3/5 Interesting Little Film
  by gooniemcfly (out there)
Dead & Buried (1981) has an interesting premise to it. Stangers are murdered in a small coastal town and then suddenly appear as townspeople the next day.

I sat through this movie with the highest of hopes. The fact that it was an early 80's horror movie made me jump for joy. I sat through it and patiently watched as I got a wonderful payoff at the end. The ending is the main selling point for this movie. Up until then, the movie had me wondering if it was going to be good or not. The ending is now cliche in today's movie world but back then it was pretty special.

This dvd comes with three commentary tracks. And it also has some theatrical trailers.

Overall this is a good ghost (or you could say zombie) story ala The Fog.

3/5 A decent take on zombie movies
  by M. Ryan Fairbanks (Cleveland, Ohio)
First off, the Amazon synopsis is pretty much a giant spoiler, so if you're actually interested in seeing this and figuring it out for yourself...Well I guess it's not too hard to figure it out anyway. Dead and Buried is an okay zombie-themed movie that's heavy on the atmosphere, but rather low in other departments, namely the gore. However with Stan Winston on the gore effects, you can be assured that when the death scenes occur they look fantastic.

The story begins in the small, eerie seaside town Potter's Bluff. Upon investigating the mysterious death of a tourist, the local sheriff begins to notice something even more unusual, the dead man seems to be alive once again and has become one of the townsfolk. As more instances of the dead returning as town residents begin occuring, the sherrif along with the town mortician attempt to unravel the mystery behind the strange happenings. Ultimately it is revealed that the phenomenon of the dead returning may be bigger than the sherrif thinks.

My gripes? Dead and Buried is a very dark movie, not only atmospherically, but literally as well. The night time scenes are ridiculously dark, you can barely make out anything that is happening on the screen, and I am not referring to some ancient VHS edition! I guess it's not that big of a deal, but it does happen more than once across the course of the movie and it is a bit annoying. There's also the ending of the movie, which seems like an interesting and clever outcome at first, but as it unravels even more it seems to discredit the events of the movie by contradicting itself as well as opening up a number of plot holes.

Overall Dead and Buried is a cool horror flick that has some good things going for it. Nice atmosphere, acting is decent, and some impressive gore scenes (particularly the burn victim, and the rock-to-face aftermath scene). Definetly a good one for a Friday night with some friends who appreciate this kinda thing.

3/5 Sorry but cut
  by Chris G (Tokyo)
Has anybody else noticed that this film is actually cut? I remember seeing this flick at a festival screening back in the days and noticed a couple of scenes missing or shortened on this Blue Underground version. (same for Near Dark, Anchor Bay)

The scene where the syringe is injected into the eye is shortened, the scene where they smash the face of the girl with a rock is actually gone (you should see the stone hitting).

Quite a few of these new released horror films (Near Dark and Trauma on Anchor Bay e.g.) feature a somewhat cut version despite the "Directors Cut" label. For the ones that are old enough and have had the opportunity to watch these films when they came out or on bootleg, crappy :) but original video might agree with me on this one.

I'm not slamming these movies, its great that they are released in high quality and they are classics. Hope to see the "original" versions on Blu Ray.

4/5 A Look Back At A Piece Of Early 80's Horror
  by Eric Ericson (Venice, Florida USA)
Y'know, it always surprises me when a Horror fan
of "my" age still stumbles across a film from the 80's
I haven't seen yet, and this time it was Dead & Buried.

This film, sort of a cross between Salem's Lot, The Stepford Wives, and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, was a decent
way of going back to see how Horror was handled
in the early 80's (though honestly, it reminded me more
of a late 70's flix). Almost every character actor starting out
is in this flix, including Robert Englund in his third big screen role.

Stan Winston's effects are used here and while they're nowhere
near the quality of what he did in "The Thing" a year later, you can see that this guy was going to be one of the FX giants. Not that this is a gorefest, it ain't, but the effects are modest and help the story continue. This story, about a mortician who is able to bring the recently departed back to life and integrate them as residents of Potter's Bluff, was somewhat original for it's time. And the ending must have been a grandaddy to shocker conclusions like for The Sixth Sense and others.

I enjoyed it, made me think back to what Horror was like back in the day. The bonus disc has three documentaries that are just as entertaining as the movie, especially the Robert Englund one, where he talks about his career up to that point and seems to reflect back on this movie quite fondly (he showed up to talk about it, didn't he?). Anyway, if you like the pacing of some of those older 70's/80's American Horror films, this should be for you.

5/5 SAY CHEESE!
  by CLINT BRONSON (las vegas,NV.)
WOW! What a great birthday present I bought myself. It was
my B-Day yesterday and I wanted to (trick or)treat myself
to the best gift I could think of...A HORROR MOVIE! But what
to buy??? I do see they have the ULITIMATE EDIT. of EVIL DEAD
and now they release a two disc. of HELLRAISER. But I own
both those classics on single disc. I want something new
and GREAT I had not seen in HORROR! Well as I scanned the
D-Section in HORROR my finger hit DEAD & BURIED! hmmmmmm.
I remember seeing this on SHOWTIME a loooong time ago and
really not liking it. I felt I should give it another shot
(I LOVE TYPING THAT...ANOTHER SHOT,OH! SORRY)anyway to
give it another try so on a whim I bought it. First off
the music in this is great!!!! HUGE plus in Clint's book
also the directing and acting are great. It starts off
with a man taking pic. of the beach when a woman appears
out of nowhere and heavily flirts with him. All the sudden while
he gets ready to kiss her a group of people come and beat the man
to a pulp. They then throw over him a fishing net and light him
on fire all the while there taking pic.of him. This really sucks
you in the first 5 min. of the movie for some of the towns people
who are participating in this murder have the faces you'd trust
watching your children. later in the movie the man they murdered
turns up A O.K.??? Is he a GHOST is it WITCHCRAFT is he a ZOMBIE
WHAT??? I am not telling for you really need to watch this movie.
All I can say is what a B-Day treat to not only watch a HORROR
movie I had not seen but one that is great! I proudly have
DEAD AND BURIED in my 1981 coll. with THE BEYOND-THE BURNING
PROWLER-ANTHROPOPAGUS-THE LIVING DEAD GIRL and TENEBRAE
Buy this movie for it is BURY good(sic)