rare. Despite its pirated VHS releases outside of the United States, Barry remained unaware that the film had received any sort of release until 2001, when he discovered a forum post about the film by French film journalist Jean-Claude Michel on the website "Scarlet Street." This led to interviews with Barry by Daniel Craddock, who had written a review of the film, and, in turn, author Stephen Thrower, for his book Nightmare USA (2007). The film was given its first official theatrical exhibition on February 15, 2003 at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival. For this release, Barry incorporated new theme music to the opening and closing credits, performed by Thrower's band Cyclobe, as he was never satisfied with the original theme composed by Mike McCoy. Home media Following Barry's discovery of the film's bootlegged releases, Death Bed received its first official home media release in the United States in 2003, through the independent home media distributor Cult Epics. In 2013, they released the film for the first time on Blu-ray, which included a new HD transfer of the film, as well as both the original mono and new 5.1 soundtracks. Also included was a new introduction by Thrower⁠ (in addition to the original one by Barry from the DVD release⁠), an audio commentary with both Thrower and Barry, a conversation between the two, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and the original musical theme by Mike McCoy. Critical response Death Bed has received little attention from mainstream critics due to its lack of distribution. Reactions to the film during its first official release have been mixed to positive, with some characterizing it as "so bad it's good", highlighting its inherent oddness, along with its surreal and absurdist atmosphere; others have criticized these same merits along with its lack of characterizations and pacing. Dennis Harvey from Variety wrote, "Death Bed is a horror flick destined for some small place in the hearts of psychotronic fans who already treasure such extreme oddities as Blood Freak, not to mention Andy Milligan's entire ouevre." Barry Meyer from Film Monthly gave the film a slightly positive review, writing, "Death Bed is such a true original that you have to overlook all its faults and just go with it and enjoy this whimsical drug induced nightmare." Brian J. Dillard from AllMovie called it "a major classic in the what-were-they-thinking school of horror". Joseph A. Ziemba from Bleeding Skull!