Before They Were Famous: Frank Darabont's Buried Alive

Frank Darabont, the Oscar-nominated writer director of such films as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, and the man behind the first season of the ground-breaking TV series The Walking Dead, cut his teeth writing horror films, like The Blob (1988) and A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (1987).

But before he directed such critically-acclaimed films as the two aforementioned Stephen King adaptations, he made his directorial debut with Buried Alive, a TV movie produced for the USA cable network, and released in 1990.

On the surface, the film, about a woman who poisons her do-gooder husband to run away with her sociopathic lover, only to discover that her husband isn’t quite dead and is back for revenge, sounds like just another cheesy 90’s made-for-TV movie. Cue the bad synth score, the has-been TV actors struggling through their middle-ages crises, and the horrible dialogue. But, Buried Alive proves to be much more than that.

Milking the limited budget and the twisty script by Mark Peter Carducci for all their worth, Darabont injects this modest thriller with tons of energy, style, wit, and transforms what could have been a forgettable B-movie into a minor suspense classic.

Good performances by Tim Matheson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and William Atherton, and the moody score by Michael Colombier, also help. But this is Darabont’s show, and you can see glimpses of his filmmaking prowess showing through the trappings he tries to transcend.

An atmospheric piece of American Gothic, Frank Darabont’s Buried Alive is worth rediscovering.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2024.

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Movie Review: SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK (1991) *** out of *****

One of a number of Stephen King adaptations produced by movie mogul Dino De Laurentis, Sometimes They Come Back (1991) premiered on US television in 1991 to little fanfare. But, years later, it as become a minor cult favorite, and has spawned two direct-to-video sequels. It’s easy to see why.

Sometimes They Come Back is a very affecting film, with a notable and touching performance by Tim Matheson, as a school teacher running away from the ghosts of a childhood trauma involving a bunch of older bullies and the death of his older brother. Returning thirty years later to his hometown as a husband and father, he tries to settle in and focus on starting a new life. But soon, ghosts from his past invade his life, in the form of a bunch of bullies with a striking resemblance to the ones who killed his brother thirty years ago, and who start terrorizing him and his students.

What makes the film work are a number of things: Matheson’s invested and heartfelt performance, an engaging script that astutely captures Stephen King’s voice and serves as a greatest hits collection of his main motifs, and tight direction by genre veteran Tom McLoughlin (aided by stylish cinematography by Bryan England).

But what marrs the film to a degree are the horror elements, which are poorly handled, and come off as hokey and intrusive. Schlocky make-up effects also don’t help matters. As a psychological thriller with supernatural overtones, the film works pretty well. But when the film focuses on the gang of bullies and their otherwordly abilities, it falters, with the shift in tone jarring, to say the least.

Still, there’s much to like about Sometimes They Come Back, as this is a compelling, occasionally heartfelt, and pretty atmospheric supernatural thriller, and, despite its faults, is sure to please Stephen King fans.

Trivia: The film was shot both for a theatrical release overseas and a TV premiere in the US on CBS. This explains the film’s top notch cinematography and the film’s careful compositions, which were framed for a 2.35: 1 theatrical aspect ratio.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.