Dead & Buried

What if I told you a horror managed to blend Bradbury, Stephen King, Lovecraft, and the old EC Comics? That sounds amazing, right? You’d put it on your watchlist right away. But what if I told you that the movie was somehow less, and substantially so, than the sum of its parts? Well, then you’d have Dead & Buried, a horror movie about a creepy town where the residents murder outsiders, there’s only one cop and he may be the only innocent man in town, the dead rise from the grave, and the whole movie has the pacing and momentum of an episode of Murder She Wrote played at half speed. It’s not a problem of a slow burn so much as that is too laconic to build tension. Even more frustrating is that 70% of the mystery isn’t a mystery at all because the movie tells you so, 20% isn’t said directly but hinted at with the subtlety of King Kong doing semaphore, and the final 10% isn’t said or implied but can be gleaned if you possess an IQ above the teens. And then toss in some world-class bad acting in places (the hero’s acting in the final ten minutes is community theater levels of atrocious) and a villain’s motivation that makes no sense whatsoever if you apply .07 seconds worth of thought. I respect the attempt made here, and I think in more capable hands — not just director, but writers, actors, everybody — this could be a really good movie. But the design is not the product. On paper, it sounds like a creepy, atmospheric movie dripping with dread and paranoia. In execution, it’s a mediocre drawn out episode of 80’s old people TV that wants you to know every card it has up its sleeve, only it’s not wearing a shirt with sleeves.