Dead & Buried (1981)

A suspense horror film set in a small coastal town where, after a series of gory murders commited by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses begin to come back to life.

Director:

Gary Sherman (as Gary A. Sherman)

Writers:

Jeff Millar (story), Alex Stern (story)

Stars:

James Farentino, Melody Anderson, Jack Albertson

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
James Farentino	...	Sheriff Dan Gillis
Melody Anderson	...	Janet Gillis
Jack Albertson	...	William G. Dobbs
Dennis Redfield	...	Ron
Nancy Locke	...	Linda (as Nancy Locke Hauser)
Lisa Blount	...	Girl on the Beach / Nurse Lisa
Robert Englund	...	Harry
Bill Quinn	...	Ernie
Michael Currie	...	Herman
Christopher Allport	...	George Le Moyne / Freddie
Joseph G. Medalis	...	Doctor (as Joe Medalis)
Macon McCalman	...	Ben
Lisa Marie	...	Hitchhiker
Estelle Omens	...	Betty
Barry Corbin	...	Phil

Storyline

Sheriff Dan Gillis has a nice life with his wife, the teacher Janet Gillis, in the small coastal and friendly town of Potter's Bluff. When visitors are mysterious killed in the town, Sheriff Gillis investigates the cases carefully and finds that dead people are reanimating and coming back to life. Dan finds a book of witchcraft and voodoo in his wife's drawer and he suspects that she might be practicing black magic. Dan meets the coroner-mortician William G. Dobbs and learns the dreadful and surprising secret.

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Plot Keywords:

extreme violence | zombie | murder investigation | screaming | photographer | 

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Taglines:

The writers of alien... ...bring a new terror to earth.

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

9 October 1981 (USA)

Also Known As:

Look Alive

Filming Locations:

Goldwyn Studios - 1041 N Formosa Avenue, West Hollywood, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$3,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$216,166, 15 November 1981

Gross USA:

$216,166, 15 November 1981

Company Credits

Production Co:

Barclays Mercantile Industrial Finance

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Gary Sherman intentionally chose foggy weather conditions, in which to film, while on-location in California. The film's setting is suppose to be Maine, and the locations looked most like northern New England when the weather was foggy. In addition, Sherman liked the ominous mood the gloomy weather created.

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Goofs

When the young female hitchhiker is taken from the truck, she is thrown onto the muddy ground. Her face is covered in mud, before the rock is smashed onto her face. Later when we see the videos of Dobb's "murders and creations" the young female hitchhiker is being held down on the hood of the truck, and her face is clean before they smash the rock down on her face.

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Quotes

Dobbs: I was more than mildly insulted. Just because I'm a mortician she had the audacity to insinuate that I might have knowledge of the black arts!

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Alternate Versions

Even though the film was shown uncut on cinema in Sweden, a very unique decision back then due to the hard policy on violence, the Transfer rental VHS release is cut by several minutes.

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Connections

Featured in Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010)

User Reviews

One of the "best" of the "worst"...

It didn't occur to me until my later years, when I became an avid 'credit reader,' to make the connection between DEAD AND BURIED and two other low-budget gems that totally blew my mind: the earlier, gorier (but not by much) DEATH LINE, released in the U.S. under the appetizing title RAW MEAT, and a nasty-but-nifty little cop thriller called VICE SQUAD, which has the distinction of sporting quite possibly the smarmiest, most memorably evil performance that Wings Hauser ever gave in his entire career.

The gore ante has been upped so much at the movies nowadays, that you literally have to take the top of somebody's head off to get a rise out of the audience, (see HANNIBAL). But there was a time, either when we were more naive, or when lower budgets demanded it, that directors of low-budget horror fare knew that if you were going for the gross-out, you had to make it effective to scare the bejesus out of moviegoers. Gary Sherman was one of the few talented directors who knew this, and he went to town on my nerves with this, which I saw for the first time on video many years ago.

Some of the plot points maybe as murky as the atmospheric photography is at times, but one thing is certainly made clear: TV-friendly character actor-turned-spooky-town M.E. Jack Albertson is definitely up to no good. Travelers and transients who are innocently passing through the little, picturesque seacoast town where he plies his trade, are being found horribly murdered, only to be resurrected...as townies! Voodoo is somehow involved, as are some of the most violently graphic dispatchings commended to film for that time period.

James Farentino and Melody Anderson, known mostly for TV movie appearances (and in Melody's case, FLASH...aaaa-aaahhh!) do serviceable jobs as the town sheriff and his wife, who become more embroiled in the mystery than they'd like, and Robert Englund joins the proceedings, usually making his formidably creepy presence more than welcome, (until he came into his own as Freddy). But this is definitely Albertson's baby, and he relishes breaking out of his casting niche after all those episodes of CHICO AND THE MAN. Good thing, too, since it was one of his last performances. Sadly, as it is with most talented character actors, he was never recognized for his stage work as much as what he left on film, but his D&B role is a nice antithesis to the kindly Grandpa George in WILLY WONKA.

Also: Dan O'Bannon wouldn't be able to catch the lightning-in-a-bottle he captured with ALIEN again, until his severed-tongue-in-cheek rendering of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, his playfully amped-up homage to George Romero's masterpiece.

FOOTNOTE: D&B's releasing woes had nothing to do with its low-budget status. The original releasing company, Vestron, went belly-up and had to file for Chapter 11 more than once, leaving movies like this in limbo until the legal problems could be satisfactorily settled. It took a while for the video release, but it was worth the wait.

Oh, and no matter how mind-boggling the gore gets, you'll still want to watch it twice, just to see how you missed being clued in on the head-spinning climax!