Dead and Buried is a strange horror film in that it refuses to declare its hand until it's got you scratching your head. Further victims appear posthumously, taking their places in the population with new identities. The local sheriff emerges as the protagonist as he tries to piece the bizarre events around him. He's aided by the local coroner who loves his classic big band records and waxes lyrical abou the art of the embalmer. Sheriff Dan's wife Janet is a schoolteacher with a performative style and a barely veiled interest in the occult. The deeper Dan gets into the mystery the worse the possibilities get unto a finale with an unexpectedly heartrending conclusion.
When I've shown this movie to friends, even those of my own vintage, they wonder why they had never heard of it. I saw it because I was getting back into horror movies after a decade or two of snobbery from film student days. Also, the VHS cover art intrigued me. A woman's face is partially buried, surrounded by broken earth with a beach and gentle sea stretchingstretching to the horizon. A full moon shines behind chunky clouds. It could have been a lesser surrealist masterpiece for its impossible geography and eerie moodiness. The loneliness of the image gives out a weird quiet despair. I had to see it.
James Farentino, rocky faced star of detective and action shows on TV, has an appealing bewilderment at the strange events around him. He manages to blend this with the more assertive heroic figure he needs for the sheriff. Melody Anderson as Janet uses her doll-like face to cover sinister motivations in a kind of reverse gaslighting turn. Her's is the most heavily affecting death scene. Lisa Blount's Lisa, the siren of the opening murder scene, doesn't have to be anything more than amoral malevolance which she provides generously. It is Jack Albertson, veteran character actor of westerns, noir and drama, Grandpa in Willy Wonka, who steals the show here as the coroner Dobbs with a gruff poetry and worldly (perhaps otherworldly) pragmatism. It was his final performance. He died weeks after wrapping.
I'd recommend following up information about the FX master Stan Winston's work on this film, it remains extraordinary. Stephen Poster's cinematography made such heavy use of gauze and lace for the daylight scenes that the patterns can be discernable and feel like we are peeping through curtains at a mystery. My copy includes a CD of Joe Renzetti's score which I can listen to by itself, a piano-led melancholic suite.
Dead and Buried covers its plotholes by pushing the unreality of its events enough to impose on our objections but not so much that it's just formless fantasy. Concentrate on motivations as they slowly emerge and you'll get the movie. If you do, you might just want your own copy, especially if you like an uncanny tale on a rainy afternoon and one that pits humans against their own vanity and resonance. Seek!
Viewing Notes: I watched my Blue Underground special edition with 4K, Blu-Ray and CD soundtrack discs. One thing I'll note about this which is worth bearing in mind. My copy appeared in one fo the 2021 lockdowns. It was misdelivered and lay for days beside my neighbour's letterbox until he found it and left it at my doorstep. It was so thoroughly soaked from heavy rainfall that even the plastic covering had been penetrated. I had to throw away the slipcover (kept the lenticular panel, though) and found that the main 4K disc would not play properly. I complained with the courier company who, after some earnest exhanges, dropped the case. Figuring on water damage I left the disc upright in a place where it would get some breeze. Little by little, over a month, it did dry out and eventually played without seizing up. Handy to know.
No comments:
Post a Comment