Blue Underground, with sales and distribution support provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a new 4K film restoration (from the interpositive) of director Gary A. Sherman’s 1981 undead tale, Dead & Buried, ready for a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack release on July 20.
Nothing like the success of one project to open doors for the next. Ridley Scott’s Alien was a huge success for 20th Century-Fox in 1979, and connected to that success were writer Dan O’Bannon, whose script for Alien got him noticed by “Hollywood,” and his buddy, Ronald Shusett, who worked with O’Bannon on the story and got a producer’s credit on Alien.
Enter producer Robert Fentress, who hadn’t produced anything at the point, but he did have an original story that he had purchased from two guys named Jeff Millar and Alex Stern. He convinced O’Bannon and Shusett to write the screenplay, and then with their connection to the film (hello, Alien) money was raised for the production (you see how it works). O’Bannon and Shusett would later have a falling out over the film (but that’s another story).
Meanwhile, Gary A. Sherman comes on board as the director, who had been involved with O’Bannon and Shusett on the disastrous Phobia film directed by John Huston in 1980 (that’s also another story). Sherman was noted for his 1972 film, Raw Meat, and would later deliver such films as Vice Squad, Wanted: Dead or Alive and Poltergeist III.
From start to finish, the writing, production and distribution of Dead & Buried took almost two years, with Avco Embassy finally ending up with the domestic theatrical distribution rights.
Dead & Buried is an effective “zombie” horror tale because of its structure. Filmed on location in Mendocino, California (Potter’s Bluff for the film), we are introduced to the local sheriff, Dan Gillis (James Farentino — The Final Countdown), who is trying to make sense out of what happened to visiting photographer George Le Mayne (Christopher Allport) — who was attacked by “friends” of a local girl named Lisa (Lisa Blount — An Officer and a Gentleman, What Waits Below) in the opening sequence … beaten, tied up and set ablaze.
Somehow Le Mayne survived and is now in the hospital. Meanwhile, things start to get creepy when Gillis stops by the local diner for a cup of coffee and the waitress, who was among those who attacked Le Mayne, politely inquires as to what happened … what the hell is going on here?
That night, the townies do it again. Two victims … hmmmm. But, wait, Gillis’ wife, Janet (Melody Anderson — Flash Gordon), is starting to act a little mysterious … the creepiness mounts.
The girl from the beach, Lisa, shows up as a “nurse” at the hospital and murders Le Mayne — she keeps calling him “Freddie.” The townies strike again, this time a family that gets lost. Creepy, skin-crawling creepy … and, if you want creepy, the local mortician, Dobbs (played by Jack Anderson), seems to be involved (which he is, of course).
What makes Dead & Buried so much fun is that Gillis is trying to make sense out of what is going, only to discover — through a twist at the end — that he’s all part of it. The dead, the people of Potter’s Bluff, are all part of what amounts to a creepy “passion play,” staged by … Dobbs!!
As to bonus goodies, there are four — count’em, four — commentary options. Three are vintage, the first featuring Gary A. Sherman, the second with Shusett, who is joined by his wife, Linda Turley (she plays the waitress in the diner), and the third is with cinematographer Steven Poster (Blood Beach, Strange Brew, Next of Kin, Rocky V). The fourth commentary option is newly-minted and features film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson.
There are four new featurettes — “Behind the Scenes of Dead & Buried,” “Dead & Buried Locations: Now & Then,” “Murders, Mystery and Music” and “The Pages of Potter’s Bluff” — and three vintage featurettes — “Stan Winston’s Dead & Buried EFX,” “Robert Englund: An Early Work of Horror” and “Dan O‘Bannon: Crafting Fear.”
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