Buried Alive II

7 years later, someone decided to make a sequel to Buried Alive, but it doesn't seem like they had any major ideas for the story since this is nothing more than a gender swapped retread of the original film with a few forced connections to the first film so that it can feel comfortable calling itself a sequel.

This time around, Laura (Ally Sheedy) discovers a strange man (Tim Matheson who returns as Clint and directs the film) at her uncle's funeral and, at the same time, she's going through the same issues he went through in the first film as her husband Randy (Stephen Caffrey) plots with his mistress, Roxanne (Tracey Needham) to kill her.

Just as in the original, this poison doesn't work, Laura gets buried alive, breaks out, and gets revenge on her husband and his mistress.

If you haven't seen the original, Buried Alive II might work better for you. It's not a poorly made movie and the acting is fine, but it pales in comparison to the original, especially when you realize it's not bringing anything new to the table.

The story line for Buried Alive II and the first version of Buried Alive was about the same. In the first part, Tim Matheson was known as Clint Goodman who has a very beautiful wife Jennifer Jason Leigh as Joanna Goodman. Jennifer Jason Leigh was not satisfied with her husband therefore, she killed him.

This version is the same case. Stephen Caffrey is Randy Riskin and he had an unattractive wife Ally Sheedy as Laura Riskin. The obvious better choice is to have an affair with Tracey Needham as Roxanne.

But, script writers have not destroys beautiful woman like Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tracey Needham. They can't seem to understand that attractive woman want something more and all men love to be with attractive woman.

Tracey Needham's acting was extremely good.

At one point in this movie, there is a quote that Sheedy's character's uncle bought Wal-Mart stock in the late 60's...Wal-Mart did not go public until 1971...He could not have bought stock in the late 60's ...

A man tries to murder his wife for her money, but she may not be as dead as he thinks in Buried Alive II, a follow up sequel to a very successful film from 1990.

We first meet Laura Riskin, the niece of the sheriff Sam from the first movie. She is mourning the recent death of Sam which has devastated the town. At his funeral, we see Clint from the original film show up mysteriously to pay his respects. In Sam's will, it is revealed that he had $250,000 worth in stocks which seems to spark a lot of interest in Laura's husband Randy.

Randy is an unhappy man who wants to buy a boat with the inheritance and leave town, while Laura wants to stay and have children. He begins engaging in an affair with a pretty blonde woman named Roxanne. They eventually decide to murder Laura with poison and take all of the money she got in Sam's will. He poisons her wine one night at dinner, and she has a massive stroke which seems to have killed her. However, the drug didn't finish her off and she is buried alive! Once out of the grave, she exacts revenge against Randy and his mistress.

It's interesting to me that Buried Alive got a Made for TV sequel seven years later considering it was a 90's made for TV film that wasn't all that heard of. Buried Alive II is pretty much a remake of the first movie with the genders of the bad guys and good spouse reversed. Ally Sheedy does however bring something to this movie that Matheson couldn't for me in the first Buried Alive, and that is that I felt really bad for her. She makes her character very likeable and it's hard to imagine why her husband would want to kill her.

Buried Alive II isn't a bad movie. I like that they continued some characters from the original movie including Sam and having Clint come back to town. It is a retelling of the first movie, but there are some differences. Randy is a way worse person than Jennifer Jason Leigh's murderous chatracter was in Buried Alive. I think this hurt the sequel actually because of how one dimensional our main villain was. It also seems like the main villain is just going through a mid life crisis and wanting to buy a yacht, and his main motivation for killing his wife is because she is boring and acts like an old person and because she doesn't want to invest the inheritance into a boat.

Overall, Buried Alive II is a pretty good movie and follow up to a solid first film. But I felt this was unnecessary, especially 7 years after the fact. It adds little to the series other than a good performance by Ally Sheedy who always delivers. Sadly, this is impossible to find. I luckily got the VHS at a yard sale years ago.

5/10

Having taken revenge upon his wife for her conspiracy to murder him "Clint Goodman" (Tim Matheson) has returned to his small home town to pay his respects to his best friend who has recently died. Naturally, needing to conceal his identity he avoids people to a great extent but is spotted from a distance by his friend's niece "Laura Riskin" (Ally Sheedy). Although she doesn't recognize him at first she finally discovers the truth after a chance encounter later on. She also learns more details concerning why her uncle's good friend committed the actions that had been only rumors before. On that note, being her uncle's only living relative, she has inherited a sizeable amount of money which her husband "Randy Riskin" (Stephen Caffrey) wants all for himself--and his new mistress "Roxanne" (Tracey Needham). So taking his cue from those exact same rumors about how Clint was poisoned he has decided to use the same methods on Laura as well. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film borrowed much too heavily upon the same plot as its predecessor and as a result lacked originality. That said, although both Ally Sheedy and Tracey Needham performed quite well, the movie itself wasn't nearly as good as it could have been and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.