There are bad horror movies, and then there’s Buried Alive, a straight-to-DVD supernatural slasher that makes you long for the sweet embrace of actual soil being dumped over your face. Dimension Extreme must have been laughing when they slapped “Extreme” on this Blockbuster-exclusive snoozefest, because the only extreme part of this movie is the extreme urge to fast-forward through it.
The setup: a bunch of college kids, a creepy caretaker, some bad taxidermy, and a ghost who apparently kills people with the efficiency of a DMV clerk. Oh, and a family curse, a necklace, and Tobin Bell collecting a paycheck while probably wondering if Saw could sue this film for defamation by association.
The Cast of Questionable Decisions
Our “heroes” are Rene (Leah Rachel) and her cousin Zane (Terence Jay), who clearly hate each other so much that you start to wonder if the movie is secretly about incestuous loathing. They drag along some pledges—nicknamed “Cow” and “Dog” because this movie thinks sorority hazing is funnier than it is disturbing. Spoiler: it’s disturbing, but not in the way horror films usually aim for.
Then there’s Danny, Rene’s boyfriend, who spends the movie looking confused, probably because he realized too late that his agent signed him up for a movie where his big moment is getting his face sliced off. And poor Phil, the history nerd, whose knowledge of the family curse earns him the reward of being cut in half by a ghost with an axe. Pro tip: in horror, knowing things is lethal. Stay dumb, stay alive.
Lester the Caretaker: Tobin Bell, Why?
Yes, that Tobin Bell is in this movie, which means you’ll spend the whole time waiting for him to pull out a tape recorder and start explaining rules about reverse bear traps. Instead, he plays Lester, the taxidermist caretaker who mutters about curses and gold like a man who just realized he left a better script at home.
He warns the kids not to go into the subcellar, not to go out after dark, and not to expect him to be in the sequel. He finds some gold, hides it, and gets killed anyway. The only shocking part is that Jigsaw himself doesn’t whip out a saw blade and put this script out of its misery.
The Ghost: The Desert Witch, or Discount Scooby-Doo Villain
The villain here is the spirit of an old woman who appears, disappears, and reappears like the world’s least efficient magician. She pops up on the road causing near car accidents, she scribbles “Sins of the Father” on someone’s back like an emo graffiti artist, and she uses her ghostly powers to kill people in ways that are never quite scary—just sort of vaguely inconvenient.
She’s not a menacing apparition; she’s more like the person in line at Starbucks who takes too long ordering. You’re annoyed, not frightened.
The Hazing Subplot: Who Greenlit This?
At some point, the movie forgets it’s supposed to be a slasher and instead gives us 20 minutes of sorority hazing nonsense. Rene makes the pledges do “The Godiva Run”—basically streaking through the desert while wearing one item of clothing. One girl picks pants, the other picks boots. Congratulations, you just invented a Victoria’s Secret fashion show for masochists.
This isn’t scary. It’s not even sexy. It’s just weirdly mean-spirited and feels like the screenwriter watched Mean Girls and thought, “What if we added nudity and a ghost?” Spoiler: you get Buried Alive, and Lindsay Lohan’s lawyers should sue on principle.
The Kills: Boring Deaths for Boring Characters
Let’s talk body count. In a movie called Buried Alive, you’d expect claustrophobic suffocation scenes, sweaty panic, maybe some dirt-in-the-mouth horror. Instead, we get:
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Phil cut in half by an axe-wielding ghost who looks like she’s just clocking in for her night shift.
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Danny loses his face in what’s supposed to be shocking but looks more like someone lost a bet with a Halloween mask vendor.
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Lester keels over like a man who realized too late that his SAG card deserved better.
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Everyone else either runs around screaming or gets buried at the end in a sequence that’s less “terrifying climax” and more “Home Depot gardening commercial gone wrong.”
By the time Rene and Zane are trapped in coffins and screaming, you’re half cheering for the witch. If the ghost’s whole mission was to spare the audience from another minute of this film, then honestly, she’s the real hero.
The Twist Ending: Because Of Course
The movie ends with Rene and Zane being buried alive (shocking, given the title). Laura, the lone survivor, gets away because she has a tattoo that matches Rene’s necklace, which apparently confuses the witch into sparing her. Yes, that’s right: the unstoppable desert ghost is defeated by ink.
And then, just when you think it’s over, the movie pulls the old “but maybe not” trick, leaving the door open for a sequel nobody asked for and, thankfully, never got.
The Real Horror: Straight-to-DVD Syndrome
There’s something charming about bad horror films when they know they’re bad—when they lean into the camp, give you gore and giggles, and wink at the audience. Buried Alive isn’t one of those movies. It takes itself seriously. Deadly seriously. Which makes its clunky dialogue, awkward hazing sequences, and unscary ghost attacks feel like a bad improv skit at a college party.
And don’t forget: this was a Blockbuster Exclusive. Imagine trudging to your local video store, seeing Tobin Bell’s name on the cover, and thinking, “Hey, this will tide me over until the next Saw.” Instead, you get a desert soap opera with ghosts, pledges named Cow and Dog, and the slow death of your evening.
Final Thoughts: Bury This One for Good
Buried Alive is the cinematic equivalent of finding a severed finger in your French fries—not horrifying, just disappointing, and now you don’t want to eat. It’s a film that promises supernatural slasher thrills but delivers hazing rituals, half-baked family curses, and a ghost who should’ve retired decades ago.
The acting is wooden, the scares are nonexistent, and the pacing is so bad you start rooting for the characters to die just so you can go home. Tobin Bell deserved better. Honestly, we all did.
Rating: 2 out of 10 Taxidermied Possums
(The extra point is for Tobin Bell’s paycheck, which hopefully went toward buying himself a nice vacation where nobody mentioned this movie.)
