Buried Alive (2007)

This Dimension Extreme quickie follows a sextet of nubile college students on a road trip into the desert to drink beer, smoke pot, and canoodle at a house with a cursed past, and... Well, if you've ever seen a horror film in your life, you could probably write the rest yourself, and chances are whatever you came up with would turn out better than this forgettable exercise.Our cohort of future victims includes the largely unlikeable lead girl Rene, her lusty male cousin (with whom she shares a bizarre incestuous connection that includes exchanging passionate kisses with him), her impressively useless boyfriend, a duo of bubble-headed sorority pledges, and a computer geek thrown in for good measure. Buried Alive follows the "How To Make A Slasher Movie" guidebook to the letter, so the first third of the film is devoted to the mostly pointless development of characters we truly don't give a crap about, with a few false scares and a dab of nudity tacked on to try to stop you from ejecting the disc.The ground rules are clearly established up front (one character is nice enough to inform us, via an intrusively placed bit of awkward dialogue, that the locale the horror is set to take place in has no landlines and no cell phone service), and our archetypes are reinforced through the sort of hijinks the genre has made you intimately familiar with by now. The nerdy tag-along is "tortured" into fessing up the film's back-story when the two co-eds team up to kiss, fondle, and disrobe him (poor guy), and our token blonde nymphette falls prey to one of the worst pick-up lines ever delivered (her wooer basically points out a piece of furniture that used to be in a brothel and suggests that they should "keep history alive," a seductive invitation which entices her to immediately strip and have sex with a character she met approximately three scenes before that).Even by the standards of bargain basement horror, the goings-on here are especially senseless. Characters have bloody hallucinations for no apparent reason, then go about their business as if nothing has occurred (after the blonde sees her horrifying gore-soaked vision, her next line in the film is a perky, "Did you guys find food?"). The first victim gets axed after stepping outside to make a phone call, is missing for several hours before any of the other characters even note his absence, and his vertically bisected corpse is walked past by not one, but two different people without either of them noticing anything is amiss. And, best of all, a sorority gal who participates in juvenile initiation pledges that include running naked through the desert also conveniently possesses a wealth of information about the spiritual beliefs of Native American tribes and provides a scholarly lecture that explains the supernatural element in the film, all of which she correctly gleans from noticing a necklace someone is wearing in a century-old sepia photograph.The film squanders the few opportunities it has to provide any real scares, and despite a few potentially chilling images, the homicidal phantasm is shown in full detail way too early on for any suspense to be generated on that front. Most of the gore gags aren't particularly novel either, which works directly against the classic splatter vibe it's apparent the film-makers were going for. Worse, Buried Alive is too tedious to fall into the "so bad it's good" category, so the rewards here are minimal at best.The climax incorporates a few decent sequences that liven things up a bit, but after the slow road there something truly spectacular would be required to redeem this outing; that, we don't get. I do commend the screenwriter for toying with convention as it relates to who the lone survivor ends up being, but when the result is that this character flees the scene in the only means of escape and leaves their friends to suffer a ghastly fate, the finale becomes more puzzling than clever.There are certainly worse ways to spend 90 minutes than this, but even at my most forgiving, I have to conclude that Buried Alive should probably have stayed that way.

Again and again I'm warning people not to fall for words on DVD covers like "starring Tobin Bell from Saw" or "it's gory". Even made by the director of Wishmaster, the ghost looks like the Wishmaster 20 years older, this is total crap. It's never frightening or scary. And nothing happens until the last 15 minutes. Tobin is in it, alright, but performs maybe 15 minutes in the movie, and is just a guy. The movie never really starts, it's more about belonging in the group and doing things to belong to the group. So here we go, of course it's the girls who have to do things like, dress yourself with one piece of clothing. Do I have to say more, one chooses only to wear her jeans the other to wear her boots. So naked they go, you think, even there it goes terrible wrong. The black haired one, Erin Lokitz, is running around naked but always covering her boobs. Men, if you know you have to do this and you don't want to do it don't take the role, you know what I mean. And look, I'm talking more about those part of the movie then the blood part. it's easy, it's all done in CGI, and CGI never is and never will be scary or gory. It could have done so beautifully, the storyline is there but next time, Kurtzman, do it in the old fashion way without CGI and if you are teasing with nudity do it full frontal as in MBV remake and Friday the 13th remake. Bury this movie, alive

Buried Alive Tobin Bell deserves an Oscar for best actor in this gripping horror film. Lester is not just any creepy gold digger who lives in the middle of the desert alone in his RV, but really tries to warn the dumb kids not to go into the creepy "sub-cellar". If only those dumb college kids would have listened to Lester and his third person warnings none of this would have ever happened.Phil plays his role to perfection and his stuttering goes almost unnoticed during his few but crucial lines. You can tell the other college kids not only look up to him but also fear him because his is allowed to go unquestioned on his routine 8 hour phone call.One scene I did not enjoy was where they clearly killed live innocent snakes in order for a cheap scare. I do not condone any Mike Vick behavior from film producers and they should be punished.I do not fully understand the cousin make-out scene right in front of the girls boyfriend. I mean I guess if I had a girlfriend I would let her make-out with her cousin too…….CUZ LESTER Ain't GOT NO CABLE!!

Synopsis: A group of college kids at an abandoned house pull a prank that sets loose a murderous ghost.Review: There's something strange, these days and in the past, that often happens to stars of major horror films. After their success, even if their fame is not at an end, they will star in random paycheck movies simply because they're asked, regardless of the quality of the film. Buried Alive is that paycheck for Saw-series star Tobin Bell (Jigsaw). When it comes to a straight-to-video slasher film like this (especially one marketed by the usually trustworthy Dimension Extreme), there are certain things horror fans have come to expect: Heavy gore, attractive women (who, most often, take off their clothes), and, at the very least, some entertainment. Unfortunately, even on as 'unrated,' the film does not deliver on the blood & guts. There is some violence, but not enough, and the result of the violence doesn't have enough splatter. The women are attractive, so they did deliver to us the eye candy. And, as far as entertainment and enjoyment go, well. . . it varied. At some points, the film is a good time and worth a few laughs. Other times, however, the film turns into a bit of a slow-drag bore (especially during the sorority stuff). From the plot to the effects, there's nothing here that hasn't been seen dozens of times before, so if you're in need of some predictability with a bit of enjoyability, you might want to check this out. . . but, you can do a whole lot better.Final verdict: 4/10.-AP3-