Purely Joyful Movie!

Load of rubbish!!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Before now, if you had told me that Donald Pleasance had starred alongside '80s hardcore porn-star Ginger Lynn Allen, I might not have believed it; my mind would have certainly boggled at the many sordid and potentially upsetting possibilities. But here it is... Buried Alive, which sees the ageing bald horror actor as kooky Dr. Schaeffer, employee at Ravenscroft, a reform school where the girls (whose number includes Ginger Lynn as Debbie) start to disappear in mysterious circumstances. There are, thankfully, no XXX scenes between Pleasance and Allen.The film starts with the capture of one of the girls by a masked maniac. The next day, the school's beautiful new teacher Janet (Karen Witter) arrives at the institution, but quickly becomes confused by goings on (but not as much as me), and thereafter suffers from hallucinations in which a hand grabs her from the ground and out of a toilet bowl while ants crawl everywhere. Meanwhile, the school's director Gary Julian (Robert Vaughn) professes his love for Janet (having made her acquaintance only a few days earlier), which turns out to be a big problem for the lovely lady when it transpires that he is the deranged lunatic who has been walling up the missing girls in the basement.To be brutally honest, the film's plot is a colossal mess, but the whole thing still manages to be fairly entertaining nonsense nevertheless, with a few gore effects (the rotting corpses of Debbie and her boyfriend are particularly grisly) and the requisite nudity (a group shower scene ticking that particular box). The film also features John Carradine in one of his last roles, as Julian's crazy coot of a father, who may or may not be a ghost; by this point in his career, I'm not sure if Carradine even knew what his films were about.

This movie is supposedly based on Edgar Allen Poe, but aside from a cat and some people being entombed behind a wall, I'm not so sure. (And it also seems to involve ants, lots and lots of ants). It takes place at some kind of institute for sexy, delinquent, orphaned female mental patients. (I would gladly work as the unpaid janitor at one of these places, but they only seem to exist in the movies). The name actors in this movie are Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasance, and John Carradine (in what would be his final film). You may question the judgment of these actors in appearing in this film, but when did any of these guys ever show any judgment? I would question the judgment of the producers in their choice of the female cast. The lead is Karen Witter, a former Playboy Playmate. Very few Playmates are known for their acting abilities and Witter is definitely NOT doing what she does best here. You could probably say the same thing about Ginger Lynn Allen, at that time in a hiatus period of her XXX porn career. But at least she has brief nude scenes (well, sort of) and is not very convincing, but still somewhat entertaining as the tough "queen bee" of the institution.The French director of this, Gerard Kinkoine, is also an interesting choice. He WAS technically a porn director, but he was one of the more talented "softcore" directors like Just Jaeckin, Jean Rollin, Walerian Borozyx, and Max Pecas rather than simply a hardcore hack. Almost all these European directors ended up working in off-Hollywood American co-productions like this at the end of their careers, but it was actually a step down for them (whereas for Ginger Allen it was a definite step-up from "servicing" the likes of Ron Jeremy and Jerry Butler).This is OK I guess overall. I probably won't sue to get the 90 minutes of my life back. . .

Pheeeew.... An Edgar Allan Poe story in some sort of slasher format...? A concept like this only could have been thought up during the late 80's...The movie does try but fails to convince because the script offers no surprises whatsoever. It's basically an average horror effort where angry women in a reform school meet their demise at the hands of a mad psychiatrist and his insane curing methods.It's not impossible to sit through, mainly because of the mildly entertaining death-scenes and it does have a certain style to it. In my opinion, you can tell this was directed by a Frenchman (Gérard Kikoïne), because his way of mise-en-scène at moments is just a bit more imaginative than your run-of-the-mill slasher/horror director from the 80's. At times he chooses quite original angles and camera movements to portray the events (unusual framing, profile close-ups of the actors with action going on in the background, inventive travels & crane-shots,...). But like I said, the story is extremely predictable and lacks suspense, and that's what basically kills the movie.The acting was overall acceptable (though the angry woman did get a bit on my nerves after a while - thankfully there was a group shower scene!), and Donald Pleasance, again, provides a very weird role. He's completely wasted on this movie, has almost nothing to do but it was fun seeing him play another out-of-place weirdo (who's also a notable member of the school's staff, by the way, wears a fake toupée and has some sort of German accent). For some reason you can often see him munching on stuff - I couldn't quite make out if it were peanuts or ants...An added value could come from Robert Vaughn, leading the cast as the mad psychiatrist, and John Carradine (in nothing more but a cameo). The climactic scene near the end (in which they're both featured) was somewhat amusing. But leading girl Karen Witter, although sweet eye-candy, wasn't really capable of carrying the film, as her performance came off as too generic to me. I did chuckle when I spotted a young Arnold Vosloo in a supporting role. All this made me enjoy the movie a bit more than I should have. And you can add a nonsensical frozen surprise-shot at the end to the mix.A rather weird film. Incompetent too. But as far as raping Edgar Allan Poe goes, they did a good job.

BURIED ALIVE was to be the last film made by John Carradine during his lifetime (the old actor would later come back from the grave to appear in a few more movies). Edgar Allan Poe's name is mentioned in the title, but don't believe the hype. For this is just another cheap horror exploitation flick (what more can you expect from producer Harry alan Towers, who churned out some of the worse movies ever?) Nevertheless, it's enjoyable enough if only for the performances. Robert Vaughn (TEENAGE CAVEMAN) plays the director of a school/madhouse. Donald Pleasance is once again typecast as one of its loony inhabitants. His French voice is not the same as in the HALLOWEEN series, but it's as much fun. And John Carradine appears shortly, wheelchair-bound, in what constitutes a fitting, if not flamboyant, last blast of weirdness. That's about all you get from an otherwise poor-looking film...