Bad Movie Tuesday: Buried Alive (1989), loosely adapted from an Edgar Allan Poe story, this is a “higher quality” bad movie.

MY CALL: Very, very loosely based on Poe’s “The Premature Burial,” this is among the finer curated Bad Movie Tuesday selections. It’s not slapstick nor deliberately stupid, there are no cheap rubber guts to be found, it’s only moderately campy, and some of the acting is proficient enough. But the writing and ridiculous story points concoct a most engaging lunacy that I particularly enjoyed much more than expected. MORE MOVIES LIKE Buried Alive: If you’re looking for more movies adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s work, consider The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), Two Evil Eyes (1990), The Black Cat (1989; aka, Il gatto nero, Demons 6), The Black Cat (1981; Gatto nero), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990), The Pit and the Pendulum (1991) and The Haunting of Morella (1990).

This movie is pretty ludicrous from the start. A teenage girl runs away from the Ravenscroft juvenile delinquent boarding school only to be intercepted by a masked man, who apparently somehow expected exactly when AND exactly where this girl would be (and on exactly which night she’d run away), who drops her down a trap door near the interstate that leads to his lair. So, the route she chose to run away just happened to be right where this trap-doored underground lair was? What if she ran literally any different direction, or even ran at a slightly different angle from the facility? Oh, well… our masked assailant then beats the girl, sedates her, puts her in a straight jacket, and lays brick to wall her off in the dark chamber of her death.

Presumably crediting (or falsely crediting) Edgar Allan Poe as a ploy to attract interest in his movie, adult film director Gérard Kikoïne introduces us to the girls of Ravenscroft like it was a women’s penitentiary movie. The girls are all hard delinquents who spit swears and threats to one another with every available breath. Among the students are Debbie (Ginger Lynn; Murdercise, New York Ninja, 31, The Devil’s Rejects) and Fingers (Nia Long; 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, Stigmata), and even a boyfriend (William Butler; Ghoulies II, Friday the 13^th VII: The New Blood, Spellcaster, Texas Chainsaw Massacre III).

Starting her first day as a science teacher, Janet (Playboy Playmate Karen Witter/Lorre; Popcorn, The Vineyard) is introduced to the school by the headmaster Gary (Robert Vaughn; CHUD II, Zombie 5), who is clearly attracted to Janet in a weirdly obvious and inappropriate way. The weirdly eccentric Dr. Schaeffer (Donald Pleasence; Death Line, Prince of Darkness, Phenomena, Halloween 1-2/4-6) is also among the faculty, and this character feels like he’s from a completely different, much more zany movie. At times I half expect him to become wildly inappropriate with Janet, but that perverted flower never comes to blossom. Even the local Sheriff (Arnold Vosloo; The Mummy Returns, Odd Thomas) is sweet on Janet.

The recurring ominous presence of a black cat and the brick wall interment of victims harken Poe’s thematic influence. Janet’s visions of a pulsating brick wall provide a Telltale Heart-like sentiment. As girls disappear, Janet develops suspicions as well as more psychic visions prophetic of the girls’ fate. These visions include grabby hands from holes (and toilets), a lot of ants (for some reason), brick walls and a desperate old man (John Carradine; Evils of the Night, The Nesting, The Howling, The Sentinel).

A wonderfully gory mishap with a kitchen appliance fully de-scalps one of our delinquent co-eds. This was the scene that coaxed me to watch this movie! The scene is short, but sweet—and deliciously graphic as it yanks her flesh in one big slimy chonk from her skull! There’s also a trough head impalement and some gruesome ant-eaten corpses. But overall, this is not exactly a bloody gorefest.

While not especially eventful, this movie was surprisingly engaging. I was immersed in the bad dialogue, the weird quirky characters, the catty teen drama and shenanigans, and this weird delinquent boarding school built atop a labyrinthine subterranean mental asylum, which we learn once contained one of the main characters. The story is told with a straight face, yet it is all conceptually bonkers. At one point, Gary proposes to Janet with a ring without ever having a kiss or a date or anything. And no, you wouldn’t think some scenes got it. It just force marches its insanity right at you at a steady pace.