Buried Alive

Plot synopsis:
Rene is in the bath having a conversation with her cousin Zane, who is in the bathroom with her. He pushes her underwater, and she begins to drown. While looking up at his face from under the water, she sees the visage of an old woman above her. She awakes with a start, having fallen asleep and begun to drown. Her boyfriend Danny wakes her up, and the two make out.
Zane, who has enlisted the help of a Phil to research his family history. Zane visits his family home with Phil, Rene, Danny, and her two sorority pledges, Julie "Cow" and Laura "Dog. The two pledges have been forced to dress up as animals as an initiation. Zane constantly sees an old woman on the side of the road, culminating in her appearance in the middle of the road, which causes him to almost crash.
Lester, the caretaker, is living in a trailer on the land, and searching for gold. He has found some, but does not tell anyone. The college students marvel at his stuffed oddities, since he is an amateur taxidermist. He warns the group not to go into the subcellar, or to go outside after dark.
Settling in, Rene enslaves Julie and Laura and forces Phil to explain how he knows so much about Rene and Zane's family history. Phil goes outside to get a signal on his mobile phone, but is cut in half by a ghost armed with an axe.
The five remaining teens decide to learn more about the family history. Rene has fun with Julie and Laura by making them run to Lester's caravan and bring back one of his stuffed animals. They must wear one item of clothing and it can't be an overcoat. Julie chooses to wear her pants and Laura chooses to wear her boots. Laura accomplishes the task, but Julie doesn't because she sprains her ankle.
Rene gives Julie one more task to take off her clothes, except for underwear, and be blindfolded. Rene takes Zane's belt and uses it on Julie as a test of trust. Soon, Rene and Laura depart, leaving Julie standing there. Danny decides to go to get Phil but finds out that he's dead just before his face is cut off. When the lights go out, Zane goes out to check the machine to find it's still functioning normally, but the cable was cut. Zane finds Danny's faceless body, as do Rene and Laura. Zane, Rene and Laura dash back inside the house, thinking Lester is behind Danny's murder, but they find Lester dead as well.
They try to escape with their car, but find it has been sabotaged. They grab Lester's keys and Laura dashes to Lester's caravan to get his truck. While Zane and Rene are still in the house, Zane gets locked in another room and Rene is knocked unconscious with the spirit scratching the words "Sins Of The Father" on her back. Zane finally breaks through and kills the woman, but whilst barricading them in a room, the woman appears and knocks Zane unconscious.
Laura returns with Lester's truck and the woman is about to slaughter Laura, but disappears after seeing a tattoo that's similar to the necklace Rene had throughout the movie. Laura escapes and Rene and Zane wake to find themselves in some kind of box. The old woman quickly grabs the necklace and drops the gold ring taken by the caretaker in the beginning of the movie. Rene and Zane scream in fear as the old woman buries them alive.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
Interesting revenge movie, with a dark tone that sucks you in from the start, a creepy soundtrack that fits the movie perfectly, beautifully designed sets, and great acting from the three leads, especially Leigh as a truly despicable person.
You really feel for Matheson's character and are rooting for him to take revenge on his evil wife...
All of a sudden Matheson dons gloves and a welder's mask, turning into a Jason-like movie monster, and we have no idea what he's up to.
After being on his side throughout the movie, we're suddenly watching from the perspective of his wife and her lover, wondering what the heck is going on.
When his revenge is finally revealed, it's mighty far-fetched (it involves completely remodeling the house, which he manages to do in a few hours), and somehow out of place for his character, at least as we've seen him so far.
The joiner Clint Goodman (Tim Matheson) is a man that has built his comfortable house and his construction company in his hometown with hard work.
He loves his wife Joanna (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and they have been unsuccessfully trying to have a baby.
Clint's best friend is the Sheriff Sam Eberly (Hoyt Axton) and every now and then they spend the night fishing in the lake.
Clint does not suspect that Joanna is having a love affair with the local doctor Cortland 'Cort' van Owen (William Atherton).
The lovers plot to kill Clint and sell his company and his house, and then they would move to New York City.
Clint plots a dark revenge against Joanna and Cort.
"Buried Alive" is a dark tale of betrayal and revenge for television by Frank Darabont in the beginning of his career.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is excellent as usual and Tim Matheson and William Atherton had good performances.The plot has many coincidences, but is engaging.
The sequel to this film isn't as good but worth watching if you enjoyed the first.
Scenes where Tim Matheson's character is seen to move when inside a zipped up body bag in the morgue, and when he is on the undertaker's embalming table are chilling, and when he eventually wakes up after he's been buried and subsequently digs his way out, the film totally delivers on its promise to thrill.
The music when he's stumbling through the cemetery is just perfect and will have you rooting for him as he plots his revenge on his uncaring wife.
"Dispensed of" husband gets imaginative, yet down-to-earth revenge on scheming wife and her sleazy lover..
The casting is great and Tim Matheson is what he's best at--a TV actor who fits the small screen as well as, well, some guys fit their jeans.
After numerous viewings, it's still one of those compelling tales, admittedly not deep, but filled with little details and nuances, like a good Stephen King short story.
While the performances by Tim Matheson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, William Atherton, and Hoyt Axton are totally acceptable, there is a gnawing distraction called lack of logic, that permeates the film.
The TV movie 'Buried Alive' is an exceptionally solid and always compelling atmospheric little revenge thriller with a considerable dark streak and a fitting sense of humour.
The gorgeous Jennifer Jason Leigh's sassy, but extremely cold-hearted turn is picture-perfect and William Atherton hammers down his seamy role.
Hoyt Axton is good with his short level headed part as the town sheriff.Clint Goodman is very likable, do-it-yourself man with a very productive timber business in a small town.
However his unhappy wife Joanna is having an affair with her Doctor, the weasel Cortland Van Owen.
Well not for long, as he didn't die and rises from his grave in anger for revenge on his wife and lover.The brooding story sometimes moves in and out of the profound concept with it leaking some contrived aspects, but it's scheming and double crossings are pulled off in a very entertaining (if not convincing) manner.
Director Frank Darabont (best known for Stephen King adaptations of 'Shawshank Redemption', 'The Green Mile' and 'The Mist') makes his directorial debut with great assurance.
Jennifer Jason Leigh, a very underrated actress, plays the wife who along with her lover plan to murder her husband Tim Matheson.
This is a film, which although having a somewhat implausable story line, isentertaining enough to keep you watching until the end.
Joanne (Jennifer Jason Leigh) plays the villianess of the film, administering the poison in an attempt to kill her husband and make off with the loot.
She plays the part well, right up to the last part of the film which ends in an unliely manner with the interior of the house undergoing structural changes which would take weeks to do in real life.Notwithstanding this it does enough to be worth watching, indeed I have seen it on several occasions when there has been nothing to watch on the TV..
Scary stuff that makes you think how low people will go.Top marks for Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tim Matheson, believable characters.Gripping story line full of suspense.Highly recommended and I believe you can now get this film on DVD.
It was pretty believable until you see the way Tim Matheson's character exacts his revenge on his cheating wife and her doctor lover, kind of far fetched but fun non the less.
This movie is not bad late night tube fodder, and I think is worth taking a look at.
Tim Matheson (Otter from Animal House fame) plays a hapless hardworking husband who does not expect that his wife is having an affair and her and her lover are plotting his demise.
Tim Matheson is a great character actor and was actually the voice of Johnny Quest the Hanna Barbera action adventure cartoon of 1964-65..
Clint (Tim Matheson) is a successful businessman living with his wife Joanna (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in small town USA.
However Joanna is not so happy and starts an affair with her Doctor, Cortland Van Owen (William Athertone).
However Glen rises from his grave and begins to plot his revenge.This TV movie is most notable for it's director - Shawshank Redemption's Frank Darabont.
However it is quite clever the way Clint takes his revenge on the plotting duo of his wife and her lover.Matheson is actually quite good here as Clint and brings an air of menace to his resurrected character.
Leigh is nearly always good but falls into playing the screaming wife for most of the film.
There was some notable actors like Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Matheson, and the Hoyt Axton guy!
I really liked Leigh's character having an affair with the Doctor who tries to get her husband but he returns later on in the film!
You know, the drawing of that cute little naked couple holding hands and looking into each other's eyes with a text underneath stating: "Love is  poisoning him with Japanese fish fluids, refusing to pay extra for his embalming and burying him in a rotten coffin barely two feet under the ground!" This modest and well-directed early 90's made-for-TV thriller guarantees decent suspense and entertainment as long as you don't set your expectations too high.
Hard-working family man Clint Goodman *thinks* he has a good marriage going on, but his spoiled wife Joanna is actually sleeping with her doctor and planning to run off to California with him.
Other than the occasionally lacking plot, "Buried Alive" does contain a surprisingly large amount of intense fright-moments, superb acting performances and tight direction from Frank Darabont (acclaimed director of "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile") in his long-feature debut.
Tim Matheson is good, but the always very sexy Jennifer Jason Leigh is terrific as the battle-ax wife and William Atherton is simply brilliant as the sleazy scumbag lover.
Certain moments are reasonably icky, like the image of Clint's scratched-open fingertips and a sink full of hydrogen peroxide, but Darabont merely keeps the emphasis on atmosphere Moral of the story: don't use poisoned fish if you want to kill someone!
Though it's better than most made-for-TV movies, "Buried Alive" is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill revenge tale.
The ending has a nice twist to it, but it's hardly believable.The acting by Jennifer Jason Leigh is terrific, as always, but Tim Matheson hams it up with cheesy one-liners that reminds one of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining".
The obese sheriff played by Hoyt Axton looked like a refugee from the Jerry Springer show and I found the blonde female lead Jennifer Jason Leigh rather plain.
Tim Matheson does a great job in his role as Clint Goodman, as a man who takes revenge on his cheating wife and her lover.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is good enough as Joanna, but I do think they could have gotten someone better.
Basically, the story surrounds a couple, Joanna (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and Clint (Tim Matheson) who have moved to the country to start a new life away from the city.
Joanna begins expecting a child and sees a doctor, Courtland, who is only interested in scamming Joanna out of the whole fortune Clint's carpentry business is worth.
Being a doctor, he devises a plan with Joanna to kill Clint by poisoning him so Joanna could sell his business and get the million and a half dollar fortune.
Clint couldn't have thought up a better plan to take revenge out on his wife and the doctor.
This movie is definitely worth seeing.
This movie is a good example of how greed can completely poison somebody's mind and ruin the lives of other people.
Joanna and Courtland definitely deserved the torment they received by Clint's revenge for trying to kill him and ruining his life forever after.
And Jennifer Jason Leigh makes a great villain here--I boo and hiss every time she's on screen.
**SPOILERS** Breaking his back by working long and hard hours at the construction site to make things fine and wonderful for his ungrateful wife Joanna, Jennifer Jason Leigh, the good natured hard working but somewhat naive, in what Joanna is planning for him, Clint Goodman (Tim Matheson) is unaware that his wife has been cheating on him.
Joanna's having an affair with the family doctor Courtland "Court" Van Owen, William Atherton.Wanting to have a child to add to his family Clint has been very disappointed in not having Joanna conceive feeling that maybe it was his not her fault, thats about he only bad thing that has happened to him since he married her.
Telling Joanna that it, by putting poison in his wine, will not only kill Clint but make it look like he had a sudden and fatal heart-attack.
The next day Joanna, after having second thoughts about doing it, slips the poison into Clint's wine as the two have a toast to their great and happy marriage.
Joanna is to inherit almost two million dollars from her late husbands estate but is so cheap that she doesn't even want him to be embalmed and buys the cheapest and flimsiest coffin, that you can easily put your fist through, that she could find at the funeral home which in the end will do her not Clint, who it later turns out is not really dead,in.The story reminds me of something that I read in an old "Tales from the Crypt" comic book where Clint raise from the dead, and his grave, and comes back home for a surprise visit to both haunt and finish off his two "killers" Joanna & Court.
This film was the first he'd ever get the chance to direct.Originally airing May 9, 1990 on the USA Network, this movie was produced under the title Till Death Do Us Part.
It's a very EC Comics-ish story of Clint Goodman (Tim Matheson, Animal House), a contractor who is very much in love with his wife, Joanna (perennial crush Jennifer Jason Leigh, the daughter of Vic Morrow who took the name Jason in her stage name as a tribute to family friend Jason Robards).
Joanna, however, wants out of Clint's small hometown, where he's content to live simply and fish with his best friend Sheriff Sam Eberly (Hoyt Axton, Gremlins).So she does what any of us would do.
He's played by William Atherton, who is the go to guy when you're making a movie in the 1980's and need someone to be a complete asshole.Needless to say, the bad guys are comically evil in this one and Clint is the nicest guy ever, until he awakens in his own grave and has to claw his way back.
It's one of Becca's favorite movies and we watch it pretty often in our house..
Tim Matheson gets to ham and chew the scenery with relish as he exacts his revenge while Jennifer Jason Leigh enjoys her role as an evil woman - and is surprisingly good as one, too.
However, it's always the underrated William Atherton who excels as the guilt-free, stop-at-nothing manipulator who wants the rewards all for himself.The film really picks up in the final half hour, as up until then not a lot really happens.
Matheson then goes on to devise a maze in his house which his enemies must face - a plot device seemingly lifted from the final segment of 1972's TALES FROM THE CRYPT, or possibly the original source comics.
It's just a shame that the rest of the film never breaks from its television movie origins..
From it's title I imagined it would be a movie with a guy agonizing after being buried alive, in the style of 2010's "Buried".
Fortunately, Clint being buried alive is just a detail and a short scene-- thank god.
Story is pretty much vindictive, since the main character (Clint) ends the movie burying her wife alive, just like she did to him.
Although it looks pretty evil in a first moment, if you watch the movie you'll feel he did just the right thing.
"Buried Alive" doesn't have anything special, but writing, directing and acting are professional enough to make this whole picture entertaining, convincing and with a "happy" ending.
To sum it up, "Buried Alive" is a good low-budget movie that you will probably enjoy if you prefer realistic stories to Hollywood clichés..
Pretty decent horror cum thriller from Frank Darabont, director of the critically acclaimed The Shawshank Redemption.Way above average in terms of both direction and acting for a made for TV movie, with some genuinely disturbing ideas, and some pretty creepy scenes, this is a chiller of surprising quality.The waking in the coffin scene is superb, as is the 'zombie' awakening sequence, and the last 20 minutes or so are excellent once the trap is set.Decent performances from the lead guy, Tim Matheson and Jennifer Jason Leigh is as reliable as ever.Check it out - it won't blow your mind but it certainly will entertain..
There is plenty of suspense and creepiness along the way with some humorous situations as well.Bsically BURIED ALIVE is all about deceit,money,and revenge.Tim Matherson plays Clint and is the nicest bloke one would wish to meet and he absolutely adores his wife Joanna played by Jennifer Jason Leigh.Joanna is one real horrible number and is having an affair with the doubly horrible doctor and encourages her to kill Clint with one very bazaar toxin.The movie rolls on and locks the viewer right in.The shallow grave scene had me worried although if it was any deeper the movie would have ended real early as it would have lessoned Clints chance of digging himself free.The ending had me a little frustrated as I feel Clints decision not to go straight to his sheriff mate cost him dearly.Good movie 7 out of 10.ENJOY!.
Buried Alive is a simple little film, which is a passable way to spend an hour and half.
It's basic plot- man buried alive by wife and lover and seeks revenge is fairly bare bones and running at a slight 90 minutes the story feels like it was stretched as far as it could go.
William Atherton as a duplicitous slimeball, Jennifer Jason Leigh as a self centred, scheming wife, Tim Matheson as a slightly clueless everyman who is pushed too far.
The ease with which Clint Goodman is able to escape the grave is a bit hard to take, even if the wood in his coffin was rotten and the escape only seems possible as it was buried in a very, very shallow grave.
At the end of the day, despite its failings, Buried Alive is fun, macabre little movie..
Good film but could have been more plausible with a bit of forethought, i.e: Clint reaches up from the coffin & reaches the outside, the grave couldn't have been 6 foot deep, also did the sheriff at the end recognise Clint?
apparently so, wouldn't he have wondered why he was standing over his own grave with a shovel & given the recently excavated area was clearly much bigger than a standard grave an immediate exhumation would be in order, thus rescuing the errant wife, recovering the money and giving the recently deceased slime-bag doctor a Christian burial but perhaps the ending was deliberately structured that way, being buried alive being probably number one on everybody's list of ways NOT to die the director wanted people to say " maybe the sheriff went back & dug.." I disagree with some of the other reviewers about the joinery though, it was basic partitioning and could have been accomplished in a night.
Do not bury this movie.
This flick is more a thriller than a horror (in fact, it's _just_ a thriller) like many may think.Tim Matherson -- I hated him at the beginning (he sounded as John Ritter in "Child's Play") Leigh -- perfect as the witch (although sometimes her good side drops) and she's hot like Hell!
Atherton -- stereotyped bad guy, who loves animals (fishes!) he didn't convince very much Axton (sheriff Sam) -- the worst person in the whole movie!