I think the creators of Buried Alive took a dare. Someone said I bet you can't make a good horror/slasher flick and they said 'oh yes we can...you need hot buxom girls too old to be teenagers, gratuitous nudity, an old man, a haunted house, and some gory death and its gonna be perfect.' In all fairness that idea doesn't sound half bad. However the makers of the film managed to prove that there does need to be something else and if you asked me to nail something down I would say a far more solid story was necessary to really make Buried Alive worthwhile. Its true enough that they had some of the recipe right and for horror fans its decent enough to entertain but it certainly won't blow your mind and essentially it will leave you feeling like you need more out of it and that's just disappointing. Buried Alive is part ghost story, part slasher flick and part cheap thrills and cheap scares. All can be worthwhile especially if you're aiming to make something more cheesy. However Buried Alive sadly doesn't even hit the level of cheese, and it falls short of being serious or truly scary so it sits in limbo and therein lies the problem.
Most of this cast are newcomers or at the very least early in their acting career and I'm not sure that this film will boost them in any way. The characters don't get a lot of back story and they are mostly shallow in the writing. I could easily lump most of them into one swoop of a category. The lead college 'kids' are played by Leah Rachel, Erin Reese, Germaine De Leon, Terence Jay, Steve Sandvoss, and Lindsey Scott. They all fit their extremely stereotypical roles and purpose. The bimbos, the jocks, the sorority girl and the geek. They all have one single purpose and they look the role and therefore do a decent job at it and yet its a shame none of them really get to flex any acting muscles at all even being scream queens or horror hunks. Then you have the man who is becoming synonymous with horror Mr. Tobin Bell who is always awesome and actually does have a more meaty role and is fun to watch. He is appropriately creepy and has great screen presence and ups the ante on the film just enough to be reasonably watchable.
Special effects master Robert Kurtzman helms the film. I call him a master mostly because he has had some incredible experience doing special effects over the last three decades and even has a classic horror (more cheese than horror) Wes Craven's Wishmaster. Still his directorial experience is limited and he just seems to want to crank this out and get it over with. Considering his experience with special effects I would also have expected to see more in that field in this film although there are some bloody, and cool death scenes its nothing extreme. Also there is a lack of people in the film to be victims so you can only get so much out of the film from a horror/blood perspective. Buried Alive is campy but worst of all it is slow and not incredibly endearing. It won't stay in my horror collection and if you have the choice I would avoid this one because it isn't going to provide you with a favorite by any means. Maybe more can be done with some future (certainly straight to DVD) sequels but we will see. 6/10
Most of this cast are newcomers or at the very least early in their acting career and I'm not sure that this film will boost them in any way. The characters don't get a lot of back story and they are mostly shallow in the writing. I could easily lump most of them into one swoop of a category. The lead college 'kids' are played by Leah Rachel, Erin Reese, Germaine De Leon, Terence Jay, Steve Sandvoss, and Lindsey Scott. They all fit their extremely stereotypical roles and purpose. The bimbos, the jocks, the sorority girl and the geek. They all have one single purpose and they look the role and therefore do a decent job at it and yet its a shame none of them really get to flex any acting muscles at all even being scream queens or horror hunks. Then you have the man who is becoming synonymous with horror Mr. Tobin Bell who is always awesome and actually does have a more meaty role and is fun to watch. He is appropriately creepy and has great screen presence and ups the ante on the film just enough to be reasonably watchable.
Special effects master Robert Kurtzman helms the film. I call him a master mostly because he has had some incredible experience doing special effects over the last three decades and even has a classic horror (more cheese than horror) Wes Craven's Wishmaster. Still his directorial experience is limited and he just seems to want to crank this out and get it over with. Considering his experience with special effects I would also have expected to see more in that field in this film although there are some bloody, and cool death scenes its nothing extreme. Also there is a lack of people in the film to be victims so you can only get so much out of the film from a horror/blood perspective. Buried Alive is campy but worst of all it is slow and not incredibly endearing. It won't stay in my horror collection and if you have the choice I would avoid this one because it isn't going to provide you with a favorite by any means. Maybe more can be done with some future (certainly straight to DVD) sequels but we will see. 6/10