Rent Premature Burial (1962)

3.3 of 5 from 66 ratings
1h 28min
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Synopsis:
Just imagine opening your eyes and being confronted by complete and utter darkness, darker than the depths of hell. You can't move your arms. You can't move your legs. You can just about move your hands, enough to frantically scratch the hard surface in front of you until the flesh on your fingers begins to scrape away from the bone. Your chest tightens as you desperately gasp for breath as the air becomes thinner and thinner and the only sound you can hear is your own screams of agony and constant pounding of your panicked heart as the end closes in around you.
Knowing that you've been buried alive! These are the strange, nightmarish thoughts that plague the disturbed, fevered mind of Guy Carrell and feed his deathly obsessions. But are his fears a paranoid delusion or are his darkest phobias about to become horrifically real.
Actors:
, , , , , , , ,
Directors:
Writers:
Charles Beaumont, Ray Russell
Studio:
Optimum
Genres:
Classics, Horror
Collections:
All the Twos: 1902-62, Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: Jack Nicholson
BBFC:
Release Date:
15/09/2008
Run Time:
88 minutes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Subtitles:
Czech
DVD Regions:
Region 2
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 2.35:1
Colour:
Colour

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Reviews (1) of Premature Burial

Spoilers ... - Premature Burial review by NP

Spoiler Alert
04/07/2018

I have always found it difficult to enjoy Roger Corman films, which surprises me. I like low-budget productions, and Corman always assembles very impressive casts. And yet, his projects appear to strive to create a staginess, a campy theatricality that I find difficult to become immersed in

Vincent Price was originally slated to play Guy Carrell, but the part went to Ray Milland. Milland has always been a very impressive actor in my view, able to transcend even average productions and emerge with dignity intact. Ten years later, he would exert his excellence on the notorious ‘The Thing with Two Heads’, where he somehow managed even there to inject his role as the titular creature with humour and above all, gravitas. He does the same here, as does Hazel Court, who plays Emily, his wife. Richard Ney plays family friend Miles and all characters are fairly staid and unengaging, lifted hugely by the playing.

Perhaps Price would have injected Carrell with a bit of a twinkle, which would at least have lightened this humourless piece. What we have here is a very earnest reimagining of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story. There’s a certain inevitability Carrell’s fate once we learn of his dread of being buried alive, and certainly the atmosphere reaches impressive levels as a result of this, and what happens beyond.

I would have liked to enjoy this more, but often couldn’t get past the style of the piece, which for the most part, looks like it has the production values of a television continuing serial, or soap. This is no slight on the budget or production team, it just fails to convince me, or to inject proceedings with any kind of eccentricity or outlandishness that offsets the limitations.

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