Harefooted Halloween: Dead & Buried

What I Liked: Really nice atmosphere.  The small coastal New England town of Potter’s Bluff always seems to be overcast with fog around, the buildings are kinda shabby and old and the residents are slightly quirky.  This isn’t a place that appears normal on the surface but if you zoom in there’s a dark side hiding beneath.  The eeriness is on top here and it sets a great mood where you’re thrown a bit from the start.

Solid performances all around.  Jack Albertson (The Poseidon Adventure) plays one of the leads as Dobbs, a confident slightly arrogant mortician.  He loves fixing up corpses to make them look beautiful for their funeral and burial.  He has a penchant for getting absorbed in his work and playing tunes from the 30’s and 40’s.  He aids the town sheriff, Dan (James Farentino (Bulletproof)), in trying to determine why dead bodies keep turning up.  Dan is our protagonist who definitely has a Chief Brody from Jaws thing going on.  He’s a very affable everyman type, wants to do the right thing, is friendly with the townsfolk, not above asking for help, is not a rookie cop but perhaps new the current post and thrown into an impossible situation when strange occurrences and murders start happening.  I dig Farentino’s genuine shock and confusion over everything.  He plays it more grounded than you would normally see in a horror movie.

One thing this film is semi-famous for (in that the film itself is semi-famous) are the Stan Winston effects and yea, they look fantastic.  The two big ones are a needle gets jammed through an eye (totally squirm worthy) and a scene where Dobbs entirely reconstructs a deceased woman’s face.  We start with a mutilated visage and over many dissolves we see him remove the destroyed flesh and build the entire thing back up from skeleton to muscle to skin.  It’s impressive as hell and a touch unsettling because it looks real.  Unfortunately there’s one effect that was added in post-production to punch up the violence where acid is injected into someone’s nose.  Winston was not around so someone else did it and it looks crappy.

Cool score by Joe Renzetti (The Buddy Holly Story, Child’s Play).  The opening uses this melodic lilting piano led track with strings that sounds beautiful.  There’s an undercurrent of sadness to it that fits the picture.  Later we get more of your usual string drones and stabs to build good tension.  Scenes tend to linger maybe a little longer than they need to but the soundtrack almost single handedly keeps the suspense flowing in a couple of spots.

What I Didn’t Like: While the plot is neat it does get sorta muddy.  I won’t go into spoilers but you need to connect your own dots to a degree.  The information they provide doesn’t explain everything so if you take the movie as is it doesn’t exactly make sense.  You might get a kick out of this if you like coming up with theories to fill in plot holes.  I’ll admit I was doing this afterward to try to fit everything together and I think you can make it work.

Overall Impressions: This is a unique and unusual take on a zombie picture.  It’s a very Tales From the Crypt type concept that also invokes another film that I won’t name because that’ll give too much away.  I like how subtly creepy the town and inhabitants are.  You know they’re doing terrible shit but you can’t put your finger on why.  Sheriff Dan’s pursuit of the truth drives the mystery and he seems like such a good guy you wanna see him succeed even though you know nothing good will come of it.  He knows his town is venturing down a dark ass path but he can’t stop it.  The whole thing ends up being more tragic than anything else.  Don’t leave this one in the ground.  Dig it up and check it out.