I Bury The Living

JULY 30, 2007

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK!!!)

I Bury The Living is one of those titles you always hear but probably haven’t seen the film. I’m actually kind of shocked that there hasn’t been a remake of this one, as it’s one of the best ideas for a Twilight Zone style movie I have ever heard, but with a dumb (and not original) ending that betrays the whole thing.

Note I said the story is great. The dialogue and way things develop are not. For example: in the first 20 minutes, about a half dozen people just sort of swing on by the graveyard office. Look, there are only two reasons to ever visit a cemetery: visiting a grave, and fucking someone. I wouldn’t care if it was my own mother working there; I wouldn’t ever pop in to say hi. It’s goddamn creepy. There is also a newlywed couple who go on and on about their inheritance and burial plots and what not. They literally come over to deliver exposition to all of us.

New England fans should get particular enjoyment out of the name of the main character: Bob Kraft. Kraft is of course the jovial and kindly owner of the Patriots, and imagining him sitting around his office putting black pins into the future burial site of, oh, let’s say Peyton Manning or Cato June, could make an excellent sketch (this of course would only work if sports fans were also familiar with obscure 50 year old horror movies, and that isn’t likely).

Like some of the other budget pack movies, this is one I wish I saw on a legitimate release. While not as bad as Bell From Hell or Cathy’s Curse, it has a buzzing noise over the audio and the absolute worst compression I have seen on the set. I don’t know what the exact term is, but careful viewers will notice on some lower quality DVDs that certain elements in a shot will ‘shift’ slightly when the things around them are still (or vice versa). Usually it’s something like a photo on the wall in the background or something small like that. But here, entire portions of the background can be seen shifting around behind the main characters as they walk around. It’s freaky and annoying. Shots of the map in particular suffer from this.

Speaking of the map, the design on it is very particular. If I met a girl with the ‘path’ as a tattoo, I would totally marry her. I’m sure my wife wouldn’t mind.

What say you?