The Movie:

The directorial debut of Frank Darabont, 1990's Buried Alive is a well-made thriller that was made for the USA Network. The story revolves around Clint (Tim Matheson), who has done quite well for himself over the last few years. Still, he decides to move back to the small town he grew up in, with his wife Joanna (Jennifer Jason Leigh) along for the ride. He figures he can use his money and experience to start a successful construction company all while enjoying the simple pleasures that life in a small town can offer versus life in the big city.

Soon after their arrival, Clint catches up with his old friend Sam Eberly (Hoyt Axton), the town sheriff and his regular fishing buddy, and just really enjoying his new life. Joanna, however, feels very differently and is quite vocal about how much she dislikes the changes that have occurred in their marriage. Soon enough, she's screwing around behind Clint's back with a doctor named Cortland Van Owen (William Atherton). As their relationship intensifies, they make plans to head back to the city where Cortland will setup a new practice and they'll live comfortably together.

Joanna, quite logically, figures the best course of action is for her to file for divorce. Cortland is more cunning, however. He knows that Clint's got a pretty hefty life insurance policy and he figures if they knock him off, they can cash in on that and sell the construction business he's worked so hard to get started. That'd certainly make their new life together much easier, at least in a financial sense. Cortland hooks Joanna up with some poison and soon enough, the deed is done...or so they think.

This one takes a bit of time to really find its footing but once it does, Buried Alive turns out to be a more than solid thriller, particularly when you consider it was made by a first time director (not that we should grade on a curve, mind you). Darabont takes his time, setting up the characters really well and letting us get to know each one of the principal players before setting up the murder motive and then introducing a few interesting twists, some of which you might see coming and some of which you almost certainly won't. It works well, and the last half hour proves to be very tense indeed.

Of course, it helps that Darabont is working with a good cast here. Tim Matheson is well cast as Clint, a well-meaning but slightly naïve guy who has the best of intentions but maybe doesn't pay as much attention as he should to those around him. Jennifer Jason Leigh is genuinely great as the unhappy wife, adding some welcome depth to the character and bringing some nice subtlety to her performance. Hoyt Axton is good in his supporting bit as the sheriff and William Atherton quite good, and plenty believable, as the other man in the mix.

Production values are good. The movie definitely shows its early nineties roots, it just has that feel in terms of its look and the soundtrack is definitely a product of its time, but the cinematography is strong and the picture is well edited.

The Video:

Buried Alive arrives on Region A Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studios in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.33.1, which would seem to be its original aspect ratio. The movie looks quite good, it's clean and colorful and look like film throughout. There are no problems with any noise reduction, edge enhancement or compression artifacts and there's very little noticeable print damage here. Detail generally looks really nice, if a tad soft in a few scenes, and overall this transfers shows nice depth as well.