Dead and Buried: Obscene But Not Heard

Dead & Buried, a 1981 lurid crap classic and, despite its budgetary limitations, actually added a new twist to the zombie genre without evening knowing it or promoting itself as a zombie movie. But to tell you what it is, I’d have to spoil the entire thing. By doing so, as the neighbor’s 4 year-old kid says, will have me “going to jail for a very long time.”

Since I don’t want to go to jail for any length of time, I’ll just give you a few of the juicy details – and by that, I mean oozing, shiny juicy gore.

Potter’s Bluff is a small coastal New England town where its residents act nice at first, then bash you over the head with hard objects, tie you up, then light you on fire while you’re still screaming about being hit with hard objects. As you’re doing your best Joan of Arc impersonation, this large group of PB’s citizens take pictures and home movie footage, all the while showing about as much emotion as someone totally wasted on Zima™.

If you somehow manage to live, you get taken to the hospital, where a nurse will give you a co-pay lethal injection in the eye. Then off to the coroner you go, while the local sheriff searches for clues as to who is wasting gasoline and matches on tourists.

Daily explicit and grisly deaths, with the recently deceased showing up soon thereafter, fit as a fiddle, looking no worse for wear and tear (emphasis on the tear). The sheriff is flummoxed (word of the day calendar –sweet), but slowly starts to assemble the clues. It isn’t until he stumbles across footage of the townsfolk’s handiwork that he loses it, especially since one clip involves his wife and… Uh oh.

During this, the emotionally distraught sheriff also discovers who is behind all this madness. And it’s right here we get the money shot. In a sweet twist, the horror of all this “bringing ‘em back to life” whack-a-do pays off like a max bet penny slot machine. Did for me, anyway.

FYI: Due to its unflinching gore and violence, Dead & Buried was initially banned as a “video nasty” in the UK in the early 1980s, but was later acquitted of obscenity charges and removed from the Director of Public Prosecutions’ list. Whew!

The Horror of Being Rich

The Curse of the Living Corpse is social commentary horror movie made in 1964 about spoiled aristocrats in 1893. Spoiled aristocrats is an oxymoron.

After their disgustingly rich father dies, the surviving family members go after the inheritance like me at an all-you-can drink buffet. The millionaires’ sons and daughters are the ultimate Republicans: snobbish, greedy, manipulating and scheming.

But even though he’s dead, dad has the last word. Each relative must perform a task lasting one year, after which they get their money. These tasks are simple and designed as safety measures in case dad needs to come back. (Being buried alive was his greatest fear.) Failing to do the tasks results in each of the ding-dongs being done in by their own worst fears: burning, drowning, having their aristocratic face scarred and disfigured, made to eat Hamburger Helper™…

The playboy, needing cash to pay off his gambling debts, looks like Clark Gable, but not quite as handsome. Kinda like a used car salesman version of Clark Gable. He makes out with the hottie servant (“You would carelessly deny rank its privilege?”) and schemes to speed up the inheritance process. This results in the servant’s head being cut off and served on a dinner platter. Eeww!

Roy Scheider is a full-blown alcoholic playboy and taunts the family members with alcohol-fueled taunts. Soon, each starts dying in the fashion they fear most. (For me it’s being forced to drink Zima™.) The caped figure roaming the mansion and estate grounds suggests dad has come back from the grave and is supremely p*ssed. After 30 minutes you should be able to figure out who’s doing all the burning, cutting, drowning, stabbing. The trick is doing it without falling asleep (guilty as charged).

This was Roy’s first movie. He did others, but the only one that matters is Jaws (no, not Jaws II/1978 because that one sucked hard). Candace Hilligoss plays a terrified crying wallflower. You may remember her from the 1962 horror creeper, Carnival of Souls. You don’t? Then I just now lost all respect for you.

The Devil’s Hound

The DVD cover says this 2007 movie is called Werewolf: The Devil’s Hound. The directors who made it call it Lycan. Pick a neck and bite it, people.

Almost as if making it up on the spot, the script goes from serious werewolvery to slapstick comedy. Not sure either works, but I was duly entertained by the artful graphic gore. Less so by the plot/dialogue.

A female werewolf shows up in a crate of fireworks and gets loose into the general public with the intent to start a family (i.e., have fuzzy sex). A pyrotechnician gets his hand bitten by the she-wolf and incrementally changes into one himself, much in the same fashion Jack Nicholson did in Wolf (1994).

The female werewolf runs on all fours but attacks on two legs. She’s covered in long white hair and her face is all squinched up as though she just drank some Zima™. In human form she’s a second date worthy redhead with a wincing foreign accent. Alas, she does not “de-fur,” if you know what I mean.

The comedy bits border on annoying (just like me after one or nine beers), but the production values are fairly accomplished for having a budget of my paycheck before that asshook FICA dude gets its hairy paws on it.