Dead & Buried 1981

 After writing Alien but before directing The Return of the Living Dead Dan O'Bannon co-wrote Dead & Buried with Ronald Shusett who also produced and came up with the original story for Alien.  The movie features Melody Anderson, James Farentino, and Jack Albertson for the main cast.  Also keep an eye out for a very young looking Robert England who at the time only had a few small roles in feature films under his belt and his role is small here as well.  The film has the distinction of being a "Video Nasty" which were a bunch of movies that for one reason or another (usually for violent content) were banned in the UK during the 1980's.  One has to wonder just how bad can the movie be if it co-stars the old guy from Chico and The Man?  Or maybe you know Albertson better as Grandpa Joe from Willie Wonka?  Years after it's release O'Bannon would "disown" the film as all of his ideas that he wrote for the film were never used although Shusett claimed he would put them in.  Stan Winston the visual effects artist would go on later to win Oscars for his visual effects in Alien, Terminator II Judgment Day, and Jurassic Park. 

 The lesser you know about this one before you see it the better off you are.  I knew very little about the film when I watched it and while if felt slow in some parts I could never let my guard down as I never knew what was about to happen.  Oh I knew something was going to happen but I didn't know what or when.  Right from the start you know something is way off about the little New England coastal town of Potter's Bluff.  An out of town photographer is killed by a group of townspeople and this is just the beginning as more strangers are killed every day.  Now you know why some of us don't ever want to stop and ask for directions!  For most people upon it's release it was deemed just too damn weird or maybe it was that it was too intelligent for the average horror movie fan back in 1981 but for whatever reason the film didn't do well at the box office.

It doesn't matter if you don't know any of the actors, in fact other than Jack Albertson I vaguely recognize a couple of the names on the credits list.  None of that matters as the one who steals this film is Albertson for sure.  His puts in an extraordinary performance as the towns mortician/coroner and I know he won an Oscar for 1968's The Subject Was Roses and an Emmy for Chico and The Man on TV but I put this up there with some of his best work of his career.  Don't get me wrong Farentino and Anderson both do a serviceable job here but Albertson is that much better even if his role is smaller than theirs.  If I had to use one word to describe this film I would say "disturbing" how about "disturbingly creepy" if I could use two words.  Is it a classic horror movie?  Definitely not but for a relative unknown it has it's moments.  We'll give this one 3 Dead Out-Of-Towners out of 5.