Buried Alive (2007)

Directed by: Robert Kurtzman | 94 minutes | horror | Actors: Tobin Bell, Leah Rachel, Erin Lokitz, Germaine De Leon, Terence Jay, Steve Sandvoss, Lindsey Scott

There are films in which mainly actors who are at the beginning of their career play a role. You know, the difficult years in which every role is one and there simply has to be bread on the shelf. Films that actors would prefer to keep quiet after their big break. Or buried. ‘Buried Alive’ is such a bad product. Cheap, vulgar and with scenes that the dogs don’t like to eat. It doesn’t want to get really scary and the characters are so annoying that you wish them all a split skull.

In the opening scene, college student Rene (Leah Rachel) shaves her legs while bathing as the camera lustfully glides along the contours of her body. She then exchanges an incestuous kiss with her first cousin Zane (Terence Jay). Not the epitome of good taste, but it’s nothing compared to what the two female males have to put up with. They parade around in fetish suits, run around naked with only a pair of cowboy boots as their only accessory and break out cringing dialogues. Poor actresses! It’s clear where director Robert Kurtzman and screenwriter Art Monterastelli get their kicks from, and that has nothing to do with acting.

Nor is ‘Buried Alive’ original. The film is made up of clichés. The study ball with the glasses, which has grown together with his laptop and provides the group with information about a family curse. People who see things that turn out not to be there. Water that turns into blood. Only the sparse gore scenes still give the film some jeu. What veteran Tobin Bell (the torture hobbyist from ‘Saw’) comes to do in ‘Buried Alive’ is a mystery. Although he takes on the best role, in a film like this that says little. On the other hand, Bell’s chimney must be smoking too, especially now that the ‘Saw’ series starts to convulse.

‘Buried Alive’ will look great as a visual wallpaper at college parties. A crate of beer, a bowl of chips, all in front of the tube and just shout! Probably not what the actors had in mind when they decided to seek their fortune in Hollywood, but hey, it’s no different.