Réincarnations

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.

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.

It didn't occur to me until my later years, when I became an avid 'credit reader,' to make the connection between DEAD AND BURIED and two other low-budget gems that totally blew my mind: the earlier, gorier (but not by much) DEATH LINE, released in the U.S. under the appetizing title RAW MEAT, and a nasty-but-nifty little cop thriller called VICE SQUAD, which has the distinction of sporting quite possibly the smarmiest, most memorably evil performance that Wings Hauser ever gave in his entire career.

The gore ante has been upped so much at the movies nowadays, that you literally have to take the top of somebody's head off to get a rise out of the audience, (see HANNIBAL). But there was a time, either when we were more naive, or when lower budgets demanded it, that directors of low-budget horror fare knew that if you were going for the gross-out, you had to make it effective to scare the bejesus out of moviegoers. Gary Sherman was one of the few talented directors who knew this, and he went to town on my nerves with this, which I saw for the first time on video many years ago.

Some of the plot points maybe as murky as the atmospheric photography is at times, but one thing is certainly made clear: TV-friendly character actor-turned-spooky-town M.E. Jack Albertson is definitely up to no good. Travelers and transients who are innocently passing through the little, picturesque seacoast town where he plies his trade, are being found horribly murdered, only to be resurrected...as townies! Voodoo is somehow involved, as are some of the most violently graphic dispatchings commended to film for that time period.

James Farentino and Melody Anderson, known mostly for TV movie appearances (and in Melody's case, FLASH...aaaa-aaahhh!) do serviceable jobs as the town sheriff and his wife, who become more embroiled in the mystery than they'd like, and Robert Englund joins the proceedings, usually making his formidably creepy presence more than welcome, (until he came into his own as Freddy). But this is definitely Albertson's baby, and he relishes breaking out of his casting niche after all those episodes of CHICO AND THE MAN. Good thing, too, since it was one of his last performances. Sadly, as it is with most talented character actors, he was never recognized for his stage work as much as what he left on film, but his D&B role is a nice antithesis to the kindly Grandpa George in WILLY WONKA.

Also: Dan O'Bannon wouldn't be able to catch the lightning-in-a-bottle he captured with ALIEN again, until his severed-tongue-in-cheek rendering of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, his playfully amped-up homage to George Romero's masterpiece.

FOOTNOTE: D&B's releasing woes had nothing to do with its low-budget status. The original releasing company, Vestron, went belly-up and had to file for Chapter 11 more than once, leaving movies like this in limbo until the legal problems could be satisfactorily settled. It took a while for the video release, but it was worth the wait.

Oh, and no matter how mind-boggling the gore gets, you'll still want to watch it twice, just to see how you missed being clued in on the head-spinning climax!

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 .

Neat seldom talked about horror film made by Gary Sherman, the man who brought us Deathline, Vice Squad, and Poltergeist III. Like most of Sherman's films, Dead & Buried is laced with a rather large dose of gore. One man is beaten and burned(later to survive and get needled in the worst possible way), another is beaten and marred with fishing hooks, another hacked to death, another with acid, and you get the general picture...and you get all the details as Sherman is not shy showing us these things with the camera lens either. The story centers on these deaths and their investigation by sheriff James Farentino. Farentino soon realizes that few if any can be trusted in the not-so-quaint New England town of Potter's Bluff, and that the cause of the deaths and the mystery soon fall on town mortician Jack Albertson. The film looses some credibility with the ambiguous nature of the script but is enhanced by the atmospheric direction of Sherman and the quality performances by the cast as a whole. There are definite frightening moments in the film that will make you jump in your seat. Farentino is good in his role and Melody Anderson is adequate(certainly attractive) in her role as his wife. The supporting cast with Barry Corbin, Robert Englund, and a host of familiar faces do very nicely, but the real star is Jack Albertson in one of his last roles. Albertson gives a fine performance and is suitably creepy. His entrance down a hillside in the coroner's car while playing big band music was a scenic highlight for me. A good...not great..film that is good for some honest scares.