The Trap enjoys zombie films just like the next person, but sometimes it's nice to see a movie with a different take on the subject matter, ie. where the zombies don't move slowly with their arms outstretched, their tongues lapping for live flesh.

Directed by Gary Sherman, Dead and Buried is a real treat. The script was written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, who wrote Alien and it's a clever piece of writing, with a sublime sense of humor and plenty of great twists.

Filmed in Mendocino, California, the action takes place in a small New England seatown. The setting in fact looks like something straight out of a Stephen King story.

On a beach in the town of Potters Bluff, a photographer (Christopher Allport) on vacation is taking photos. An attractive blonde woman (Lisa Blount) appears in front of the lens and they begin talking. She tells the man he looks like his name is "Freddie" and he tells her that her name must be "Lisa."

The girl offers to pose for him and the photographer is thrilled. After some shots are taken, the blonde asks "Freddie" if he wants her. He approaches her and the girl takes his camera away and snaps a picture of him. Just then, a group of four men attack the photographer with a crowbar, and then whack him in the head with a shovel.

The men quickly lift the photographer up and bind him against a tree with some old netting. "Freddie" is in a daze, but when one of the men begins pouring gasoline on him, he struggles to free himself. There is a large group around him and some of the people are taking photos and filming the occasion. A woman (Linda Turly) lights a match and drops it on him. As the poor man goes up in flames and screams in agony, more pictures are taken by the blank eyed witnesses.

That night, Sheriff Dan Gillis (James Farentino), is called to the scene of a car crash. The vehicle is on fire and turned upside down. The authorities are waiting for the local mortician/coroner, William G. Dobbs (Jack Albertson).

Known for his flamboyant entrances, the old man arrives in an ambulance complete with blaring music and flashing light. The photographer's charred body is visible inside the car and Dobbs reaches in to touch him. The victim is still alive and screams.

At a diner the next morning, Dan talks to Harry (Robert Englund) and his buddies about the unidentified man, who's in serious condition at a hospital. Madge the waitress brings the sheriff a cup of coffee. She's the same woman who lit the match the day before.

There's another attack that evening. A drunken fisherman (Ed Bakey) is walking around the boatyard. He's talking to himself and stops to lean against a wall. Just then, some hands come out from behind the wall and grab him. Some of the people who attacked the photographer appear. They again record the occasion as a man steps forward and slashes the sailor across the face and cuts his neck open.

Dobbs is at the mortuary listening to music from the 1940s. The sheriff visits him and wonders if it's possible that the guy who was found in the car wreck could have been burned somewhere else and placed in the vehicle. A call comes in about a murder, and the two men head over to the crime scene where the fisherman's body was found. They agree on one thing: this death was certainly no accident.

Trying to find the identity of the burn victim, Dan then goes to a small local hotel. Ben (Macon McCalmon), the proprieter, tells him that he hasn't seen one of the guests in recent days. He takes the sheriff up to the man's room, where they find material on photography. There is no identification however. Ben then tells the officer something strange...the sheriff's wife had paid a visit to the guest in recent days.

When Ben arrives home, he asks his wife Janet (Melody Anderson) about it. She tells him that the man's name is George LeMoyne, and that she met with him because he was selling photographic equipment to the school where she teaches. The story makes sense until Dan runs into the principal, Mr. Haskell (Robert Boler), who tells him that no transaction took place.

George is out of a coma in the hosptial. He's still wrapped in bandages from head to toe, with most of his body severely burned. Dan is talking to the victim's doctor, trying to figure out when the man will be able to talk. (That might be hard, the doctor tells him, because George no longer has any lips.)

As they're talking, a nurse slips into George's room. Through an opening for his eye, the patient sees that the nurse is the same woman from the beach. He is unable to move as she sticks an injection in his eye. The doctor and the sheriff find the horrific sight.

Dan goes home and is in a solemn mood. Janet arrives and her husband wonders where she's been. She tells him she had to work late and gives him a roll of film to develop, which she explains is a project her students are working on. She then leaves again to a P.T.A meeting.

A family is lost in the middle of town. Ron (Dennis Redfield), his wife Linda (Nancy Locke Hauser), and their son Jamie (Mark Courtney) go into the diner to ask for directions. Madge tells them how to get back on the road, but the family still need to gas for their car. The waitress asks a gas attendant who's sitting on a stool to help them. When he turns around, we see that it's George the photographer!

The couple and their kid are about to drive out of Potters Bluff, when someone runs in front of their car. Ron brings the vehicle to an abrupt halt, and his wife becomes worried that their son might be hurt.

She sees a light go on in a house nearby and they go in to get help. The house appears to be abandoned, but in fact, it's a trap. A group of townspeople descend upon the family with every conceivable weapon imaginable. The family manages to get out of the house in time by climbing out of a window. They get to their car, but there's a woman in the backseat. The wife grabs at her hair, but only manages to pull part of her scalp off.

As quickly as they can, they take off. Sheriff Gillis is in his patrol car and happens to see them speeding by. During the commotion, he hits a pedestrian. When he gets out to help, he sees that the person lost an arm...but the reanimated limb is attached to the sheriff's fender. Suddenly the guy gets up, grabs his arm and dashes off! Dan tries to run after him, but the guy gets away. He later takes a piece of flesh off the fender and sends it in for examination.

Back at his house, he finds a book in a drawer called "Witchcraft and Voodooism." Janet tells him she's teaching her class something they'd find interesting. She's irritated at Dan for not remembering to develop the film she gave him. The next morning Dan takes it to his friend Ernie at his shop and tells him not to let anybody else pick it up.

While he's there, Dan gets a call from Harry telling him a car was pulled from the water and that a toy was found in it. The sheriff goes back to the station, where Ben comes in and tells him that George is alive and working at the gas station. Dan doesn't believe him, but Ben tells him to ask Janet about it.

Dan goes to Janet's school and is unnerved when he overhears Janet giving an explicit lesson on voodoo to a class of very young children. One of the students is Jamie, the child killed with his parents the night before.

Just outside of town, a man in a pick-up truck offers a ride to a pretty young hitchhiker. He tells her he's driving into Potters Bluff and stops the vehicle at the boatyard. Someone opens the passenger door, and the girl falls out. There's a group of townspeople surrounding her and a man takes a huge rock and smashes her face.

At the morgue, Dobbs examines her body and vows to make her beautiful again. This he does, but when he leaves for the night, the girl's body sits up. The next day he reports the missing corpse to Dan.

Meanwhile, the doctor has examined the flesh that Dan found on his car. He tells Dan over the phone that the body appears to have been dead for a couple of months. As he continues to test the evidence, a group of people appear in his office. They grab the doctor, and the girl from the beach takes an instrument and pumps acid up the man's nostrils. (Gruesome stuff indeed!)

Dan has an idea to dig up George LeMoyne's corpse. There is no body in the casket, but there's a human heart wrapped in a shirt. Dan then drives by the gas station and quickly takes a photo of Freddie/George. He intends to send it to St. Louis, where the photographer has been reported missing.

The sheriff also instructs his secretary Betty (Estelle Omens) to find out information about their eccentric mortician. When the information comes back, they're both shocked to find out that he was dismissed from his previous job in another town because of unauthorized uses of corpses.

Dan gets a further shock when he develops Janet's film. The footage shows Janet in bed with a man who she then stabs repeatedly in the back. Dan rushes to the morgue, where he confronts Dobbs.

The old man is watching footage of all the murders which have occured in the town. He tells Dan that the victims are better off after they've been killed and reanimated by him. He also tells Dan that Janet was his first and favorite creation.

Janet walks in just then, and as she's approaching her husband, he shoots her repeatedly. The bullets momentarily daze her and cause some of her skin to come off. She says "Dan, I'm dead. Please bury me!" before running away.

Dan then shoots Dobbs and follows Janet to the cemetary where he helps her cover herself with dirt in George's grave. When the locals show up with flowers and their cameras, the sheriff panics and heads back to the morgue.

There he finds the old mortician, who has reanimated himself. He tells Dan to finish watching Janet's film. Dan looks up at the screen to see something cruel - the man Janet stabbed in the back is Dan himself! Talk about wild goose chases...

The cost for Dead and Buried was $6 million, pricey for a horror film. When the project was shot as written, the screenwriters felt that the voodoo angle was too far-fetched for people to swallow, and that the film might falter since everyone was demanding the gore as seen in slasher flicks.

Because of that, several of the killings were reshot and made more explicit after principal photography was finished. William Munns, the make-up artist who did Swamp Thing, House and Return Of the Living Dead, did the acid-up-the-nose effect. This way, those involved felt the more over-the-top, yet convincing gore would make people accept the storyline, and its explicitness would match that of the successful slasher films. (Thanks to Stephen Ryan for this info!)

Among this film's many assets are a great score by Joe Renzetti, startling make-up effects by Stan Winston, and a wonderful cast. James Farentino is terrific as the naive sheriff, and Jack Albertson gives a virtuoso performance as Dobbs. It was to be the last film role for Albertson, who had found great success in the '70s on television's Chico and the Man.

Jason: This movie has one scene alone that freaks me out more than any other. The "gasoline photo shoot" sequence is truly bizarre and frightening, certainly successful in every regard. The whole film itself rides on that surreal vibe, the plot gliding in and out of creepy sequences and wholesome smalltown security. The result is a truly unique horror film.

Hunter: I've always liked this movie a lot. It's so understated, and then you're suddenly hit with horrific bursts of violence. The first attack on the photographer is particularly cruel. The beating and then setting him on fire, combined with the townspeople watching and taking photos, is uncomfortable to watch.

The locals are wonderfully and truly menacing and James Farentino is believable as the unsuspecting sheriff. And then there's Jack Albertson who's funny without being a ham. The great 40's period music which constantly blares from his radio takes on an ominous tone throughout the film. I certainly don't think this movie has ever gotten its due.