Sam Panico Potter's Bluff is one of those perfectly gorgeous New England coastal towns. You know, the kind where visitors are beaten, tied to a post and set on fire while people take photos of them. And then, when they survive, nurses stab them right in the eyeball with a syringe.Dead and Buried was written by the Alien team of Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett and featured Stan Winston special effects, so the poster was justified in shouting, "From the people who brought you Alien..." Unfortunately, those people do not include Ridley Scott, as we have Gary Sherman directing this (he also helmed Poltergeist III). That said, O'Bannon disowned the film, claiming that Shusett had actually written it by himself but needed O'Bannon's name on the project to get it made. He never made any of O'Bannon's suggestions before it was produced.Sheriff Dan Gillis (James Farentino, The Final Countdown) is our hero and he is working with Dobbs (Jack Albertson, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and TV's Chico and the Man), the town's coroner/mortician to solve the murders that have gripped their small town. And with each one, a photo of the murder is found.As Gillis rushes to a suspected attack, he accidentally hits a man, whose arm is stuck in the grill of his car. The man attacks the sheriff, then takes his arm and runs away. Further research shows that a tissue sample of the man shows that he has already been dead for four months.The sheriff begins to suspect everyone, including Dobbs, who he learns was fired from his last job for conducting unauthorized autopsies, and his wife Janet (Melody Anderson, Flash Gordon), who has begun to teach witchcraft to her students.It turns out that Dobbs has learned how to reanimate the dead and that nearly everyone in town - I'm looking at you, Robert Englund - are under his control. He considers himself an artist who improves the lives of the dead after he controls them. Just then, the sheriff notices that his hands are rotting and Dobbs offers to repair him. That's because he's been dead all along, as his zombie wife had killed him during sex, a scene he watches as its projected on the wall.Dead & Buried has a great trailer that it lives up to. While it feels very Carpenter-esque, it lacks the style and verve of his films. That said, there are some interesting touches, such as the director avoiding the color red throughout the film so that the murders would be more shocking.If you can find a copy, I'd certainly recommend this movie. I'd been wanting to see it for years and while it's not the best horror film of the 80's, it's something different that isn't so well known.

GL84 Arriving in a small coastal community, the series of strange murders being committed drags the county sheriff into a strange battle with the denizens of the community taking out visiting tourists but soon after his job is complicated by an unexpected complication from the resulting corpses.This here was quite the decent if overall flawed effort. One of the few things it gets right is the atmosphere of the small, sleepy coastal town where this all takes place. The sense of everyone here being in on the whole ploy, taking steps to ensure that their secret remains hidden and generally acting without any sense of remorse or fear of punishment makes for a stellar time here, adding a genuinely haunting vibe to the majority of the film acting as a mystery over the cause of the disappearances. That this one still goes in for the rather fun idea of keeping the towns' actions a secret that needs to be revealed throughout here in the course of his investigation with all the bodies piling up around him and the clues to their actions slowly coming to light the more this goes on results in a somewhat chilling storyline here. Once it all becomes apparent what's going on here, the creepy, low-key finale gives this a solid touch which is helped along by the fine action that features the town out on their duties killing off the various interlopers that pass through the area, including the stellar opening turnaround that starts this off on a fine note or the chase through the abandoned house where the townspeople chase the lost family for some creepy, chilling moments. As well as the stellar twist ending that pops up, these here manage to hold this up over the few rather sizable flaws featured throughout here. The biggest issue facing this one is the utterly bland and boring pace that doesn't provide this with too many memorable experiences. The fact that the investigation features him running around into dead-ends or basically not doing anything around the town which renders this one completely dull and action-less for the majority of the time. Hardly anything happens here which really renders this one somewhat of a struggle to get through with only a few brief spurts of activity which is quite hard to understand the rationale behind as there's a few rather fun ideas tossed into the fray with a lot of blandness. The other big issue here is the lack of explanation of what's supposed to be going on with the mad doctor, as there's nothing given here about what he's trying to accomplish with replicating and turning the town into his minions. There's a perfect opportunity to do something for his reasoning with the starting point given yet done nothing else with it, and it just means nothing to have it go by. These big issues are all that really hold it back.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.

gavin6942 A suspense horror film set in a small coastal town where, after a series of gory murders committed by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses begin to come back to life.Officially, the script was written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett; O'Bannon later disowned the film, claiming that Shusett had written the script by himself but needed O'Bannon's name on the project to promote it being from the creators of "Alien". (Shusett and O'Bannon co-wrote "Alien", but the latter was the bigger name. Even today, Shusett is not well known, despite producing such science fiction hits as "Total Recall" and "Minority Report").The most noted horror name here is Robert Englund, who appears as Harry. At this point Englund had appeared in "Eaten Alive" but not yet "Nightmare on Elm Street", so he is given relatively little screen time and few lines to speak. In retrospect, I am sure the creators wish they had featured him more. But stealing the show was Jack Albertson, who portrayed William G. Dobbs as no one else could (as then passed away the same year). Although the film has a solid plot and good gore, the Dobbs character is what makes this a cut above the average film.Definitely a film that should be seen by those who have not yet had the pleasure...

steelerstwin This little flick is a real treasure. It is creepy, atmospheric and all that a low-budget horror-crime thriller should be. Director Gary Sherman strikes all the right chords and the cinematography is wonderful.The setting is a small, coastal town called Potter's Bluff, one of those eerie, isolated small towns that bears a terrible secret.I won't spoil it for you here, but you'll get the idea fairly soon into the picture, but it doesn't spoil the fun. This movie is like a vacation in that the real joy is in getting to your destination.Everything fits together quite well and we sympathize with the Sheriff, played quite well by veteran actor James Farentino. He is trying to hold himself together while his little town is wracked by one grisly murder after another. Oddly, it seems to upset him a whole lot more than it does anyone else.The always impressive Jack Albertson steals the show as the coroner and this off-beat casting is a tribute to his talent in his final role.This movie really does strike a good balance between the gore (and yes, there is a good bit of it for this type of flick) and mystery, from creepy seaside horror to crime thriller. Some might suggest that this movie doesn't know what it wants to be, but I disagree. This movie was made by people who knew how to make a horror film that didn't go over the top, but also did not pull its punches.What really makes this movie tick is the moody, atmospheric location shots. There is a sad inevitability to this movie that compels you to want to be a part of it all, but that also warns you off because of the mysterious danger that lurks from the beach.Good Halloween or summer time flick!