L'emmuré vivant

They've got a lot of nerve to call that "Edgar Allan Poe's buried alive".It does not look like the writer's works to the slightest extent -unless the presence of a black cat counts-Located in a luxury reform school for girls (?) ,this piece of garbage casts Robert Vaughn as the director and D.PLeasance as a doctor(?)A young female teacher arrives:she is to teach here-but we never see her working or so little.In the basements ,a man with a Ronald Reagan mask(??) is burying alive the girls who try to escape.

This is a completely failed horror film,borrowing now from"shining",now from Dario Argento's "suspiria" and "phenomena".This is a cock-and -bull story with the obligatory final trick:it's not over when you think it is,now roll on "Buried alive 2" :but the movie,proving that sometimes there's justice in the universe ,was a flop,preserving the spectators from it.It's the movie scenarists that should be buried alive.

This movie is supposedly based on Edgar Allen Poe, but aside from a cat and some people being entombed behind a wall, I'm not so sure. (And it also seems to involve ants, lots and lots of ants). It takes place at some kind of institute for sexy, delinquent, orphaned female mental patients. (I would gladly work as the unpaid janitor at one of these places, but they only seem to exist in the movies). The name actors in this movie are Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasance, and John Carradine (in what would be his final film). You may question the judgment of these actors in appearing in this film, but when did any of these guys ever show any judgment? I would question the judgment of the producers in their choice of the female cast. The lead is Karen Witter, a former Playboy Playmate. Very few Playmates are known for their acting abilities and Witter is definitely NOT doing what she does best here. You could probably say the same thing about Ginger Lynn Allen, at that time in a hiatus period of her XXX porn career. But at least she has brief nude scenes (well, sort of) and is not very convincing, but still somewhat entertaining as the tough "queen bee" of the institution.

The French director of this, Gerard Kinkoine, is also an interesting choice. He WAS technically a porn director, but he was one of the more talented "softcore" directors like Just Jaeckin, Jean Rollin, Walerian Borozyx, and Max Pecas rather than simply a hardcore hack. Almost all these European directors ended up working in off-Hollywood American co-productions like this at the end of their careers, but it was actually a step down for them (whereas for Ginger Allen it was a definite step-up from "servicing" the likes of Ron Jeremy and Jerry Butler).

This is OK I guess overall. I probably won't sue to get the 90 minutes of my life back. . .

The movie boasts a fine cast, with Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence, and John Carradine (in his final film appearance). Playboy Playmate Karen Witter is very beautiful, and might make a passable supporting character. However, she is not a good enough actress play a teacher convincingly, not to mention being the main character in this film. On the other hand, adult movie star Ginger Lynn Allen does a very good job of playing the rebellious student Debbie. Robert Vaughn chews the scenery, Donald Pleasence acts goofy, and poor John Carradine is in a wheelchair, and looking every bit as old as he was. The story is only slightly connected to Edgar Allan Poe's writings at most. The DVD has no theatrical trailer or bonus features of any kind. All in all, it's a little disappointing, but watchable.

The taglines that were sprawled across the colourful cover of this movie would lead you to believe that it was some sort of a bizarre zombie flick! ‘Some secrets are best left buried. But will they stay there?' and ‘The dead return!' make this sound as if it's yet another attempt at a DAWN OF THE DEAD rip-off! I bought it anyway, as it was one of those titles, which I had seen many times on my travels, and I often wondered what it was like. (Stalk and slash films aren't my only vice, you know!) I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's pure slasher/whodunit right down to a masked killer preying on young female students in an all girl reform school! Another point that also first attracted me was the fact that it claims to be adapted from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. By that I'm sure they must mean his short story ‘The premature burial'. There's a TV movie with exactly the same name, that funnily enough was also released in the same year (although this was made two years earlier) that also ‘based itself' on that novel! To be thoroughly honest, apart from the odd black cat popping up here and there, it looks as if director Gerard Kikoine – who started out in the business filming porn – had only added the homage to that renowned horror author as a smart publicity stunt to put bums on seats! I couldn't have seen Poe writing a script for a silly slasher, no matter how insane he was!

It opens with some gloomy shots of an eerie looking building silhouetted by the foggy night sky. The sign outside reads ‘Ravenscroft Reform School' and Inside we see a group of teenage girls all deeply sleeping, except for one dark-haired youngster who looks as if she's packing her things to make a daring escape. She puts her rucksack on her back and heads towards the exit. Just before she leaves, her friend calls her back and gives her a leaving present - a blue switchblade – and then she says her goodbyes and heads out into the misty night sky. (Cushty security for a reform school don't ya think!) She hotfoots it through the woods, until she spots a car driving along a road in the distance. She takes a break for just a second, and all of a sudden a masked assailant jumps out from within the bushes and violently knocks her on to the floor. He picks her up and drops her into a man made pothole and she falls into a corrugated steel tube that leads into a dank and spooky underground chamber. She awakes to see the grisly psycho standing menacingly above her. He injects her with a sedative, puts her in a straight jacket and then drags her by the feat to a cramped cell-like room. Once inside the assassin begins to brick and cement up the doorway, effectively leaving her ‘Buried Alive'…(Hence the title!) Next we meet a young science teacher named Janet Pendleton (Karen Witter) who has just got a job teaching at the college. We also see the head doctor Gary Julian (Robert Vaughn), his twitchy assistant Dr. Schaeffer (Donald Pleasence) and a group of bitchy female co-eds who enjoy nothing more than pulling each others hair out! (Literally!) When another girl goes missing from the campus, Janet becomes suspicious and investigates the history of Ravenscroft, only to find a sincere and shocking secret. But who is it that is violently killing the young helpless girls?

With a cast including Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence, John Carradine as well as porn star Ginger Allen, and plot that pits a group of saucy female co-eds against a vicious psychopath, BURIED ALIVE seemed like a dead cert for a decent splatter flick. Director Kikoine attempts to seduce you with his claim that it's adapted from the twisted mind of Edgar Allan Poe, but sadly he fails to deliver on most accounts. For a start, what the hell was wrong with Donald Pleasence here? He plays arguably the most obnoxious character ever set to the silver screen, - a million miles away from his legendary Sam Loomis - complete with phoney looking toupee and an overly dodgy German accent! The dialogue is also laughable. In one scene Miss Pendleton has another of her strange nightmares, which begin plaguing her as soon as she arrives on campus. She ends up lying on the floor, panting, sweating and chillingly screaming. Dr Julian witnesses her strange ‘fit' and instead of rushing to her aid, calmly asks ‘is something wrong?' I expected her to say sarcastically ‘nah, I'm just hysterical for the fun of it' (!) but instead she quickly recovers and mutters ‘I'm fine'…Hmmm! Also at one point the doctor asks the shaky ‘scream queen' if she'll marry him. The funny thing is, the two of them only met a couple of days earlier and haven't even shared so much as a date yet? I kept wondering if I missed something when I blinked or sipped on my warm cup of tea!

There are some creative ways to kill of the cast on offer here. These include a painful looking electrocution; a trough in the side of the head and a young girl gets buried up to her waste in wet cement! When she screams for help, she gets a mouthful of the soggy muck to shut her up! There are also those victims who get bricked up in a cold room and effectively ‘buried alive', which are the main ingredients of the feature. The director at least shows promise with a couple of decent ideas. There are some morbid shots of each rotten corridor of the creepy chamber accompanied by victim's screams as they get dragged to their demise. Each unlucky individual spots a black cat before they are dispatched, which is clearly the only real noticeable element lifted from Poe. There's also at least one pretty gory scene to liven you up if you're nodding off. A female teen is curling her hair on a food mixer (?) when she's scared by an unseen menace (presumably the masked killer), and ends up drilling into her head and pulling her hair completely off…Ouch!

This was the last film that John Carradine worked on before his unfortunate death in 1988, which sadly wasn't the greatest flick to finish off a 5-decade career in the movies with. It's not that it doesn't try; it's just that it never really manages to go anywhere. It's occasionally interesting but mostly dull and un-atmospheric. To be honest, you're better of taking a look at the other made for TV flick with the same moniker…it's a much stronger effort!

Pleasence, Vaughn, and porn queen Allen are entertaining trying to make sense of a silly script that's like a cross between a cruddy Euro gialli and a made for TV suspenser. Most of the other actors appear to be phoning in their performances from another planet. Some of the cinematography has some thought and care put into it and there's one death scene via hand mixer that's a tad inspired, but it's not enough to make it worth sitting through this again.