Horror Movie Reviews
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Title: I Bury the Living (2001) |
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Review of I Bury the Living
- Newly appointed cemetery chairman Robert Craft (Richard Boone) notices some odd things about his new post: a creepy sense of déjà vu, an inability to get heat in the caretaker's shack, and Andy the caretaker's Scottish accent, one of the thickest in all cinematic history. Craft soon discovers to his horror that sticking pins into his map of the cemetery seems to make people die. As if this weren't bad enough, no one believes him. As Craft grows more and more distraught, his forehead covered in some of the most brightly glistening sweat you've ever seen, people keep trying to prove it's all a coincidence by getting him to stick more and more pins in the map. Though hilariously overwrought, I Bury the Living does take a couple of nice creepy twists at the end. Never before has a movie so eloquently made the case for keeping cemetery records in a text-only database. --Ali Davis
Amazon.com
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Comments for I Bury the Living
- Posted on 2008-05-31
Night of the Dead Living. A Reliable Seller on Amazon.
You might think with a title like I Bury the Living you may be getting a horror film along the lines of The Vanishing - Criterion Collection. Wrong. Conceptually think the killer from the The Final Destination Thrill-Ogy (Final Destination/ Final Destination 2/ Final Destination 3) films, also known as fate, death, or destiny, put that power in an unknowing human and viewers get to watch things from death's perspective as opposed to the victims. It sounds confusing but it isn't.
There is no gore in this flick but to those who like their horror with a twist, or better yet lovers of Twilight Zone: The Complete Definitive Collection, to you I say (In my best Zelda Rubenstein voice), come to the light, all are welcome.
Oh ya, the plot. It's simple enough. Robert Kraft, a successful man, president of a retail store, and on a committee responsible for a local cemetery his family has ties too. Each year the committee appoints a new director to handle the cemetery and this year it's Bobby's turn. Bob stops by to let the caretaker know that It's time for him to retire with full pension after 40 years of dedicated service. The caretaker shows Bobby around and too the large map of the cemetery that keeps track of all the plots with it's vast grids of squares. Each square or plot with a black pin in it represents a grave that has been filled by someone who has deceased. Each square with a white pin is for those who have made future arrangements for their burials. One problem, Bob accidentally puts two black pins in a young, very much alive, just married couple instead of white, and soon after they both die! After hearing the news Bob gets an eerie feeling that it's more than a coincidence and randomly takes out a white pin on the map hanging on the wall and replaces it with a black one, guess what, they die too. It seems whatever reserved plot that Bob sticks a black pin in someone dies. Picture the horror of scientist Andre Delambre from The Fly Collection (The Fly [1958] / Return Of The Fly / The Curse Of The Fly) who tampered with nature, but here it is nature that tampered with Bob.
The question is; What happens if Bob replaces the black pins of the deceased with white ones?! DUH! DUH! DUH!
THE SELLER: INETVIDEO
The dvd is no longer available, so I found a seller on Amazon offering it brand new for only $4.68. My experience with this is usually a saran wrapped dvd that looks like it's been burnt, so I was leary but I figured It's five bucks. I was shocked to find it had all three security tags on (which I kind of hate, but it appeared to be new), the dvd was immaculate, as a collector of dvds I hate it when one shows up banged up. Still hesitant, thinking this seller has an in with security tags, I popped to the movie in expecting to find a burned version and to my surprise watched a pristine black and white Midnite Movies quality dvd.
This is a (from my limited experience) great seller here on Amazon and someone that deserves their high rating and one I will use again. Thanks INETVIDEO.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-02-22
Gravely Disappointing; I Want My Three Dollars Back!
I bought "I Bury the Living" for three dollars at the closing of a video rental store. From the cover, I was expecting a movie where the dead are rising from their graves or the living are being buried alive as in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Premature Burial." I was gravely disappointed on both counts. This bland, often slow-moving film tries to have a "mystery science fiction theatre" plot concerning the power of mind over matter. Can negative thoughts bring about negative events? Can you will someone to die by merely sticking a black pin into a map as in voodoo. However, "I Bury the Living" fails at science fiction. It also fails at being a mystery. The ending is a disappointment and doesn't seem plausible considering the victims all appeared to have died of natural causes. "I Bury the Living" was not worth seeing, not even for nostalgic reasons. I want my three dollars back!
Score: 2
- Posted on 2007-11-01
B-movie greatness.
I Bury the Living (Albert Band, 1958)
I Bury the Living has a really cool little premise for a B-movie shocker: what if a map of a graveyard, which hangs in the office of the caretaker, were to actually have the power of life and death over those who had already reserved plots there? Robert Kraft (The Shootist's Richard Boone), the cemetery's new overseer, accidentally replaces the white pins (showing a plot has been reserved) with black (showing a plot that's occupied) one afternoon; the couple whose plot was the receptacle of the mistake die in a car accident that night. He tests the hypothesis with another random name; the owner of the plot keels over. Kraft slides farther down the brink to insanity, even as the graveyard's longtime caretaker Andy McKee (TV character actor Theodore Bikel, perhaps best remembered on the big screen for The Defiant Ones) and police lieutenant Clayborne (Robert Osterloh of Rosemary's Baby) keep assuring him that the string of deaths must be coincidence. Eventually, though, Kraft finds himself asking the question that the audience has been asking all along (or maybe it's just me): what happens if he takes the pins out?
Band, best remembered these days as one of the guys behind B-horror studio Empire Pictures in the eighties (responsible for, among other things, the rise of Stuart Gordon), was a pretty good director back in the day. Don't let his eighties and nineties flops (Ghoulies II, Robot Wars, Prehysteria, etc. etc. ad nauseam) fool you. While you can expect all the usual useless trappings of a fifties B movie to be well represented here (the egregious love-story subplot, odd shots that have little if anything to do with the picture itself, that wonderful conceit where they film a nighttime scene in broad daylight, and you're just supposed to ignore the sunshine, etc.), there's some iron hidden under the guts. Boone, by far the best actor of the bunch, at least in this movie, nails his role. Fifties horror flicks, even of the no-budget variety, were still all about the acting, and this one's no exception. The fear in this movie comes from Robert Kraft's belief that he is making this stuff happen, and that's the difference between a decent movie and a really good one. It's overlooked these days, neglected, but it deserves to be rediscovered. *** ½
Score: 4
- Posted on 2007-04-14
BEST TRANSFER - GET IT WHILE YOU CAN
The Midnite Movies series from MGM has been out of print for some time now and with the various changing of the guards for ownership as well as distribution, you may never get another chance to pick up this Official Release of "I Bury The Living". Single title Midnite Movies are the rarest so get it while you can. Skip the public domain versions... you won't find a better transfer of this late night movie classic.
Score: 5 - Posted on 2006-12-17
A Classic Of Its Kind.
I consider this 1958 film a classic of its kind but that doesn't make it a "classic". However it follows honorably in the footsteps of 1940s film producer Val Lewton in the "less is more" category by using sight and sound rather than shock to create a profound sense of unease. It's a B movie all the way and clearly shows what can be done on a meager budget with that most valuable of resources...imagination. Richard Boone (just before he played Paladin in HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL) stars as a caretaker who discovers that he has the power of life and death by sticking black and white pins in a cemetery map. The film becomes increasingly nightmarish when Boone decides to reverse the pins with terrifying results. If you've read a few of the other reviews you know about the ending that everybody loves to hate. It attempts to put a logical as opposed to supernatural explanation on what happens much like the ending to Tod Browning's MARK OF THE VAMPIRE. The original ending (part of which is in the trailer) was meant to be supernatural but it was ultimately rejected. Despite the present ending, I BURY THE LIVING still has the ability to remain with you long after countless other "scarier" movies have been forgotten. Just ask Stephen King who talks about it in his book DANSE MACABRE. If it's B movie blood and gore you want than head for the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD but if you enjoy a literate script with TWILIGHT ZONE/ALFRED HITCHCOCK twists and turns, effective music, and solid performances then check this one out. Be advised there are a number of low budget DVD versions out there but the one to get is the MGM Midnite Movies edition from 2001. It's no longer available new but there are plenty of used copies at good prices. The print quality and sound are the best available and give this little black and white gem its maximum impact.
Score: 4