Dead & Buried

1981 "It will take your breath away. All of it."
6.5| 1h34m| R| en| More Info
Released: 29 May 1981 Released
Producted By: Barclays Mercantile Industrial Finance
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

After a series of gory murders commited by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses appear to be coming back to life and living normally as locals in the small town.

Genre

Horror, Mystery

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Dead & Buried (1981) is now streaming with subscription on Prime Video

Director

Gary Sherman

Production Companies

Barclays Mercantile Industrial Finance

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Dead & Buried Audience Reviews

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.
Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
big-gun A classic, low budget, living dead horror film, Dead & Buried takes place in the fictitious little town of Potter's Bluff. James Farentino plays the role of Sheriff Dan Gillis, the local lawman trying to solve a string of violent murders taking place within the town. Jack Albertson is suitably creepy in the role of William G. Dobbs, the local funeral director/undertaker with a God complex.During his investigation, Dan finds a book on black magic and witchcraft his wife Janet (Melody Anderson) has hidden in a drawer. He starts to wonder if there's black magic involved in the recent murders. He's proved right as the corpses of the recently killed are being reanimated. This leads to a confrontation between the sheriff and the undertaker. Some surprising truths are revealed leading to the twisty ending.Look for some familiar faces among the townspeople. Bill Quinn, Barry Corbin and a pre Freddy Krueger Robert Englund all appear in the film. The special effects are not great by today's standards, but were pretty state of the art for the time. On the whole, I found the movie fascinating and I believe it has done George Romero proud.Check this one out if you can, I think you'll be equal measures pleased and creeped out.
MartinHafer I liked watching Jack Albertson in this film. Although he's mostly known for "Chico and the Man" and for playing Charlie's grandpa in "Willy Wonka", here he plays a VERY different sort of guy. How different? He's a demented maniac who kills and re-animates people!! Now that's playing against type! The film is told from the point of view of the sheriff in a small town (James Farentino). There is a murder--and that's very unusual. However, when another murder soon occurs--and ALSO involving people from out of town--he starts to wonder if some conspiracy is afoot. Weird? Yes--but not nearly as weird as when he gets word that one of the victims' bodies is gone! And, weirder yet--the person is seen ALIVE later!! Obviously bad things are happening here! The film is like combining "The Stepford Wives", "Phantasm" and perhaps even a bit of "Rosemary's Baby"! It's wild and exciting and is filled with WONDERFUL twists. In fact, the ending is one of the best endings I've ever seen in a horror flick. This is an exceptionally eerie and well written film...so why is its current rating only 6.5?! Don't believe the low score--this is a brilliantly spooky film. A must-see!
gregory-joulin --- SPOILERS --- "Dead & Buried"... I had read the novelization of this movie when I was a teenager in the mid-eighties and I remember being grossed out the hard way then. The beautiful opening moments, that sexy girl on the beach, the brutal attack occurring suddenly, a village lost in the fog, all those gruesome murders, the shocking final twist... It was a very nice and grabbing horror book written by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, in a pure Stephen King style.Jumping on the Blu Ray release of "Dead & Buried" out of nostalgia, I was looking forward to feel the same shock before my screen... well, it didn't happen. That's strange : I feel the novelization of the original script is more frightening than the movie based on that script itself ! How can that happen ? Well, the movie is, to me, a mixed bag. The book was not, because it focused on the criminal investigation led by Sheriff Dan Gillis (demotivated and implausible TV star James Farentino in the film). In the book, you can feel, page by page, the stubbornness and competence of that sheriff evolving into confusion and anguish because of the strange events occurring .... and because of his wife's odd behavior, turning from loving and chilled out to spooky and unsettling.The movie doesn't explore this feeling at all. Good horror flicks need to have a sort of "blur" zone where nothing is revealed at once, just suggested. Not here : the movie spoils itself from the very beginning. For example, the point of the film is that the viewer *must* understand after 10 minutes that the town folks are a big part of the problem... OK, no big deal, that's a viable option, but then, why focusing on poor lonely Sheriff Gillis who spend his time driving around the village with his concerned face all day long, going nowhere, picking up dead bodies one after the other and doing nothing serious to keep things moving ? He's even losing a fleeing suspect during an overlong and not scary chase-in-the-dark sequence that leads nowhere.He doesn't even react professionally to the murder occurring in the hospital room, during the infamous needle-in-the-eye sequence, when every cop on Earth would have locked down the place and call for support to interrogate everybody, patients included. And let's not mention that silly haunted house sequence with the usual "poor lost family from the city".And the final twist, to mention it briefly without spoiler, so very astonishing and uneasy in the book, happens in the movie to be completely illogical and couldn't make less sense than there.Ms. Yarbro could handle holes like these in her novelization because, I guess, she could use the number of pages to work it out, fix broken links, put some flesh on things... but in the motion picture, these plot problems tend to invade the screen and bother viewers.The film has highlights, though. The opening sequence, both erotic and dreadful in the book, is totally grasping on screen, thanks to gorgeous Lisa Blount and an excellent music and cinematography. The city atmosphere is really scary, with all that fog, this big horn sound in the distance, the gray appearance of houses and streets... Shocking gore details still hold up after all those years, thanks to the genius of great Stan Winston.So my advice would be : go for eBay search engine and try to purchase an old copy of the book, forget about buying the damn thing on DVD or BR.
steelerstwin This little flick is a real treasure. It is creepy, atmospheric and all that a low-budget horror-crime thriller should be. Director Gary Sherman strikes all the right chords and the cinematography is wonderful.The setting is a small, coastal town called Potter's Bluff, one of those eerie, isolated small towns that bears a terrible secret.I won't spoil it for you here, but you'll get the idea fairly soon into the picture, but it doesn't spoil the fun. This movie is like a vacation in that the real joy is in getting to your destination.Everything fits together quite well and we sympathize with the Sheriff, played quite well by veteran actor James Farentino. He is trying to hold himself together while his little town is wracked by one grisly murder after another. Oddly, it seems to upset him a whole lot more than it does anyone else.The always impressive Jack Albertson steals the show as the coroner and this off-beat casting is a tribute to his talent in his final role.This movie really does strike a good balance between the gore (and yes, there is a good bit of it for this type of flick) and mystery, from creepy seaside horror to crime thriller. Some might suggest that this movie doesn't know what it wants to be, but I disagree. This movie was made by people who knew how to make a horror film that didn't go over the top, but also did not pull its punches.What really makes this movie tick is the moody, atmospheric location shots. There is a sad inevitability to this movie that compels you to want to be a part of it all, but that also warns you off because of the mysterious danger that lurks from the beach.Good Halloween or summer time flick!