Buried Alive Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Buried Alive Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov January 14, 2021

Frank Darabont's "Buried Alive" (1990) arrives on Bluray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the disc include new video interview with actor William Atherton as well as new audio commentary by journalist and author Bryan Reesman. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

All of it is his fault. She (Jennifer Jason Leigh) isn’t getting pregnant because he (Tim Matheson) isn’t doing his part right. She isn’t in New York because he convinced her to come with him on the other side of the country to start his business. And even though he built a huge home for them, it isn’t the home she had in mind. This is why she feels so miserable now -- because of him.

And this is precisely why she is having an affair with her doctor (William Atherton). He has promised her everything she needed to feel happy -- an exciting life in the big city, though instead of going back to New York they will be moving to Beverly Hills, where he would treat all those filthy rich celebrities in his private clinic; she would have all the time in the world to socialize with the beautiful people; and of course, each day she could be on Rodeo Drive and doing all the shopping her heart desires. It would be the life she always knew she deserved, and now she is finally going to live it.

But first they have to get rid of her husband.

This is the only part of their plan, the killing business, that makes her nervous, maybe a little scared too. The fish poison the doctor repeatedly told her can give her husband a deadly heart attack if he takes it with his wine, well, how reliable is it? How long before he drops dead? And will he suffer before he dies? This killing business would have been so much easier to manage right if they were living in New York, where all they would have had to do is pay a stranger to arrange a deadly accident for her husband. But they are not in New York, so she will just have to give her husband the fish poison and watch what happens to him.

He chokes on his steak, drops on the floor, and while cutting himself with his broken wine glass permanently exits her life. Success. For a while it was difficult watching him struggle to breathe, but at the end it turned out exactly as her lover told her it would. Now she has to play well the key part of the heartbroken widow and a few days later, after they bury the sucker, she would sell their home and his business and start packing her bags. It is the final phase of their brilliant plan. She can almost smell the Pacific Ocean and feel the Californian sun warming her body.

But a few days after they place the cold body of her husband in a casket and then bury it in the ground, and she secretly begins making arrangements with her lover about their trip to Beverly Hills, an invisible stranger enters her life and slowly pushes her on the verge of a massive nervous breakdown. At first her lover rejects his existence, but then he reluctantly acknowledges his presence as well.

Frank Darabont’s directorial debut, Buried Alive, was commissioned for the USA network in 1990, and it might be one of the greatest examples how good TV projects could be before the top brass figured out what type of projects they -- and this is a very important distinction -- wanted to sell to their audiences. It oozes unintended fearless originality and, in many ways, looks a lot like a feature film that was conceived by an American auteur during the 1970s.

The majority of the material is quite dark, some of it pretty scary too, but it does not produce a horror film, as many older articles have claimed. In it there is actually a wicked sense of humor that would have been just as effective in a Coen brothers project where usually a lot goes wrong and almost always in pretty outrageous ways. Darabont just does not let it flourish, which is entirely understandable considering the fact that his film was meant for TV. (With free-flowing profanity attached to the humor, the film almost certainly would have become a cult classic. The profanity instantly would have invalidated the few complaints that the plot isn’t realistic as well).

The three leads look very good together and make the film appear like a much bigger production than it was. Hoyt Axton is convincing as the suspicious small-town sheriff as well.

Buried Alive Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Buried Alive arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release is sourced from a very beautiful exclusive new 2K master. There is absolutely nothing that I don't like about this master. Delineation, clarity, and depth are consistently great, so if you enjoy your films on a larger screen, I can assure you that you are in for quite a treat. The entire master is graded with terrific precision as well, so the balance between the lush primaries and supporting nuances is wonderful. There are no traces of any problematic digital work. The overall stability of the visuals is excellent and fluidity is really good. The only reason I am not giving the technical presentation a perfect score is the presence of a few very tiny blemishes that easily could have been eliminated, but in the grand scheme of things this is an irrelevant complaint. From start to finish, Buried Alive looks great in high-definition. My score if 4.75/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Buried Alive Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The lossless track is excellent. Michel Colombier's bluesy soundtrack sounds lush and very healthy, so if you can turn up the volume of your system more than you usually do. There are a few surprising effects as well, though separation is quite modest. The dialog is stable, clean, clear, and very easy to follow.

Buried Alive Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with William Atherton - in this new video interview, actor William Atherton recalls what it was like to collaborate with Frank Darabont on Buried Alive and discusses the exact period in which the film was conceived and how the TV business was evolving at the time. The interview was conducted exclusively for Kino Lorber. In English, not subtitled. (8 min, 1080p).

• Commentary - an exclusive new audio commentary recorded by journalist and author Bryan Reesman. If you have listened to any of the other commentaries Mr. Reesman has recorded for various Kino Lorber releases, you will know what to expect from this commentary as well. There is an abundance of interesting information about the production of Buried Alive, its identity, how the film was promoted, the careers of the different people that made it, etc. It is a very good commentary.

• Additional Trailers - additional trailers for the following titles from Kino Lorber's catalog:
  
  1. Rush
  2. Heart of Midnight
  3. Impulse

Buried Alive Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In the new interview William Atherton did for this release, you are told exactly why Buried Alive works so well -- it was conceived at a time when "no one can cut you out, and you did not have a lot of censorship" and "you can say more, and the writing was interesting". In other words, at the time talented people, like Frank Darabont, were still allowed to shoot quality material, not urged to meet different department expectations. I think that Buried Alive is a small but very, very nice genre film with an absolutely wicked sense of humor, which I would concede may remain elusive to some viewers. Kino Lorber's release is sourced from a very solid exclusive new 2K master. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.