genre. This is one of those films where a group of people do something bad in the past and then, a few months later, they die as a result. There are no great surprises but still — when taken on its own terms, Dead 7 is an effective film.

Just as the toadsucker in the intro promised, a group of meth dealers toss a deaf kid into a mine shaft and leave him to die. Three months later, the kid’s odd sister, Venus (Delia Copold) performs some sort of odd ceremony in the wilderness and soon the meth dealers and their girlfriends are all dying in various bloody ways. Can you figure out what’s happening? Of course, you can!

That said, Dead 7 definitely works. Garrett Clancy makes the best possible use of his low-budget, filming with a constantly roaming camera and using properly askew angles to keep the audience off-balance. The gore is surprisingly well-done for such a low-budget film and, while the acting won’t win any awards, all of the lowlifes are appropriately scuzzy. (Delia Copold probably gives the best performance in the film, especially when taunting the main dealer.) The film ends on a properly ironic note and, all in all, watching Dead 7 is not a bad way to waste 72 minutes in October.