BURIED ALIVE

  1989/91m

“Some secrets are best left buried, but will they stay there?”

Director: Gerard Kikoïne / Writers: Edgar Allen Poe, Jake Chesi, Stuart Lee / Cast: Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence, Karen Witter, John Carradine, Ginger Lynn Allen, Nia Long, Bill Butler, Janine Denison, Arnold Vosloo, Dee Dee Eybers, Roslynn Farrell.

Body Count: 6

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One of several Poe adaptations produced by Harry Alan Towers in South Africa in the late 80s (another being the slasher version of The Masque of the Red Death), this take on the short story The Premature Burial has a killer in a Ronald Reagan mask (!) bricking up the ‘runaways’ from the Ravenscroft reform school for girls.

Into this mess comes young new teacher Janet Pendleton (former Playboy playmate Witter) who, when she’s not trying to keep the wayward girls in line, keep the director’s smarmy hands off her, is seeing visions of swelling brick walls, ants crawling up her legs, and an old man trying to grab her. Donald Pleasence is a dotty old professor who seems harmless – but is he?

A good cast of familiar faces tries its best, and there are some nice visual flourishes, but Buried Alive is hard to navigate as a viewer, with the slasher sensibilities kinda murky (though death by eggbeater is amusing) and the motivations of some characters seem to chop n’ change as time goes on, ultimately resulting in a not very surprising revelation of who the killer is.

Acting ability yo-yo’s between competence of Vaughn, Pleasence, Carradine, in his last role, and, in her first, Nia Long, to Witter’s squealy heroine, and one of the girls who seemed to have been re-dubbed completely – check out the half-assed ‘scream’ when she’s bricked up. Witter’s biggest issue seems to be keeping the hands of various male characters off of her.

Blurbs-of-interest: Carradine was also in The Boogeyman and Silent Night, Bloody Night; Ginger Lynn Allen was later in Evil Breed; Bill Butler was in Friday the 13th Part VII and Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III; Arnold Vosloo was the titular character in the late 90s Mummy franchise; other than being Dr Loomis, Donald Pleasence can be seen in Alone in the Dark and Phenomena.