Under the Bed 3
床下有人3
China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 87 mins.
Director: Shang Yongfeng 尚永峰.
Rating: 3/10.
Good-looking but narratively confused Mainland horror has a kind of crazed watchability.
STORY
Beijing, the present day. Famous singer Ai Jiajia (Yin Guo’er) and her research-chemist husband Wu Zhihao (Jiang Wenxuan) have just moved into a large house in a gated community. It’s the latest in a series of moves due to Ai Jiajia’s persecution mania that she’s still being pursued by the press since she was hospitalised after collapsing on stage. She still wears a neck brace and her voice is hoarse from stress. She and her husband take possession of an antique bed that her friend Wang Kun (Wu Peng) found for her on a website; the same day she also adopts a cute puppy she’s just found. Ai Jiajia is especially stressed as her management is now promoting another singer, Tian Yumeng. Meanwhile, Wu Zhihao keeps getting text messages and pictures from a woman who calls herself Ma Xiaoyun (Liu Liyuan) and claims to be a wandering spirit who will revenge herself on him for once saying he loved her. Next day the puppy is found killed in their garden, and Ai Jiajia wonders whether she did it herself while sleep walking with a knife she owns. She then discovers that some blue pills she’s been taking can cause hallucinations and aggressive behaviour, and suspects Wu Zhihao may be trying to poison her. At Wu Zhihao’s workplace, an aggressively friendly new colleague, Xiao Tianxin (Song Wei), seems to know all about his past and about a girlfriend he had who committed suicide. That night Ai Jiajia and Wu Zhihao both sleepwalk and have strange nightmares. Next day their maid Xiaomei (Miao Qing) threatens to leave as she’s heard the new bed they got is haunted by someone who died in it. Was it Ma Xiaoyun? Ai Jiajia contacts Wang Kun, who’s just returned from abroad, and asks how he found the bed. She then hires a sorceress to “exorcise” it.
REVIEW
Like Under the Bed II 床下有人2 (2014), this third entry in the Mainland horror series has Niu Chaoyang 牛朝阳, director of the original (Who under the Bed 床下有人, 2011), as “creative producer”, with direction left to other hands. This time, however, those hands have some experience already – young people’s films Forbidden Games 假日 (2010) and Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance 谁说大象不能跳舞 (2012), horror short Chaoyang Street Outside No. 81 朝外81号 (2014) – and it shows. In its visual sophistication, Under the Bed 3 床下有人3 is up there with Who under the Bed; but like so many Mainland horrors it’s let down by a bland millennial cast and a script, co-written by Wang Hailan 王海兰 (one of the writers on Niu’s starry comedy Lovers & Movies 爱我就陪我看电影, 2015) and director Shang Yongfeng 尚永峰, that’s all over the place in narrative clarity. Box office was some way down on the first two films’ but still okay for a budget horror at RMB9.3 million.
Jiangsu-born Shang has since gone on to specialise in the genre and, despite its narrative confusion, Bed 3 has a kind of crazed approach, heightened by hard-driven music (uncredited), that at least keeps it watchable. Too many scenes are staged for pure effect rather than for what they contribute to the overall drama, but at least the writers keep the pot bubbling over who the villain of the piece actually is, with all the main characters under suspicion at one time or another. Unkind souls may say that’s more down to the script’s chaotic structure than actual planning.
Led by Changchun-born scream queen Yin Guo’er 殷果儿 (Bed II) as the neurotic singer with a persecution complex, the young cast is pretty vanilla, especially Jiang Wenxuan 姜文轩 as the lead’s husband. In her big-screen debut, Miao Qing 苗青 almost quietly steals the show as the couple’s maid. As in all three films, there’s a strong pre-title sequence, and at least this one puts a bed at the centre of the plot, unlike Bed II.
CREDITS
Presented by Shanxi Filmoon Pictures (CN), Beijing Filmoon Pictures (CN), Beijing Eastern Melody Culture (CN), Eastern April Day Film & Culture Zhejiang (CN), Nanjing Dieyun Culture (CN), Beijing Eastern Longle Films & Culture (CN), Beijing Suiyuan Culture Development (CN), Beijing Silver Lion Pictures & Culture Media (CN). Produced by Filmoon Pictures Beijing (CN).
Script: Wang Hailan, Shang Yongfeng. Photography: Qiu Congzhi. Editing: Wang Peng. Music: uncredited. Music editing: Liao Heru. Art direction: Lv Huaguo. Styling: Zhou Lingfeng. Sound: Qu Peng, Jie Jingguo. Executive direction: Liang Haidong.
Cast: Yin Guo’er (Ai Jiajia), Jiang Wenxuan (Wu Zhihao), Miao Qing (Xiaomei, maid), Liu Liyuan (Ma Xiaoyun; Ma Xiaoyu), Song Wei (Xiao Tianxin), Wu Peng (Wang Kun), Wang Dan (Xiaochen, Wu Zhihao’s colleague), Chen Yuecheng (Qiqi, sculptress), Ai Ruitian (Xia, haunted victim at start), Ying Yu (granny), Liu Yongmei (acupuncturist), Li Ziyu (Wu Zhihao’s manageress).
Release: China, 11 Mar 2016.