Dead & Buried

Gary Sherman's film Dead & Buried, from a script by Alien writers Ron Shusset and (the late) Dan O'Bannon, is a strange creature of a movie. It's meant to reel in the horror movie crowd, but it's for a crowd of another time period. That is, at least, the filmmaker's intention, and it's the kind of horror movie that might have been made in the 40's (maybe Val Lewton would've produced it, though probably never showing a death on screen), and has a mad mortician, calmly and chillingly played by Jack ("Grandpa Joe" from Willy Wonka) Albertson, bringing back people from the dead and having those dead go after tourists or passerbys who have the dumb luck to travel into town.

Sometimes the gore is meant to be emphasized, like with the death of the fisherman or the doctor who gets acid poured on him. The latter of these is a terrible scene, not just because Stan Winston wasn't involved in the effect (you can tell), but because it's done too much and the camera lingers a little too long. Dead & Buried is helped by it being surreal: the opening scene where the guy is photographing on the beach, comes across the woman and starts to take pictures "for Playboy" and then is overcome by a horde of people also flashing pictured and filming and is killed by fire, is something out of a pure nightmare (you almost expect someone to wake up, but no one does). When it sticks to this dead-undead thing, of the hints at witchcraft and the eerie performances by the Sheriff's wife and some of the townspeople like Robert Englund, make it worthwhile.

Dead & Buried is not what you expect, which is a good and not-so-good thing. It's low-budget and atmospheric, and its ending is a bit of a WTF twist that seems unnecessary. But there's a lot of interest here, a lot of weird effects with cameras and crowds of the undead. Just don't go expecting the usual flesh and guts show, despite what the film's own distributors thought at the time.

Horror story full of tension, thrills , chills and restless terror. The writers of alien, Ronald Shusett and Dan O'Bannon , bring a new bizarre terror to earth . Suspense/horror film set in a small coastal town in Rhode Island where, after a series of gory murders committed by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses begin to come back to life . Bouts of insanity in the populace , realising a plague of murderous madness that are leading several grisly killings . In the little town some people begins to kill and rioting, and things really start going to hell with this sudden death-wave . The strange events drive its victims mad before killing them, with a difficult line between normal hysteria and actual insanity . Meanwhile the sheriff Gillis ( James Farentino married to Melody Anderson ) is investigating the weird deeds , but has no tracks to what's going on. Fortunately, the coastal small New England town has a magnificent mortician named William G. Dobbs (Jack Albertson) , who is glad to take care of these deaths which is good for his business . The puzzling seems to be resolved at the creepy final packed with twists and turns .

This one is of the highest earning horror movies of the 80s and contains a good cast as James Farentino , Melody Anderson and special mention to Jack Albertson as the mysterious undertaker . Furthermore , early apparition of the future terror icon as Robert Englund and film debut for Lisa Blount . It's a solid movie , a terror story plenty of suspense and intrigue in which the victims seem to be coming back to life. Film itself takes place from point of sight the sheriff and the mortician . The living dead appearance is the high point of the movie , they deliver the goods plenty of screams, shocks and tension . The horror moments are compactly made and fast moving . It packs tension, shocks, thrills, chills and lots of gore and blood . There's plenty of moments of gore and a number of scenes that are quite horrifying , resulting to be definitely the spotlight of the film the surprising ending . This gory chiller is well made by Gary A. Sherman . Gary is an expert on action genre as proved in ¨Wanted : dead or alive¨ , ¨Vice squad¨ and terror as ¨Death line¨ , ¨Poltergeister III¨ , and ¨Dead and buried¨ , this one is his best film . Rating : 6,5 , good horror movie .

'Dead & Buried' is one of the most interesting and original American horror movies of the 80s. Co-written by Dan O'Bannon of 'Alien' and 'Lifeforce' fame, this underrated movie should get a larger audience once it is available on DVD. (It already is here in Australia, but I'm not sure about the US and UK just yet). TV regular James Farentino stars as a small town sheriff who finds that a series of puzzling murders is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bizarre secrets hiding right underneath his nose. He's not sure exactly what's going on but quickly begins to suspect the involvement of his lovely wife ('Flash Gordon's Melody Anderson) and/or the creepy local eccentric mortician (Jack Albertson, best know from 'Willy Wonka'), and basically just about everyone else in Potter's Bluff, the residents of which includes horror icon Robert Englund, Lisa Blount ('Prince Of Darkness'), and Barry Corbin ('Northern Exposure', 'WarGames'). The plot is a little bit hard to swallow when it is finally revealed, but up until that point this movie has plenty of suspense, atmosphere and shocks, and if you can suspend your disbelief at certain crucial moments you'll be in for a good time. Recommended.

Gary Sherman's horror masterpiece begins with one of cinema's best beatings (and burnings) of a fellow human being. The scene takes place on a beach in Potter's Bluff (Mendocino, No. Cal) and is a hypnotic, brutal, black shock to the system.

The beating is filmed by a mild-mannered pipe-smoking old man, a waitress, a mechanic and many other affable citizens of the area. It sets the scene for much grotesquery to come.

DEATH LINE (aka RAW MEAT) demonstrated that Sherman had the goods. DEAD AND BURIED cements him into the brickwork of the horror hall of fame.

Future Freddy Kruger (Robert Englund) makes an appearance, as does sexy Lisa Blount from AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN. But the film's real star is the (now dead and buried himself) Jack Albertson as the coroner of Potter's Bluff. Albertson's is an eccentric, layered, career-best performance.

The tone is dream-like and ethereal. Even interiors are filled with mist. A foghorn is heard constantly. Nobody is who they seem.

A stand-out is a Super-8 home video shot by some students. Its climax provides a not unexpected revelation and the film itself perfectly embodies the horror of corruption which director Sherman is pushing.

The film did zero theatrical business because it's too damn weird for most audiences, and too damn good. But it has developed a cult on video.

Exceptional.

Recently I rented 'Bleeders', one of director Gary Sherman's newer films, and remembered this movie from my past while reviewing it. So, I dug through our video collection until I found it.

'Dead & Buried' is a surprisingly good movie. Released in the time where there was either one murderous main person (Freddy/Jason/Micheal Myers) or a strange pervert slaying half naked teenage girls (Slumber Party Massacre, among others), it was a surprise to see a large group of people get in on the killings. This somewhat original idea is probably one of the most appealing points of the film.

The story goes somewhat like this: strangers keep on getting killed as soon as they show up in the small town in which the movie is set. The local sheriff is somewhat baffled about what's going on -- he's a new cop, so he isn't used to dealing with murders. All this time everyone's acting a little strange: his wife seems to be developing a strange addiction for voodoo and the local mortician seems to enjoy preparing bodies for burial a little too much. When the cop finally starts to realize what's going on, he learns why his town is a little different than most other ones.

Any horror fan would enjoy 'Dead & Buried'. It's should be known as one of the few horror movies from the early eighties that doesn't make you want to crack up laughing. Zombie film fans would probably find it quite interesting as well, as long as they don't expect the run of the mill green skinned 'Bloodsuckers from Outer Space' zombies.