Buried Alive (1990)
* (out of 4)
This was one of three Edgar Allan Poe movies to be filmed in South Africa and while none of the three are very highly remembered today this one here at least can say it features the last screen appearance by John Carradine who would die of mysterious circumstances shortly after finishing work on this. While Carradine had a few others films to be released after this one, all of them were just footage shot by Fred Olen Ray in the early 80s.
A teacher (Karen Witter) goes to a school for troubled women where she finds that things aren't all they seem to be. Not only does she have to put up with constant fights between the girls but she soon realizes that they are terrified and one by one they start to runaway. Being a horror film you know that they haven't actually ran away but instead someone in a mask is taking them into the basement and burying them alive. The principle (Robert Vaughn) and doctor (Donald Pleasence) at the school might know a few things as well. BURIED ALIVE is a pretty poor movie that doesn't work on many levels and today is only of interest for it being Carradine's swan song and there's some mild interest in the fact that Harry Alan Towers produced this with Menahem Golan who was just out at Cannon. This film is pretty much like the typical junk you'd find at rental stores back in the day as we get a confusing story, horrible acting and of course a little gore thrown in so that horror fans would have something to talk about. The film borrows from Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Black Cat" and "The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether" to name just a few. I'm really not sure what the filmmakers intended but the story is all over the place as it's never quite clear if they're wanting some women-in-peril slasher flick or if they want it to be some sort of psychological terror. The psychological stuff is poorly done and the ultra-cheap acting doesn't help matters much. The supporting group who play the "teenage" girls are just downright awful and their cussing and fighting at one another is downright hilarious and it's these unintentional laughs that help keep the film moving. The special effects are all rather bland but you have to give them credit because one scene has a girl trying to curl her hair with a blender, which ends up scalping her to death. Vaughn is clearly just picking up a paycheck but you can't blame him too much. Pleasence at least adds some nice comic timing and manages to get a few laughs. Witter isn't too bad but then again this isn't Hamlet. The great Carradine has very little to do here and only appears in a few sequences terrorizing the teacher. BURIED ALIVE was coming in just as the horror-on-VHS cycle was starting to cool off and you could point your finger at films like this for the reason why it began to die off. The film is a complete mess from start to finish and there's very little to recommend.
* (out of 4)
This was one of three Edgar Allan Poe movies to be filmed in South Africa and while none of the three are very highly remembered today this one here at least can say it features the last screen appearance by John Carradine who would die of mysterious circumstances shortly after finishing work on this. While Carradine had a few others films to be released after this one, all of them were just footage shot by Fred Olen Ray in the early 80s.
A teacher (Karen Witter) goes to a school for troubled women where she finds that things aren't all they seem to be. Not only does she have to put up with constant fights between the girls but she soon realizes that they are terrified and one by one they start to runaway. Being a horror film you know that they haven't actually ran away but instead someone in a mask is taking them into the basement and burying them alive. The principle (Robert Vaughn) and doctor (Donald Pleasence) at the school might know a few things as well. BURIED ALIVE is a pretty poor movie that doesn't work on many levels and today is only of interest for it being Carradine's swan song and there's some mild interest in the fact that Harry Alan Towers produced this with Menahem Golan who was just out at Cannon. This film is pretty much like the typical junk you'd find at rental stores back in the day as we get a confusing story, horrible acting and of course a little gore thrown in so that horror fans would have something to talk about. The film borrows from Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Black Cat" and "The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether" to name just a few. I'm really not sure what the filmmakers intended but the story is all over the place as it's never quite clear if they're wanting some women-in-peril slasher flick or if they want it to be some sort of psychological terror. The psychological stuff is poorly done and the ultra-cheap acting doesn't help matters much. The supporting group who play the "teenage" girls are just downright awful and their cussing and fighting at one another is downright hilarious and it's these unintentional laughs that help keep the film moving. The special effects are all rather bland but you have to give them credit because one scene has a girl trying to curl her hair with a blender, which ends up scalping her to death. Vaughn is clearly just picking up a paycheck but you can't blame him too much. Pleasence at least adds some nice comic timing and manages to get a few laughs. Witter isn't too bad but then again this isn't Hamlet. The great Carradine has very little to do here and only appears in a few sequences terrorizing the teacher. BURIED ALIVE was coming in just as the horror-on-VHS cycle was starting to cool off and you could point your finger at films like this for the reason why it began to die off. The film is a complete mess from start to finish and there's very little to recommend.