The Horror TV Movie From A Stephen King Icon Being Totally Forgotten
Frank Darabont has given Stephen King fans some of the greatest film adaptations of the iconic horror novelist’s works over the last few decades. From The Mist (2007) to The Shawshank Redemption, Darabont has proven time and again that he possesses the rare ability to translate King’s words onto a big screen in such a way that has even earned the writer’s praise. But one of his first directorial roles, 1990’s Buried Alive, is one that is sadly being lost to time.
Frank Darabont’s Buried Alive
Buried Alive follows the life of construction contractor Clint Goodman (Tim Matheson), a man who believes he has a happy marriage to the beautiful Joanna (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Unbeknownst to Clint, his wife has been having a serious affair with a physician named Dr. Cortland van Owen (William Atherton). The two secretly plan to murder Clint so that they can take his life insurance money and the proceeds from the sale of his business to move to Beverly Hills.
Cortland gives Joanna a lethal dose of tetrodotoxin, taken from a live puffer-fish in Buried Alive. She administers the poison in a glass of wine that she gives Clint with the promise that it will send her husband into cardiac arrest. Their plan seems to succeed at first, as Clint drops dead to the floor and is pronounced dead on arrival from a freak heart attack.
Note To Self: Use More Poison Next Time
Joanna arranges for a rapid burial with no embalming. Clint is planted into the ground quickly into a cheap casket, giving those who knew him barely any time to mourn. The widow cashes in on what she can immediately and amasses quite the pile of cash for her and her secret lover to move away with.
But Clint isn’t dead. Buried Alive shows him coming to while inside the coffin, having survived being given a diluted dose of the poison. He punches through the cheap casket lid and claws his way out of the ground in the middle of a rainstorm and trudges back to his house.
The Ultimate Revenge Arc
Buried Alive sees Clint discovering quickly that Joanna and Cortland were having an affair and had worked together to eliminate him from their lives. The remainder of the film has Clint put together and orchestrate a horrible plan for revenge on the two people who gave him a premature burial.
Mixed Reviews, But Solid Performances All Around
Buried Alive was released to the USA Network in 1990 to mixed reviews from critics. Matheson’s performance was highly praised, and audiences also get to see Atherton play one of the coldest jerks anyone ever written into a script.
Watching Buried Alive At Home
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The made-for-TV horror movie was low-budget but still managed to gain notoriety among viewers, many of whom compared the plot-line to something out of a 1950s EC horror comic book. Buried Alive was soon released on VHS in 1991 and on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States in 2021.
Finding Buried Alive to stream in recent years has become more difficult, but you can catch this overlooked horror film with a subscription to AppleTV+.
