Dead & Buried (1981)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Gary Sherman

Writers:

Jeff Millar (story)
Dan O'Bannon (screenplay)

Release Date:

29 May 1981 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery

Tagline:

The writers of alien... ...bring a new terror to earth.

Plot:

A suspense horror film set in a small coastal town where, after a series of gory murders commited by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses begin to come back to life.

Plot Keywords:

Sheriff | Murder | Killing | Corpse | Undertaker

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

James Farentino	...	Sheriff Dan Gillis
Melody Anderson	...	Janet Gillis
Jack Albertson	...	William G. Dobbs
Dennis Redfield	...	Ron
Nancy Locke	...	Linda (as Nancy Locke Hauser)
Lisa Blount	...	Girl on the Beach / Nurse Lisa
Robert Englund	...	Harry
Bill Quinn	...	Ernie
Michael Currie	...	Herman
Christopher Allport	...	George LeMoir / Freddie
Joseph G. Medalis	...	The Doctor (as Joe Medalis)
Macon McCalman	...	Ben
Lisa Marie	...	The Hitchhiker
Estelle Omens	...	Betty
Barry Corbin	...	Phil

Also Known As:

Dead and Buried (UK)

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Singapore:M18 | Finland:K-16 (heavily cut) | Finland:K-18 (DVD rating) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Germany:16 (re-rating) (2007) | Sweden:15 | Australia:R | Finland:(Banned) | France:-16 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:18 | Norway:18 (video) (1984) | Norway:(Banned) (video) (1986) | Norway:(Banned) (1981-2003) (cinema release)

Filming Locations:

Mendocino, California, USA

Company:

Barclays Mercantile Industrial Finance

Trivia:

Stan Winston's special effects went beyond creating gore for the film. The figure in the full body cast lying in George LeMoyne's hospital bed was a mechanical dummy built by Winston. The life-like detail and elaborate movements the dummy was rigged to make gives the appearance that its a real person and makes the infamous needle-eye stab all the more startling.

Goofs:

Continuity: The hitchhiker can be seen as a zombie before she is actually killed, reconstructed and brought back to life. This is because the abandoned house scene - where she is clearly visible as one of the dead townfolk - was originally placed in the film after her resurrection.

Quotes:

[repeated line]
Ernie: Welcome to Potters Bluff!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

Cult movie with pleasingly effective moments, but lots of logic loopholes.

In Potter's Bluff, a quiet coastal town in America, a photographer is seduced by a young woman but just as he is about to have sex with her on the beach, a bunch of local thugs turn up and burn him alive. But this horrific opening only turns out to be the tip of the iceberg, when a few scenes later the very same photographer is seen working at a local gas station - very alive, very happy, and with not a single burn scar on his body! The local cop finds it strange too; in fact, the whole town seems to be full of people who were dead recently and are now very much alive. There's even a character who loses an arm in a car accident, but simply picks up the severed limb and runs off.... apparently suffering from no pain at all!

Dead & Buried has an enjoyably dumb resolution (I won't spoil things, but let's just say that the local mortician has been experimenting with the dead). It also has some genuinely effective scares and infrequent but powerful gore scenes. Leading actor James Farentino is a bit of a bore, but Jack Albertson is wonderful in an atypical role as the cranky old mortician. Stan Winston's makeup effects are suitably gruesome, and some of the killings are imaginatively handled. There are some logic loopholes, though, which seriously mar the film. The twist ending in which Farentino makes a chilling discovery about himself doesn't really make sense and is a good example of scripter's trying to be too smart for themselves - and merely tying themselves up into knots. However, misjudgements aside, Dead & Buried is a goofy and entertaining early '80s spine-tingler.