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Would you be able to sleep if you knew there were thousands of tiny dust mites living in your mattress and pillows? It certainly would have potential for a good, scary psycho-thriller, wouldn't you say? I'd say it would. Here, amateur indie film maker Sean Carley attempts to make just that. The results are rather mixed.

The 17-minute short follows Julie, who has just bought a new bed. Unfortunately, there appears to be a giant dust mite living in the bed. The big bug gives her premonitions of things to come the next day as she sleeps. Having a bug that lets you see into the future in your dreams is pretty cool, but every time the mite gives Julie a premonition, she wakes up with a nasty flesh wound the next morning, as well as a slowly deteriorating mind.

I have very mixed feelings about Bed Bugs. On one hand, some of the visuals are striking, the dream-like feel of the short works fairly well, and the acting and effects are decent. On the other hand, one thing Bed Bugs succeeds with flying colors at doing is confusing the the hell out of me during the dream sequences, with the camera flailing around everywhere, and text appearing put of nowhere, that kind of thing. Next is how nonchalantly Julie reacts to discovering there's a giant bug living in her bed. She literally just sees it twitching like it always does under the covers, and basically just says "Hey, a giant bug. What else is new?" Would you react that way to finding an insect the size of a small dog in your covers? I, for one, would never sleep in the bed again.

Bed Bugs is a decent little short, but its still a bit flawed here and there. What should have been a dark, disturbing, non-musical version of Joe's Apartment turned out to be a disorienting, confusing film that has some genuine bright spots, but for the most part is more of the same.

SCORE:  :smile:  :smile:  :smile:  out of five