Just perfect...

Disturbing yet enthralling

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

After a big Brazilian channel showed this movie and many people liked it, I decided to give it a chance. From it's title I imagined it would be a movie with a guy agonizing after being buried alive, in the style of 2010's "Buried". Fortunately, Clint being buried alive is just a detail and a short scene-- thank god. Clint's wife tries to kill him to have his money-- which would be a homicide qualified by a vile reason in Brazilian's law. Story is pretty much vindictive, since the main character (Clint) ends the movie burying her wife alive, just like she did to him. Although it looks pretty evil in a first moment, if you watch the movie you'll feel he did just the right thing. Joanna deserved that. "Buried Alive" doesn't have anything special, but writing, directing and acting are professional enough to make this whole picture entertaining, convincing and with a "happy" ending. Frank Darabont's debut couldn't be any better, and I have to confess I find this picture more believable and interesting than "Shawshank Redemption"-- yes, I have such weird taste. To sum it up, "Buried Alive" is a good low-budget movie that you will probably enjoy if you prefer realistic stories to Hollywood clichés.

The plot of this film actually would make a wondrously extravagant "Love is …" cartoon! You know, the drawing of that cute little naked couple holding hands and looking into each other's eyes with a text underneath stating: "Love is … poisoning him with Japanese fish fluids, refusing to pay extra for his embalming and burying him in a rotten coffin barely two feet under the ground!" This modest and well-directed early 90's made-for-TV thriller guarantees decent suspense and entertainment as long as you don't set your expectations too high. The plot, which is absolutely unrelated to the similarly themed Edgar Allen Poe story, is full of far-fetched and utterly implausible story elements and you better don't contemplate about it too much, but it's definitely compelling enough to keep you on the edge of your seat for an hour and a half. Hard-working family man Clint Goodman *thinks* he has a good marriage going on, but his spoiled wife Joanna is actually sleeping with her doctor and planning to run off to California with him. They need money first, though, and so they conceive a plan to kill Clint and sell his profitable business to a frequent bidder. Their plan kind of backfires, because tropical fish-poison is a worthless murder weapon, and Clint literally crawls back among the living. He wisely decides that killing his wife and her lover with a shotgun is "too easy" – and right he is – and prepares an inescapable death trap of his own. The implausible part of "Buried Alive" is how sloppy the murder scheme is. Here you have a formula for murder that you could actually get away with, but it almost seems as if they want everything to fail. You make sure the last words your husband is supposed to hear aren't "Die! Damn you! Die", you pay for the embalming because it means extra security he's dead and you make sure everybody in town witnesses a proper funeral with an expensive coffin! Other than the occasionally lacking plot, "Buried Alive" does contain a surprisingly large amount of intense fright-moments, superb acting performances and tight direction from Frank Darabont (acclaimed director of "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile") in his long-feature debut. Tim Matheson is good, but the always very sexy Jennifer Jason Leigh is terrific as the battle-ax wife and William Atherton is simply brilliant as the sleazy scumbag lover. Since this is a TV-movie, we unfortunately don't get to see a lot of gore. Certain moments are reasonably icky, like the image of Clint's scratched-open fingertips and a sink full of hydrogen peroxide, but Darabont merely keeps the emphasis on atmosphere Moral of the story: don't use poisoned fish if you want to kill someone! Homer Simpson didn't die after eating the allegedly poisoned dish of sushi, either.

**SPOILERS** Breaking his back by working long and hard hours at the construction site to make things fine and wonderful for his ungrateful wife Joanna, Jennifer Jason Leigh, the good natured hard working but somewhat naive, in what Joanna is planning for him, Clint Goodman (Tim Matheson) is unaware that his wife has been cheating on him. Joanna's having an affair with the family doctor Courtland "Court" Van Owen, William Atherton.Wanting to have a child to add to his family Clint has been very disappointed in not having Joanna conceive feeling that maybe it was his not her fault, thats about he only bad thing that has happened to him since he married her. What Clint doesn't know is that in fact he did get Joanna pregnant but she had the fetus aborted by, you guessed It, her secret lover Dr."Court". Dr. Court, a Japanese fish and food gourmet, gives Joanna a vile of this poison from a tropical fish that he had, together with her, for dinner. Telling Joanna that it, by putting poison in his wine, will not only kill Clint but make it look like he had a sudden and fatal heart-attack. The next day Joanna, after having second thoughts about doing it, slips the poison into Clint's wine as the two have a toast to their great and happy marriage. Within seconds Clint suddenly goes into excruciating convulsions and falls to the floor as dead as the tropical fish that Joanna, and Court, ate the previous evening. Joanna is to inherit almost two million dollars from her late husbands estate but is so cheap that she doesn't even want him to be embalmed and buys the cheapest and flimsiest coffin, that you can easily put your fist through, that she could find at the funeral home which in the end will do her not Clint, who it later turns out is not really dead,in.The story reminds me of something that I read in an old "Tales from the Crypt" comic book where Clint raise from the dead, and his grave, and comes back home for a surprise visit to both haunt and finish off his two "killers" Joanna & Court. With the help of the family dog Duke Clint has the two, after he put them both to sleep, locked in the house with Duke keeping them at bay as he sealed all the doors and windows to make sure that they don't escape. The ending is just too much even for a couple of swines like Joanna and Court when Joanna finds out that her "Lover" Court is really trying to do her in, and take off with all the money. The claustrophobia of Court & Joanna being locked in the house, like rats in a maze, had the two play right in to Clint's, wearing a black visor covering his face, hands.Gut wrenching and horrifying ending that even made you feel sorry for the two slime-balls, Joanna & Court, who ended up where they wanted to put their intended victim Clint Goodman together with the money that was the motivating factor for them wanting to murder him.

Buried Alive is a simple little film, which is a passable way to spend an hour and half. It's basic plot- man buried alive by wife and lover and seeks revenge is fairly bare bones and running at a slight 90 minutes the story feels like it was stretched as far as it could go. The story as it is seems like it might well have worked better as a segment of a horror anthology or an episode of a Tales From the Crypt type show. There is some fun to be had but there simply isn't enough meat on these bones, resulting in a somewhat enjoyable but anaemic movie.The actors are all fun to watch; all are cast in what are typical roles for each of them. William Atherton as a duplicitous slimeball, Jennifer Jason Leigh as a self centred, scheming wife, Tim Matheson as a slightly clueless everyman who is pushed too far. They do these roles well and have some fun with them. The plot is somewhat thin to say the least, with numerous contrivances and absurdities. The ease with which Clint Goodman is able to escape the grave is a bit hard to take, even if the wood in his coffin was rotten and the escape only seems possible as it was buried in a very, very shallow grave. Perhaps nobody making the movie had heard the phrase 'Six Feet Under' or they at least mistook it for inches. The nature of Goodman's ultimate revenge is also incredibly silly. Even with the skill we are repeatedly informed that he has with wood the contraptions he rigs up are quite elaborate, especially given the limited amount of time he would have had. At the end of the day, despite its failings, Buried Alive is fun, macabre little movie.