Dead and Buried (1981)

Pretty scenery in Potter’s Bluff…

For day 11 of 31 Days of Horror, we check out what kind of horror Alien writer Dan O’Bannon can dream up right here on earthly soil. Dead and Buried is a seriously creepy story exploring the weirdness of the American small town, and what big secrets all those seemingly happy and smiling faces can be keeping from you!

Welcome to Potter’s Bluff, a tiny town on Rhode Island’s shore. What better place to get some leisurely photography in? George Le Moyne sure enjoys shooting the scenery, but he never dreamt it would get as sexy as it did! A beautiful blonde walks into his camera’s frame and starts taking her clothes off. Hot damn, looks like Le Moyne’s hit the jackpot! That’s what he thinks, of course until some ominous-looking locals close in on him, cover him in a fishing net, tie him to a post and burn him alive all while snapping photos of his face. Bummer!

Sheriff Gillis (James Farentino) wonders what the hell could be going on in his hometown.

Cut to Sheriff Dan Gillis (James Farentino), a local boy who left town to get an education (shame on him) who’s come back to re-plant his roots in Potter’s Bluff. He’s on the scene of a terrible car accident, and though the victim has no identification, you and I know that it is Le Moyne. Unfortunately for the locals, it looks like Le Moyne has survived. Unfortunately for Le Moyne, our beautiful blonde is out to get him yet again!

More out-of-towners start dying, and Gillis smells a rat; especially when one of the locals comes knocking on the door saying Freddie, the smiling face at the gas station, looks exactly like Le Moyne. Are the dead coming back to life? Suddenly everyone is looking suspicious, even his wife. Can the sheriff solve the mystery before it’s too late?

The local mortician (Jack Albertson) has been getting a lot of work lately.

Dead and Buried is a surprisingly good and effective horror movie. I think I must be so used to watching movies for style and comedy that I forget how nice it is to watch a legitimately chilling movie. I definitely spent the entirety of the movie wondering what the hell was going on, and was pretty surprised by the ending. I rarely experience this nowadays; usually I can see where a movie is headed from the very beginning, and so I expect the movie to wow me in other ways.

I’m hesitant to say much more about the film for fear of spoiling its surprises. If you’re looking for a film that might actually freak you out, this one is your man. It’s also got pretty good make-up effects that are worth seeing. It’s not the most amazing movie I’ve ever seen, but it achieves the job it sets out to do, and it works. Additionally, the cast includes Robert Englund and Jack Albertson (Grandpa Joe from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) in his last film role. Worth a watch!

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

Langenkamp grows up…

Like it or not, a top-grossing horror villain will never die. Sometimes when they come back, it’s the same old story. Other times, there’s a twist or two. More often than not, it’s the same old story wrapped up in a gimmick. Unfortunately, I’d have to put Wes Craven’s New Nightmare in the last category.

Heather Langenkamp (the actress who played Nancy from the first and third Nightmare on Elm Street films) isn’t doing much

…and her creepy kid is having those Freddy-type dreams.

acting these days; she’s settled down with her husband Chase and son Dylan. The days of Freddy are long behind her, except for that pesky stalker who keeps calling her on the phone singing 1, 2, Freddy’s coming for you…

Things get meta when Freddy creeps into Heather’s real dreams and people close to her start dying. Not long after the shit hits the

…Robert Englund becomes an artist…

fan, Heather finds out Wes Craven is “having nightmares again,” and it’s those nightmares that he’s translating onto the page for the next installment of the Nightmare franchise. It’s up to the actress herself to delve into the real world of Freddy and defeat him once and for all.

This movie could have gone really interesting places, but it didn’t. I kept hoping the film would ask interesting questions about

…And Freddy gets a makeover!

Heather’s sanity; how an actor’s job of blurring the lines between fantasy and reality can affect their life. Or, maybe better still, we’d find out Heather’s stalker was Craven or Robert Englund, so wrapped up in the character they helped create they want to make it a reality. Alas, ’twas not to be – it just ended up being another slasher film, only slightly different than the rest. What a total bummer! Don’t get me wrong, it’s allright, but despite its claims, it’s nothing special.

976-EVIL (1988)

Hoax and Mama, a normal evening at home.

When I first found out Q had a copy of 976-EVIL, my reaction was something along the lines of “ugh, get rid of that thing!” Naturally, it was ripe for the cull.*

Turns out my initial feelings for the film did not change much after a second look. The story’s about a punk named Spike whose Aunt Lucy and cousin Hoax are real god-fearin’ folks. Spike’s own mama left this earth a while ago, and he’s been under Aunt Lucy’s tender loving care ever since. Spike doesn’t give a crap about anything but poker, drugs and sex, and his cousin Hoax is envious.

Spike is the type that’s always wanting more, so when he sees an ad for a telephone number that will deliver your “horrorscope” he of course can’t help himself, and fatefully dials 976-EVIL. At first, the voice on the other end of the phone gives Spike courage to do things he wouldn’t have

A typical day in the life of Hoax: looking up at a bunch of punks.

done before, like steal all his inheritance from his loving Aunt. While doing so, he drops the ad in Hoax’s kitchen. Hoax, wanting to be just like his cool cousin, calls the number and starts doing bad things, like taking revenge on the punks who dunk his head in the toilet and disrespecting his mama. Mama’s often wrong about things, but this time she’s right when she says Hoax has bought a one-way ticket to Hell.

Bah. The tone in this movie is just wrong. But what would one expect from a movie directed by Robert Englund? While this movie has a lot in common with Trick or Treat, there are some pretty significant differences that make Trick or Treat the better movie; namely the main character’s nature. In Trick or Treat, young Eddie at least learns the errors of his ways and tries to end the carnage he began. Here, Hoax just rolls with it, all the way to the bloody end, and I am NOT rooting for him. The truly unfortunate thing is that

Mama’s House

976-EVIL looks really damn good. I just wish it had better things to say.

*Q and I have decided it’s time for a great cull; an early spring cleaning. We have a large number of movies we have not yet seen. Are these movies any good? This is the question we are out to answer. If it’s no good, out it goes.