Dead & Buried (1981)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	1981
Running Time	90:03 (Case: 92)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Gary Sherman
Studio Distributor	Richard R. St. Johns Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	James Farentino Melody Anderson Jack Albertson
Case	Alpha
RPI	$19.95	Music	Joe Renzetti

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.70:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes, do burning people count?
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Dead & Buried is the story of Potter's Bluff, a small and somewhat sleepy town. But, is everything as it seems? Indeed not. A number of gruesome murders are committed, reducing the local law man, Dan Gillis (James Farentino) to a state of confusion and stress. Who is committing the murders? The local undertaker, G. William Dobbs (Jack Albertson) is a very unusual man and the teaching of Voodoo and witchcraft in the local school certainly raises a few eyebrows. What is Dan's wife (Melody Anderson) hiding, or is Dan just becoming paranoid? The ending is very clever, and well masked. I was certainly surprised.

    Dead & Buried certainly has plenty of gore, and for this reason was banned in a number of countries, including Norway. Compared to some more recent horror flicks, it seems a little tame at times. If you are a fan of budget horror flicks than this will certainly whet your appetite. Based on the running time, it would seem that we are lucky enough to get the uncensored version in R4.

Video

    This transfer is presented in the non-enhanced aspect ratio of 1.70:1. I could not find information concerning the original ratio of the movie but I can only assume it is relatively close to what the director intended.

    Sharpness is poor throughout, primarily due to the extremely high levels of grain. The opening sequences are a great example of how bad the grain is. Another particularly poor sequence can be found around 14:00. Shadow detail is also hindered by the high levels of grain as the picture becomes quite washed out, never really attaining a decent black level.

    Colour is uninspiring throughout, never hitting any highs. It is passable at best.

    The compression on this disc stands up well as the grain can be attributed, in the majority, to the source material. There are no MPEG artefacts that I noticed. Film-to-video artefacts manifest themselves in aliasing (eg at 22:05 on the desk and at 23:50 on the house), and some minor telecine wobble. Film artefacts occur regularly, particularly noticeable at 23:05 and 73:40 (vertical stripe).

    There are no subtitle available on the disc and there is also no layer change as the feature is compressed onto a single layer.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track available on this DVD, encoded at 448kbps.

    Dialogue quality is generally reasonable throughout with some nasty distortion obvious at 25:20, and 39:00. Audio sync seems a little off in places but is otherwise quite good. There is a pop in the audio at 21:20 but it is not loud so no need to jump through the roof.

    The original score is attributed to Joe Renzetti and is the usual suspenseful and atmospheric horror music fare.

    The surrounds and subwoofer do not attend this party.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The video quality is on the poor side of average

    The audio quality is acceptable.

    The extras are non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall