Movie Monthly - Dead & Buried

Edited by Robert Beach

Welcome back to Movie Monthly’s Month of the Zombie where I celebrate zombie movies that only I consider to be zombie movies. There are just so many generic zombie films out there with your standard range of infected rage zombies or slow, shambling Romero zombies that you don’t need another person spotlighting them. In keeping with that trend, the zombies from this week’s movie are less of your standard issue undead and something more like the bizarre hybrid children of Re-Animator, The Fog, and Shutter Island.

It’s also notable as being from the writing team behind Alien…sort of.  Ronald Shusett, who’s credited with creating Alien’s story, while Alien’s actual author Dan O’Bannon has repeatedly distanced himself from the film, wrote the main script.  It’s a bizarre mash-up of zombie flick, seaside terror tale, retro throwback and atmospheric horror. Let’s talk about Dead & Buried.

Cops and Horror

Set in the fictional New England town of Potter’s Bluff, Dead & Buried revolves around a series of mysterious murders being investigated by the local sheriff Dan Gillis. The film is essentially split between two major focuses: Gillis’ ongoing investigation of the various killings and the actual killings themselves. That alone makes Dead & Buried something of a rarity in the horror pantheon as there are actually very few horror films told from the perspective of the police. 

Generally in horror movies, the cops are either absent, incompetent, or complicit with the evil. Aside from the Saw franchise, we never actually see police make any real impact.  Aside from Saw, the only other major example of the cops playing an integral role in a horror story is Jaws, and you can tell that Dead & Buried trying to be on harmony with Spielberg’s shark flick if not on melody.

The small New England town setting feels like the rundown counterpart to Amity island, the same small, quiet, out-of-the-way aesthetic only without the boon of tourism to keep the town’s economy humming. Additionally, the New England coastline is nowhere near as sunny and light as New York’s seaside.  Everything exists in this perpetual overcast gray void that’s decidedly unsettling and always a little bit threatening. In Amity, the whole point of the island and beach setting is contrast.

The sunny skies and warm sandy beaches are about creating an environment that sets us at ease so we’re less prepared for all the gory, violent shark attacks.  In Dead & Buried, the atmosphere is much more oppressive and suggests a dark and subtle offness throughout the entire film. There’s never a moment of safety in Potter’s Bluff, and the rocky cliffs and rough seas just add to that aesthetic; it’s all very Lovecraftian and reminiscent of A Shadow Over Innsmouth. 

Influence of ‘50s Horror Comics

The other big Jaws element is Sheriff Gillis himself. Though not as much of a burnt-out loser as Sheriff Brody, they both feel wrong for their environment, like they're wearing someone else’s skin.  Again, the difference here is the end goal. Sheriff Brody’s uncomfortableness as Amity Sheriff is part of his character arc of personal impotence whereas Sheriff Gillis’ has darker reasons for feeling so out of place. 

This entire atmosphere is key to the horror film Dead & Buried is, which is essentially a classic chiller in the vein of The Twilight Zone or House of Mystery. The structure of the story around a final chilling reveal coupled with the slow, eerie, deliberate pacing are straight out of the classic horror comics of the ‘50s.  It’s a very specific niche element of horror that, if you can tune your brain to it, can be really rewarding.

However, the creepy ‘50s atmospheric horror is only half the film, and the other half, the actual murders, feels much more modern and unnerving. The killings all exist in these freaky tableaus that are so removed from the ongoing plot they feel like we’ve been dropped into a waking nightmare more than anything else. This is where the zombie elements really shine as it’s revealed the killers are the walking dead, though the visual aesthetic and design is what sets them apart. 

In a lot of ways, the Dead & Buried monsters are like more polished zombies; they’re these creepy, unstopping, unthinking killing machines, but they outwardly look normal save for a slight offness as if someone had cleaned them up. Additionally, even though they move in a massive mob of inhumanity, they don’t make any noises or superfluous motions. They simply emerge out of the gathering New England fog as static monsters that will, inevitably, kill you. There’s a lot of The Fog in this depiction only here the monsters will actually murder you instead of just stand by gawking. 

Jack Albertson's Performance 

Aside from the great atmosphere and creepy murder sequences the other star of the film is Jack Albertson as the creepy coroner/mortician Dobbs. Most folks know Albertson as Grandpa Joe from the original Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but he’s actually got a lot of history in less-wholesome roles like this one. Albertson is the real reason I wanted to talk about Dead & Buried because he is amazing in this movie. Turning what could’ve been a very dull part, Albertson made it an unforgettable performance. 

Unsurprisingly, he ultimately reveals himself to be kind of crazy and involved in the killings, and it’s one of the best reveal scenes I’ve ever seen. A lot of the time the revelation that a character is “crazy” ends up more than a little overplayed and comically verbose as the actor basically flips their “evil switch.” Albertson is much subtler and almost never breaks his character. You can really see the connective tissue of how his role as a mortician has led him to develop a truly sick and unnerving relationship with the dead. 

I’m not going to pretend Dead & Buried is a some forgotten classic, or if you see it, it’ll change your life. I do recommend it, especially if you’re in the mood for a horror movie that’s more about mood and atmosphere. Even despite the film’s obvious borrowing, it has a weirdly evocative and transcendent feeling to it. Its visuals have always existed in the collective unconscious and it’s just tapping into them. Scenes of the unmoving, unblinking mob emerging out of the eerie fog along the gray and scarred New England shoreline are like something from a shared nightmare and are truly unforgettable scenes. 


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