Sometimes, sequels are born out of demand. Fans cry for more, studios see dollar signs, and voila—you get Aliens, The Godfather Part II, or Terminator 2. Other times, sequels happen because somebody found an old script in a filing cabinet and thought, “Sure, why not? The USA Network will air anything.” Enter Buried Alive II (1997), a made-for-TV thriller so bland it makes skim milk look like moonshine.
This is the follow-up to 1990’s Buried Alive, a movie that at least had the decency to star Tim Matheson and Jennifer Jason Leigh in a tale of betrayal, greed, and premature coffin occupancy. In the sequel, Matheson comes back—not as the director, not as a producer, but as his character Clint Goodman, who’s still walking around despite being poisoned, buried alive, and presumably humiliated by critics seven years earlier. Clint is living under a fake name, because apparently being buried alive once doesn’t just scar you physically, it turns you into the world’s sulkiest drifter.
The Plot: Deja Vu with Dirt on It
The story kicks off when Clint’s old buddy the sheriff dies, which makes Clint nostalgic for his past life of murder attempts and suffocation. Meanwhile, the sheriff’s niece, Laura (Ally Sheedy), inherits $250,000 in stock. She wants to build a future. Her husband Randy wants to buy a yacht because of course he does—if there’s one thing that screams financial responsibility, it’s throwing all your money into a floating money pit.
Naturally, Randy is also cheating on her with Roxanne, because this film follows the Lifetime Channel formula: if he’s handsome and has cheekbones sharp enough to slice cheese, he’s sleeping with someone named Roxanne.
So Randy decides, “Hey, remember Clint’s wife poisoned him and buried him alive in the first movie? I should do that to Laura.” That’s right: this sequel doesn’t just recycle the theme, it Xeroxes it until the paper jams.
The Characters: Stupid People Making Stupid Choices
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Laura (Ally Sheedy): Ally Sheedy, bless her, spends this entire movie looking like she just remembered she used to star in The Breakfast Club. Her Laura is naïve enough to forgive Randy multiple times and still shocked when he poisons her. Honestly, if your husband’s already cheating, sneering, and talking about yachts, maybe don’t drink the wine he’s so eager for you to try.
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Randy (Stephen Caffrey): Randy is the kind of villain who thinks subtlety is for cowards. He poisons his wife, has loud sex with his mistress, and plans to run away on a yacht like a low-budget Bond villain. He’s so cartoonishly bad that you keep expecting him to twirl a mustache and tie Laura to railroad tracks.
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Roxanne (Tracey Needham): Roxanne is introduced mostly so Randy has someone to cheat with. Her character arc involves screaming a lot and eventually firing a flare gun at Randy. Honestly, I rooted for her; at least she was honest about being terrible.
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Clint (Tim Matheson): Poor Tim Matheson. He survived the first movie, only to die for real in this one while trying to dig up Laura. Yes, the returning protagonist doesn’t even make it halfway. It’s like Indiana Jones showing up in Temple of Doom just to have a heart attack during the opening credits.
The Buried Alive Gimmick: Dirt Cheap
So Laura gets poisoned, buried, and (surprise!) climbs her way back out of the grave. Once again, embalming incompetence saves the day. You’d think after the first movie someone in this town would invest in a halfway decent coroner. But no—Laura pops out of her coffin like a cranky Jack-in-the-Box and sets out for revenge.
Her revenge plan? Stalk Randy and Roxanne, drop creepy hints (like leaving her wedding ring around the house), and then trap them in a yacht. Because if you’re going to rip off the first movie, you might as well swap the coffin for a boat and call it innovation.
The Final Act: Titanic Without the Budget
Randy and Roxanne wake up locked inside the yacht while Laura looks down through a skylight like the world’s most passive-aggressive ghost. She even leaves them little funeral clothes and a lifebuoy with “R.I.P. Randy and Roxanne” painted on it, which is so on-the-nose it feels like a rejected Halloween decoration. Then she sabotages the boat, watches it sink, and sails away in a dinghy while her cheating husband screams underwater.
I’m not saying I wanted Laura to be subtle, but maybe something less Scooby-Doo villain-esque than painting custom props for her revenge scheme would’ve helped.
Why This Movie Sinks (Pun Intended)
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Repetitive Plot: This is literally the first movie reheated in the microwave, except greasier and with fewer name-brand stars.
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Made-for-TV Budget: Coffins, dirt, and one used yacht. The film looks like it was shot over a long weekend with favors owed to local funeral homes.
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Clint’s Role: Killing off the returning protagonist halfway is a bold choice. Unfortunately, it’s also a dumb one. It’s like the writers didn’t know what to do with him, so they gave him a heart attack and called it a day.
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Villainy by Idiots: Randy poisons his wife, but doesn’t insist on embalming. He tries to blame Roxanne while trapped in a yacht, as though throwing your mistress under the bus (or boat) is going to help when the water’s rising.
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Pacing: A movie about people being buried alive shouldn’t drag this much. By the second act, I found myself rooting for the dirt.
Performances: Desperation in HD (well, VHS)
Ally Sheedy tries to bring dignity to a script that’s about as nuanced as a soap opera subplot. Stephen Caffrey plays Randy with the subtlety of a man auditioning for Asshole: The Musical. Tracey Needham looks confused about why she’s here. And Tim Matheson—poor, poor Tim—wanders in, digs some dirt, clutches his chest, and exits stage left. It’s like he knew this sequel was beneath him and decided his character would rather die than continue.
The Tone: Graveyard Soap Opera
This isn’t horror. It isn’t thriller. It’s melodrama with the occasional shovel. Imagine if Days of Our Lives did a Halloween special but cut the budget by 80%. Every confrontation is overacted, every “shocking” twist predictable, and every supposed scare undercut by the fact that the antagonists are dumber than the dirt they bury people in.
The Ending: A Dinghy of Dignity
Laura sails away with Clint’s dog to start a new life, while Randy and Roxanne scream underwater like drowned rats in a tin can. It’s supposed to be cathartic. Instead, it feels like the writers realized they’d hit the 90-minute mark and needed to wrap things up before USA Network cut to reruns of Silk Stalkings.
Final Thoughts
Buried Alive II is a sequel nobody asked for, delivered by a network that didn’t care, starring actors who deserved better. It takes the one gimmick from the first movie and runs it into the ground (literally). Worse, it manages to make being buried alive—a primal fear, a terrifying concept—feel dull. That’s almost impressive.
If you’ve ever thought, “I’d like to watch Double Jeopardy but with lizards’ intelligence levels and a coffin,” this is your movie. For everyone else, skip it. Or, better yet, bury the VHS deep in your backyard and never dig it up again.
