Buried Alive (aka Edgar Allan Poe’s Buried Alive) is a 1990 film, directed by former porn specialist Gerard Kikoine [Gérard Kikoïne] (Edge of Sanity) from a screenplay by Jake Chesi and Stuart Lee, based very, very loosely on the work of Edgar Allan Poe (scenes such as young naked women taking a communal shower being an example of the non-Poe content). It stars Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasence and John Carradine in his final performance. Other cast members are Karen Witter, ex-adult movie star Ginger Lynn Allen, Nia Long, William Butler (director of Madhouse (2004), Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver) and Arnold Vosloo. It was produced by Harry Alan Towers, Avi Lerner and John Stodel. Not to be confused with Frank Darabont’s 1990 TV movie.
A young woman goes to teach at the Ravenscroft Institute, a girls’ school overrun by ants and staffed by various ex-mental patients. Spurred on by a series of horrific hallucinations, she begins to investigate the mysterious disappearances of several students…
“Higher on gore than nudity (there is a requisite school shower scene as well as a couple topless flashes during the basement party), the R-rated violence seemed to play out intact on one of the recent viewings I caught of the film on revenue-sharing digital channel THIS-TV (the full feature is also on Hulu courtesy of MGM). Ultimately, Buried Alive is less interesting as a film than as a point of intersection of exploitation film history for Harry Alan Towers, Kikoine (who edited a number of Jess Franco films not produced by Towers), Cannon Films and executive producer Avi Lerner (who also produced the dreadful South African supernatural slasher The Stay Awake).” Eric Cotenas, DVD Drive-In
“Director Gérard Kikoïne helmed the 1989 thriller Edge of Sanity, a take on the Jekyll and Hyde story starring Anthony Perkins. Here, he attempts to bring the mood of Poe’s stories to this melodramatic thriller, but black cats and spooky shadows are basically the extent of this connection. Before each murder comes a new horror for Janet: images of hands dragging her underground, ants covering the floor and a suffocating live burial. Unfortunately, the real kills are few and far between the endless scenes of exposition. Tension is non-existent. The movie never gives viewers a chance to realize a character is in danger, and is instead content to kill them at random. The kills aren’t jump-scene scary either; they just come out of nowhere. For example, in the film’s opening scene, the killer calmly walks up to his victim and performs one of the least convincing beatings ever captured on film. The only bright spot is an out-of-nowhere death by electric mixer that is both sadistic and gory.” William Harrison, DVD Talk
