Compared to some of the other films based on Poe short stories that were made during the late eighties - Alan Birkinshaw's "The House of Usher" and Fred Olen Ray's "Haunting Fear" to name a couple - former porn director Gerard Kikoine's "Buried Alive" isn't all that bad ... but then again, that's not saying much. In fact, it is extremely difficult to make sense of it, and I for one couldn't help being annoyed by Donald Pleasance's character Dr. Scheffer. He has the obligatory German accent and a fake looking wig to boot, and for some reason he is presented in closeups most of the time. A real pity that this turned out to be horror legend John Carradine's last picture. I don't know whether he died during filming or after the film had been made, but for his sake I hope that he left before he got a chance to see it. Watch Stuart Gordon's "The Pit and the Pendulum" - or even better, Dario Argento's contribution to 1991's "Two Evil Eyes" - instead.
Review of Buried Alive
