Dead & Buried
released 1981
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“Dead & Buried” is an American horror, thriller film Robert Fentress, Michael Rachmil, Ronald Shusett and Richard R. St. Johns. It was written by Jeff Millar, Alex Stern, Ronald Shusett, Dan O’ Bannon and the film was turned into a novel by the horror writer Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. It was directed by Gary Sherman and stars James Farentino, Melody Anderson, Jack Albertson, Dennis Redfield, Nancy Locke, Lisa Blount, Robert Englund, Bill Quinn, Michael Currie, Christopher Allport, Joseph G. Medalis, Macon McCalman, Lisa Marie, Estelle Omens, Barry Corbin, Linda Shusett, Ed Bakey, Glenn Morshower, Michael Pataki, Jill Fosse, Mark Courtney, Michael Courtney, Renee McDonell, Dottie Catching, Colby Smith, Judy Ashton, Anthony Cecere, Bill Couch, Bill Couch Jr. and Angelo De Meo. This old gem is a cult classic for a good reason.

Dead & Buried IMDb webpage

“Dead & Buried” starts off like so many good films in the horror, thriller, scifi do. A man named Ron, played by Dennis Redfield, stops by a quaint town named Potter’s Bluff. He is a photographer and decides to take pictures on the beach of this beautiful, as close to pristine as you can get in the modern era, town. He meets a beautiful woman, played by Lisa Blount, and takes pictures of her, at her behest only to be attacked by being tied to a pole and burned alive in front of a crowd of people he has never met before for no apparent reason. This horrific act is the beginning of a strange and terrifying mystery that the sheriff of the town named Dan Gillis, played by James Farentino, sets out to solve. An interesting twist to the story is that Ron is not the protagonist of the story like we expect. He is actually the first victim, we the audience, see.

Sheriff Dan’s investigation begins with the discover of dead people turning up in a town that regularly sees no crime whatsoever. The locals even joke about that fact. The Sheriff is helped by the local coroner named Willian G. Dobbs, played by Jack Albertson, who seems to be a man who loves his job just a little too much. The situation gets more dangerous and bizarre for the sheriff has he uncovers a supernatural secret the town had been hiding of the kind that would have made Nathaniel Hawthorne proud of the story development. Just to drop a hint without any spoilers I keep thinking of the story “Young Goodman Brown”. This tale of horror combines the elements of voodoo and witchcraft with a story development that is not at all predictable. And of course the Sheriff, the poor, poor Sheriff is in for a rude awakening about the town he lives in. The town that convinced him to turn down the better salary he was offered in the city and move there.

This is the story of a capable protagonist that is in way over their head. Like Ron the photographer the Sheriff could not have possibly known what was going on in that town and if he had not started an investigation like he was discouraged he might never have reached the truth, and where would we the viewer be then?

I’m going to be honest and say that the script needs some touching up but in spite of that fact this is a great watch which might get a new life from a modern day remake. Most classic are best left as they are but with this film I feel that a remake could do it justice because the story is so good. I liked the way they added the story element of voodoo without any condescending storylines about Haitian culture. I liked the twists and turns of the story. I also liked the way this film aged pretty well considering it was released in 1981. I also loved the movie poster and I rarely mention movie posters because they are very much like the cover of a book because it’s what’s inside the book that matters more and not the cover. In this case however, after having seen the film, I found the poster excellent. It should be an NFT for goodness sakes.

So, if we’re talking about themes to films one that catches my attention is the theme of playing with death, or more precisely, trying to master death and what that leads to. So much of our literature, films and art deal with this issue. Masterworks like “Frankenstein”, the hugely successful comic series of “Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet”, “Macbeth” to a degree, so many zombie stories and more. Most of these, nearly all, are cautionary tales and excellent fuel for horror stories.

So, check out “Dead & Buried” and see why it remains a cult classic to this day.

John Ink2Quill

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