Buried Alive (1988)

...aka: Edgar Allan Poe's Buried Alive

Directed by:

Gérard Kikoïne

A former insane asylum called The Ravenscroft Institute has been transformed into a school for trashy-looking, overaged, troubled "teen" girls. Very pretty blonde science teacher Janet Pendleton (former Playboy Playmate Karen Witter) joins the Ravenscroft staff and immediately begins to have nightmarish visions while a mystery killer prowls around the school killing people. Robert Vaughn is top-billed as Dr. Gary Julian, who runs the institute, and the always welcome Donald Pleasence, as a goofy German doctor in a bad wig, may be behind all of it. Former porn queen Ginger Lynn Allen (playing a trouble-making bitch who ends getting her mouth stuffed with wet concrete) and Nia Long are the two tough main students. John Carradine, just as Naish and Karloff before him, was so ill he had to act in a wheelchair, but shows up in a minute-long cameo. He died later the same year in Milan, and this was his last film (and is also dedicated to him). Arnold Vosloo (years before THE MUMMY) plays a cop and William Butler plays Allen's boyfriend. There's also an ant-infestation, a black cat, a groupie shower scene and a scalping via electric mixer (!) to attempt to hold your interest, but this just simply isn't very good. The director made the much more interesting EDGE OF SANITY (1989), starring Tony Perkins in a Jekyll & Hyde type role, next.

Score: 2.5 out of 10