Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 22, 2007, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Buried Alive is a standard-issue horror melodrama that, in its first scene, promises to develop into something a little more interesting. As cute college coed Rene (Leah Rachel) takes a bath, she engages in dialogue with her cousin Zane (Terence Jay) which suggests that they’re closer than cousins perhaps should be, and obliquely references some dalliance in the past. Their relationship seems like it’ll throw a little extra kink (in both senses of the word) into the standard youth-horror formula—and then things get scary, Rene wakes up from her nightmare and…it’s not Zane sharing the room with Rene, but her boyfriend Danny (Steve Sandvoss, who looks so much like Jay that initial confusion does set in).
From there, all the basic pieces fall into place: The aforementioned trio pile into a car with token geek Phil (Germaine De Leon) and hotties Julie (Lindsey Scott) and Laura (Erin Michelle Lokitz) and head for Zane’s family’s isolated ranch house, which, of course, has no land lines or cell reception but does come with a creepy caretaker named Lester (Tobin Bell). Zane’s making the trip in hopes of unearthing hidden gold one of his ancestors hid there, with Phil along to help with research since, apparently, Zane is unwilling or unable to go on the Internet himself. Sorority queen Rene has some scary initiation tricks planned for Laura and Julie, the latter of whom is dumber than any human being could conceivably be in real life: When she comes across Lester’s stuffed “jackalope,” she marvels at its cute little antlers and the fact that it’ll sit perfectly still for her to pet it. Danny’s main function, meanwhile, is to drink beer and make wise-ass comments like his proclamation, upon arriving at the house, that he feels like fornicating with a bear.
The gang have the unfortunate timing to make their trip right at the moment when Lester (who speaks about himself in the third person when not pulling pranks on the kids that are good for fake scares) has decided to go seeking the gold himself. In so doing, he releases a scary-looking old crone who begins turning up in Zane’s visions and a few now-you-see-her-now-you-don’t moments, before eventually getting around to wielding a large ax against the protagonists. She’s a little slow to get down to business, though; it’s nearly halfway into the movie before she claims her first victim, resulting in a gore gag that was handled with more brio in Wrong Turn 2. She seats the body in the friends’ car, and none of them seem to think it’s especially odd that their friend has evidently chosen to remain there for the next several hours.
Apparently sated for the time being, the witch doesn’t make a serious attempt on anyone else’s life for a while, and throughout the film’s first 75 minutes or so, director Robert Kurtzman and scripter Art Monterastelli try to compensate for the lack of violence with sex. Zane gets down with Julie in the basement, Rene sends her two pledges on an almost-nude “Godiva run” through the night and one scene suggests that a bit of Quentin Tarantino’s foot fetishism rubbed off on initial From Dusk Till Dawn director Kurtzman. The group also takes five minutes or so to sit down and explain the motivating backstory to each other, and eventually the witch gets back to business, though it’s never satisfyingly established whether she’s a spectral or corporeal presence. In any case, her job is made easier by the fact that her young targets are the type who, for example, all run out to their car in an attempt to escape, get in, discover that the engine, naturally, won’t start—and only then realize that they’ve left Julie back inside the house. (And she’s supposed to be the dumb one.)
Really, Buried Alive is no better or worse than many of the other formulaic direct-to-DVD body-count movies hacking their way through the marketplace. Kurtzman’s direction is more than competent without bearing any particular distinction, the actors fulfill their limited roles with enthusiasm, the makeup FX supervised by Kurtzman are sufficiently icky and Feast’s Tom Callaway contributes nicely atmospheric cinematography (replicated very well on Dimension/Genius’ no-frills DVD). There’s just enough of that interesting subtext from the opening scene floating around under all the conventionality to be mildly diverting, without being explored in enough depth to become memorable. In the end, it’s the kind of flick that starts with a bunch of people who are alive, ends with most/all (I won’t give away which) of them dead, and then it’s time to put the DVD back in its case and move on to the next one.
