Buried Alive II

Buried Alive II
VHS cover
Genre	Horror Thriller
Written by	Walter Klenhard
Directed by	Tim Matheson
Starring	Ally Sheedy Stephen Caffrey Tracey Needham
Theme music composer	Michel Colombier
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	John V. Stuckmeyer Niki Marvin (executive producer)
Cinematography	Jacques Haitkin
Editor(s)	Virginia Katz
Running time	97 min.
Production company(s)	Niki Marvin Productions USA Pictures Universal Television
Distributor	USA Network
Release
Original network	USA Network
Original release	June 18, 1997 (1997-06-18)
Chronology
Preceded by	Buried Alive (1990)

Buried Alive II is a horror/thriller television film, a sequel to the 1990 film, Buried Alive. It starred Ally Sheedy, Stephen Caffrey and Tracey Needham. It was directed by Tim Matheson, who also reprised his character from the previous film, Clint Goodman.^[1] It first aired on June 18, 1997 on the USA Network.^[2]

Background

The film stars Ally Sheedy as Laura Riskin, Stephen Caffrey as Randy Riskin and Tracey Needham as Roxanne. Others in the film include Tim Matheson as Clint Goodman, Brian Libby reprising his role as Earl, the Embalmer, Clifton Daniel as Walter and Tommy Hinkley as Sheriff Jim Puller. The film was produced by Niki Marvin who also produced the original film.

Since the film's release, the film remained only available on out-of-print VHS in America, distributed by Universal Home Video.^[3] A VHS was also released in the Netherlands via Universal Pictures Benelux.^[4] In mid-2011, the film was released on DVD in the UK via Boulevard Entertainment.^[5]

The film's video premiere was in the summer/autumn of 1997 for America, the UK, Hungary and Portugal.^[2] The film made its premiere in Finland on August 11, 2005, via Mainostelevisio (MTV3).^[4]

Buried Alive II has a similar plot to Buried Alive, with the gender of the main characters reversed.

Plot

Ten years have passed since the events of the first movie. Clint Goodman has been living a solitary life elsewhere under the assumed name Michael Haden, while everyone in the original town believes that he is dead. However, he suffers from serious health issues due to the effects of the toxin and his near-death experience.

When his old friend Sheriff Sam Eberly passes away, Clint decides to come back for the funeral. Sam's niece Laura Riskin, who knew Clint a long time ago, notices him, but he quickly leaves before she can approach him.

Laura then finds out that she’s inherited some stock worth $250,000, which her uncle Sam bought and left to her. She wants to start a family with the money, but her husband Randy, who hates his life in the small town, wants to buy a yacht instead and leave there for good. Laura doesn't sympathize with him.

Unknown to Laura, Randy is having an affair with the local vixen Roxanne. He promises Roxanne to dump Laura as soon as he finds a way to leave with her, but she can't wait. Randy knows what happened to Clint and decides to do the same thing to Laura. Meanwhile, Laura corners Clint, who tells her to forget him because he is just like a wanted man.

Laura decides to forgive Randy, believing he has changed. When they go out for dinner that evening, he slips the toxin into her wine. Laura soon gets into a cardiac arrest and seemingly dies after consuming the spiked wine. When the doctor asks Randy if he wants an autopsy, he declines. The case doesn't raise the police's suspicion because Laura's family has a history of heart failure.

Clint has a heart attack after reading about Laura's death in the newspaper. At the hospital, he asks how Laura died, but the doctor only tells him that her funeral is being prepared. He wants to go there, but the doctor doesn't let him leave.

At the morgue, as Laura is about to be embalmed, the machine malfunctions. As a result, the staff doesn't embalm her, although Randy had requested her body to be embalmed twice.

After Laura's funeral, Clint approaches Randy and warns him that Laura may not be dead, with Randy questioning who Clint is. That night, after having a nightmare about his own escaping from the grave, Clint digs Laura up and believes that she is dead. His exertions on top of his already weakened condition cause a fatal heart attack and he finally dies. Laura wakes up and escapes her grave. She puts Clint's body in her coffin and buries it.

She goes home to find Randy and Roxanne in bed together. She intends to kill them with a harpoon gun. However, when she hears that Randy wants to have babies with Roxanne, she changes her mind, plotting a better revenge.

Over the next few days, Randy notices strange things in his home, including finding Laura's wedding ring. He has his wife's grave exhumed to make sure she is dead but finds Clint's body instead. Upon discovering that the dead person is Clint, they exhume Clint's grave to find Joanna and Cort's skeletons, along with the money they got from selling Clint's business. Suspecting that Laura is still alive, Randy hastily buys a yacht and prepares to leave the town. As he and Roxanne are packing their luggage, Laura traps them both inside a tool shed. She takes a hose attached to the exhaust pipe and puts it through the vent, knocking them unconscious.

Randy and Roxanne wake up on board the yacht with all doors locked and sealed shut with screws, and Roxanne sees Laura peering down at them through a skylight just before she blocks it off. When the yacht tilts, Randy realizes that Laura intends to sink it and bury them alive at the sea. He tries to shut off the bilge valve, but she has broken it off. In another room, they find a set of funeral clothes and a buoy saying "R.I.P Randy and Roxanne". Laura asks Randy why he tried to kill her, then blocks off the last vent and leaves in a motorized dinghy as the yacht sinks.

The next day, Laura visits Clint's grave, thanking him for what he's done. She then leaves the town to start a new life. The camera pans down through the water to the seabed, where Randy and Roxanne - still trapped inside the sunken yacht - scream at their fate.

Cast

• Ally Sheedy as Laura Riskin
• Stephen Caffrey as Randy Riskin
• Tracey Needham as Roxanne
• Tim Matheson as Clint Goodman/Michael Haden
• Brian Libby as Earl, the embalmer
• Shawnette Baity as the Gospel Singer
• Clifton Daniel as Walter
• Ron Dortch as Doctor Diner
• Keith Flippen as the Assistant Embalmer
• Tommy Hinkley as Sheriff Jim Puller
• Lonnie Horsey as Ed
• Elaine Nalee as Edith
• Eric Paisley as Minister
• Mike Pniewski as Dr. Ford
• J. C. Quinn as Curtis
• Ruth Reid as Geena
• Nina Repeta as Sherry
• Gina Stewart as Dr. Unser
• Robert C. Treveiler as Eric
• David Wells as Harold
• Jeff Johnston as E.M.T. (uncredited)

Reception

Allmovie.com gave the film two out of five stars and summed the film up by stating "Entertaining in its own 'they liked it once, they'll love it twice' fashion."^[6]

The Video Graveyard gave the film two out of five stars and wrote "Ho-hum sequel basically steps into the same plot mold as the original only with the sexes reversed as Ally Sheedy finds herself the victim of a murder plot by husband Stephen Caffrey and his lover Tracey Needham only for her death to be mistaken after which she returns from her grave and extracts revenge. While familiarity with the original is a plus this is only a mild thriller that panders to its television limitations and suffers from having too much in common with the first one. Not nearly as gripping with Matheson's involvement weak and revenge that's too little, too late. Pretty tedious with Caffery and Needham eventually slipping into bad acting territory during the finale. Brian Libby reprises his comic relief role as the town's embalmer."^[7]

Both the Video Movie Guide 2002 (Ballantine Books)^[8] and The Video Source Book (Performing Arts) gave the film a rating of 2.5 stars out of five.^[9]

References

External links

• Buried Alive II on IMDb