Dead and Buried

From Dan O'Bannon, the legendary screenwriter behind the first two Alien movies, Lifeforce, Total Recall, and The Return of the Living Dead, comes Dead and Buried (1981), a creepy lost horror classic. To get a better idea of D&B, imagine Death Becomes Her meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets a Scooby-Doo mystery meets Night of the Living Dead. Yeah, that's pretty much what you'll get from D&B. The film oozes atmosphere, from the dark score interspersed with cheery big band tunes, to the foggy New England setting, to the abandoned Victorian houses dotting the landscape.

The sleepy coastal town of Potters Bluff holds a horrifying secret, and Sheriff Dan Gillis is about to get caught up in it during the investigation of a recent string of grisly accidents, murders, and disappearances. When murdered tourists begin to come back to life, the Sheriff's wife is implicated as a practitioner of witchcraft, voodoo, and the dark arts. Is she behind the recent outbreak of the undead? Or is she hiding an even bigger secret?

The late great Stan Winston headed up the creature effects for D&B, and it really shows, particularly in contrast to a scene added late in production. The scene in question, completely superfluous, was added near the end of post-production, and Stan Winston's team was unavailable to create the effects. The result, a man's head being pumped full of acid and melted from the inside out, looks like a 3-year old working with playdough next to Winston's masterful zombies. This incongruity is a low point in an otherwise pretty sweet film.

There are a few other rough spots, including some clunky dialogue here and there, although its hard to say if the awkwardness is the fault of the screenplay or the actors. Also, filming constraints forced a re-dubbing of the audio for a scene in one of the aforementioned creepy Victorian homes. This resulted in problems with audio/visual synch, but these are limited to only one scene, and it's really only a minor annoyance.

The bottom line: despite some awkward writing here and there and a regrettable non-Winston scene, this is a really awesome and fucking creepy film, with some inventive and cool-looking death scenes. A must see for fans of the macabre.

Storyline & plot: 7/10
Cinematography & effects: 8/10
Music & mood: 7/10
Performances: 6/10

The Reverend says: 7/10