Gary Sherman’s 1981 cult classic Dead & Buried covers a lot of ground within its small-town setting. What begins as communal folk horror, in which unfortunate strangers who happen upon the tiny coastal hamlet of Potters Bluff meet their gruesome ends at the hands of a leering horde of townsfolk, eventually mixes in body snatching, zombies, witchcraft and mad science as its mystery is gradually unraveled.
The film often takes its time, but then erupts in fits and starts. Sherman establishes this pacing in an opening scene where the first onscreen victim, a traveling photographer (Christopher Allport), enjoys a lengthy beachside flirtation with a local coquette (Lisa Blount) until his camera is suddenly turned against him by a bevy of murderous denizens who wrap him in a fish net and burn him alive.
Much like the similarly atmospheric The Wicker Man (1973), Dead & Buried pits an officer of the law against an isolated community-wide conspiracy. But Sheriff Dan Gillis (James Farentino) makes for a far more sympathetic character than Edward Woodward’s smug, sanctimonious investigator in Robin Hardy’s classic film. A big-shot cop who has returned to his hometown, Gillis slowly begins to realize he’s seemingly one of the last sane ones left in a village gone mad. If only he could prove it.
While the first killing is later staged to look like a car accident, the subsequent daily stream of bodies―all strangers passing through town―are clearly grisly murders, and Gillis’ suspicions reach a fever pitch when he hits a pedestrian who flees and bafflingly leaves what’s determined to be four-month-old dead flesh stuck in the grill of his car. Even more unnerving is how the visiting victims inevitably turn up again as newly minted citizens of the town, with no memories of past life or meeting an unnatural death. Throw in an eccentric, big-band-loving undertaker named Dobbs (Jack Albertson), who considers himself the Leonardo of the mortuary arts, along with Gillis’ own wife Janet (Melody Anderson), a schoolteacher who has begun giving lessons to children on black magic and reanimated corpses, and Gillis grows more frantic with each stone he unturns in his seemingly quaint little town.
The film’s grim atmosphere is heightened by vivid imagery of flashbulbs popping as invasive townsfolk coldly and methodically document their brutal murders in the moment. The gory practical effects by Stan Wilson hold up quite well today, if still serving as somewhat of a throwback charm. Such technical skill, particularly with impressive makeup, fits the theme of the film well, as Dobbs pontificates about the artistry he brings to reconstructing severely damaged corpses, which we even see him do in one time-lapse scene where he restores the grotesquely bludgeoned face of a hitchhiker (Lisa Marie) to its former beauty. But Dobbs’ mastery of his craft goes far behind merely making corpses appear revitalized, and Dead & Buried nimbly presents aspects of pre-Romero zombies—enslaved vessels reanimated by black magic and controlled by a puppet master—in a way that ultimately makes them as much unnaturally manipulated victims as shambling ghouls.
By its third act, the film enters full-on Invasion of the Body Snatchers conspiracy, as virtually no one in the town is who they seem to be. Perhaps best known as the layabout Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Albertson excels as the maniacal undertaker Dobbs, a death-obsessed performance that’s rendered all the more remarkable given that Albertson himself was losing a battle with cancer at the time and would die only six months after the film’s unprofitable release. Time has been kind to Dead & Buried, which despite poor box office has garnered critical acclaim and a cult status in the years since, even enjoying its own restoration on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray. But it’s still largely an overlooked gem of ‘80s horror, one that can most easily be found currently streaming on the Amazon Prime or Peacock platforms, and it makes for a pitch perfect midnight movie for those seeking a plethora of horror movie tropes all rolled into one ghastly package.
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