Although nowhere close to the best “buried alive” movie of all time—that honor would have to go to 1988’s The Vanishing—there are just enough claustrophobic chills in this 1990 made-for-TV movie to make it worth a look. The cast is headed by the oddly matched but somehow workable onscreen cuckolded husband Clint (Tim Matheson; Fletch, 1941) and cheating wife Joanna (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, fresh from her sleazy turn as Tra-la-la in 1989’s superb downer flick Last Exit to Brooklyn.) And to boot, you have Hollywood directorial royalty in Frank Darabont, breaking out his best B-movie horror chops here before he would go on to bigger game like the Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and the Walking Dead. Although it’s anyone’s guess why Jason-Leigh’s Joanna hates her hubby to the point of wanting to poison him, at the behest of her equally psychotic illicit lover (a medical doctor played by the always unlikeable Bill Atherton) they decide to slip toxic fish eggs to Clint so his death looks like an accident—that way they can split his insurance money and move to New York City (charming, eh?).
Only, the good doctor’s poisonous plan hits a snag, as the fish ovaries only incapacitate Clint for a while. Nevertheless, the doc and Joanna feel he’s dead enough and have him prematurely buried. Clint eventually wakes up, and he’s understandably ticked off. He manages to dig his way out of the flimsy Ikea-grade coffin he’s buried in and is hell bent on revenge after he learns about the plot against him. The rest of the film plays out like a darker, adult version of Home Alone, with Clint setting all kinds of imaginatively sadistic booby traps inside the house where Joanna and Cort have their lovers’ trysts. Buried Alive may not have aged too well, but it still delivers some solid scares and creepily memorable moments. Optional.