BA_Harrison Before now, if you had told me that Donald Pleasance had starred alongside '80s hardcore porn-star Ginger Lynn Allen, I might not have believed it; my mind would have certainly boggled at the many sordid and potentially upsetting possibilities. But here it is... Buried Alive, which sees the ageing bald horror actor as kooky Dr. Schaeffer, employee at Ravenscroft, a reform school where the girls (whose number includes Ginger Lynn as Debbie) start to disappear in mysterious circumstances. There are, thankfully, no XXX scenes between Pleasance and Allen.The film starts with the capture of one of the girls by a masked maniac. The next day, the school's beautiful new teacher Janet (Karen Witter) arrives at the institution, but quickly becomes confused by goings on (but not as much as me), and thereafter suffers from hallucinations in which a hand grabs her from the ground and out of a toilet bowl while ants crawl everywhere. Meanwhile, the school's director Gary Julian (Robert Vaughn) professes his love for Janet (having made her acquaintance only a few days earlier), which turns out to be a big problem for the lovely lady when it transpires that he is the deranged lunatic who has been walling up the missing girls in the basement.To be brutally honest, the film's plot is a colossal mess, but the whole thing still manages to be fairly entertaining nonsense nevertheless, with a few gore effects (the rotting corpses of Debbie and her boyfriend are particularly grisly) and the requisite nudity (a group shower scene ticking that particular box). The film also features John Carradine in one of his last roles, as Julian's crazy coot of a father, who may or may not be a ghost; by this point in his career, I'm not sure if Carradine even knew what his films were about.

lazarillo This movie is supposedly based on Edgar Allen Poe, but aside from a cat and some people being entombed behind a wall, I'm not so sure. (And it also seems to involve ants, lots and lots of ants). It takes place at some kind of institute for sexy, delinquent, orphaned female mental patients. (I would gladly work as the unpaid janitor at one of these places, but they only seem to exist in the movies). The name actors in this movie are Robert Vaughn, Donald Pleasance, and John Carradine (in what would be his final film). You may question the judgment of these actors in appearing in this film, but when did any of these guys ever show any judgment? I would question the judgment of the producers in their choice of the female cast. The lead is Karen Witter, a former Playboy Playmate. Very few Playmates are known for their acting abilities and Witter is definitely NOT doing what she does best here. You could probably say the same thing about Ginger Lynn Allen, at that time in a hiatus period of her XXX porn career. But at least she has brief nude scenes (well, sort of) and is not very convincing, but still somewhat entertaining as the tough "queen bee" of the institution.The French director of this, Gerard Kinkoine, is also an interesting choice. He WAS technically a porn director, but he was one of the more talented "softcore" directors like Just Jaeckin, Jean Rollin, Walerian Borozyx, and Max Pecas rather than simply a hardcore hack. Almost all these European directors ended up working in off-Hollywood American co-productions like this at the end of their careers, but it was actually a step down for them (whereas for Ginger Allen it was a definite step-up from "servicing" the likes of Ron Jeremy and Jerry Butler).This is OK I guess overall. I probably won't sue to get the 90 minutes of my life back. . .

slouchingpoet I love this movie to death. Its b-grade schlock of the highest caliber. My mother rented it around '95 or somewhere around that time, thinking it was a made-for-TV movie with the same title. I would've sworn it had been made in the early '80s for its pure b-movie quality. I honestly can't say if the overall effect was intended, but it succeeds effortlessly to capture the last days of the slasher film (cum Poe inspired imagery) genre. Long story short, a new teacher arrives at the Ravenscroft Institute, a girl-school staffed with lunatics. Not surprisingly she begins having hallucinations/nightmares as her pupils disappear one by one--in laughingly inventive ways. The only complaint I have is with Robert Vaughn who I absolutely can't stand. But even so I wouldn't have changed a thing. Get some friends (or develop multiple personalities) together, get a pizza and watch this movie. Its the essence of life.

Fritz Langlois BURIED ALIVE was to be the last film made by John Carradine during his lifetime (the old actor would later come back from the grave to appear in a few more movies). Edgar Allan Poe's name is mentioned in the title, but don't believe the hype. For this is just another cheap horror exploitation flick (what more can you expect from producer Harry alan Towers, who churned out some of the worse movies ever?) Nevertheless, it's enjoyable enough if only for the performances. Robert Vaughn (TEENAGE CAVEMAN) plays the director of a school/madhouse. Donald Pleasance is once again typecast as one of its loony inhabitants. His French voice is not the same as in the HALLOWEEN series, but it's as much fun. And John Carradine appears shortly, wheelchair-bound, in what constitutes a fitting, if not flamboyant, last blast of weirdness. That's about all you get from an otherwise poor-looking film...