Buried Alive

A young man, his cousin, his cousin's boyfriend, a nerd and two sorority pledges go to the man's house in the desert, where everyone thinks they're just camping for the weekend. But the young man knows why they're really there: gold. There be gold in those hills! But does a family curse want them to be there, and what about the old caretaker, Lester (Tobin Bell)? Could be an interesting weekend.

Robert Kurtzman directs, which is a mixed blessing. Kurtzman has a good name in horror from his time at NKB doing makeup and special effects. And he directed "Wishmaster" which many consider to be something of a minor classic. The unfortunate thing about this film is that Kurtzman adds nothing special to his resume: while the directing overall seems much tighter than "Wishmaster", the story he was given to work with just isn't as enjoyable. Better film quality does not always mean a better film (in fact, it rarely means this).

The selling point to this film is probably Tobin Bell (Jigsaw from "Saw"). And I have to say his character is pretty decent, as the dirty caretaker of the desert homestead. Although, the role could have been given to just about anyone (it's a big cameo, but still a cameo). So unless you're a die-hard Bell fan, you shouldn't consider him the selling point. Maybe it's the nudity, as there is a good deal of nudity (plenty of female nudity, repeatedly, and a little bit of male bottom). The film has been called "oversexed" and I think that word fits this perfectly -- take the nude scenes out and the story is even more lame than it already is.

The killer wasn't all that great and the back story on her really made no sense to me. And the thing with the religious protection symbols... what? So in one scene the woman has a tattoo that scares off the demon or ghost or whatever, but in another scene it does nothing. And she covers her body in these symbols, all for no real reason.

Sure, there's a few good gory moments and people get chopped up... one kid even gets split not unlike the woman from "Wrong Turn 2" (which did it better). And again, plenty of nudity if you like women running through the woods or desert bare. Or in the tub. Or in the basement. But overall it was really boring and nothing particularly new... which I guess we should have figured out by the way they wrote the nerd character -- if there's ever been a more stereotypical nerd, I haven't seen him.

Zane (Terence Jay) and Renee (Leah Rachel) play incestuous cousins who get Renee's boyfriend Danny (Steve Sandvoss) nerd Phil and two fraternity pledges to a big old deserted house in the middle of the desert. It belongs to Zane and Renee's family and Zane thinks there's a treasure buried there. Also on hand is crazy old Lester (Tobin Bell of the "Saw" franchise). They're all attacked by an evil old spirit.

The story is old and characters familiar but that's not what sinks the film. It's basically boring! I kept dozing off cause there was nothing interesting on the screen! To make it worse the gratuitous female nudity here is REALLY gratuitous and annoying. On the up side there's some REALLY gruesome gore, the whole cast is attractive (especially hunky Sandvoss), the acting isn't half bad and it does manage to eke out some suspense at the end. Also Jay (or more likely a stand in) shows a nice butt. So it's not terrible but dull and awfully familiar.

Buried Alive was directed by a man who is pretty known in the genre, Robert Kurtzman and while his work as a special effects artist is pretty respectable, his work as a director is definitely expendable, at least in this movie. You have lots of pretty bad effects and actors that can't act, add to that that the plot is not really interesting and the pacing definitely has issues. Also for some reason two of the female characters are taking their clothes off in every chance they get for some reason and don't get me wrong I don't mind nudity in horror movies at all but it just felt so out of place and unnecessary that it really made me uncomfortable. One of the very few and things that is enjoyable in this movie is that it is starring Tobin Bell, but even he is more of a side character. While this movie is not completely terrible or complete trash it's definitely not recommendable in my opinion. [4,1/10]

'Buried Alive' seems too-good of a title to be placed on this piece of garbage. The cover art; though cheesy and unrealistic, actually looks half decent compared to the movie. The logo 'Dimension Extreme' is placed on top of the cover as if the film was somewhat 'too extreme or intense' to be shown in theaters.

I have lost a lot of interest in Dimension Extreme films mostly because they release films like this. 'Buried Alive' is a failed attempt to bring back a once promising genre (horror) and revive it into something new.

The main problem I had with this film is that it never truly finds itself a climax or a theme. It doesn't decide whether its a witchery film, a slasher flick, or a spiritual horror movie. I'm not saying that all horror films need to set one theme, but when the story gets so confusing and the plot gets all twisted up into nonsense, you kind of need a set theme to rely on. The movie tries to save itself by bringing up some foreign Indian voodoo symbolism story but by then, you realize that the movie just got too ridiculous to continue watching.

The poor acting did not help the movie either. The best performances were probably by Steve Sandvoss and Lindsey Scott. They both made their characters presentable and easy to understand, specifically Lindsey Scott's character who I found humorous and enjoyable. As for Tobin Bell, he played the dirty Lester character fairly well but my main issue with him is that we are so used to seeing him as the man behind Jigsaw that he ultimately fails in bringing a new character into life. All other actor's screwed up in some way or form. Their acting was really poor (mhmm...Leah Rachel) and it was hard for me to have any sympathy for them when they got butchered by the old ugly witch.

The gore and screams were minimum. I felt that the movie took way to long to explain the story that it waited till the very end to give us the blood-thirsty gore (which wasn't much to have been waiting for). The old witch that was killing everyone off was ridiculously stupid and did not even scare me one bit.

All in all, this is the typical stereotype horror film that doesn't offer anything new to the horror genre. It's a pathetic attempt and in the end, we're left with a horrible ending that does not resolve anything. I am being generous by giving it a 2 star rating, but thats only because of the two all-stars of the film.

Buried Alive: 2/10

Watch It or Miss It: MISS IT!

What you'll think of "Buried Alive" will strongly depend on what you expected up front. If your mind is set for an insignificant but at least non-boring slasher full of gratuitous nudity, gore, and clichéd situations with dumb teenagers, well then you certainly won't feel cheated. If you were hoping to see an above-average and innovative horror movie, then - and I'm sorry to say - you're are just not good at managing expectations; - and it doesn't matter if you based your judgement on promising names on the film poster like Robert Kurtzman ("Wishmaster") or Tobin Bell ("Saw").

Sometimes the plot pretends to be reasonably ambitious (with native American family curses) and crazily perverted (with hints at incestuous desires), but it's fundamentally a banal slasher with sexy sorority coeds parading around barely dressed, loud-mouthed but cowardly jocks smoking soft-drugs, and a geek with glasses providing you with all the required information. Together, they all go to a godforsaken cabin in the desert where it takes an awful long time to get hacked up by a zombie hag who's the first wife of two of the party members' great-great grandfather. Oh, Tobin Bell also stumbles around as unhygienic gold digger who refers to himself in 3rd person.

The battle-axe action is decent, the girls look delicious, and the ending is nicely twisted. The only thing left to say is that the blonde actress negotiated the terms of her contract quite badly. She must take her clothes off all the time, show everything, and die a painful death, whereas the brunette only puts her rear end on display and gets off lightly.