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Customer Reviews of I Bury the Living

Inheriting the post as chairman of the Immortal Hills cemetary, Robert Kraft (Boone) is intrigued by the detailed map which shows the location of all occupants of the cemetary. Two sets of pins are used; black for occupied graves and white for graves that are reserved for the inevitable.

Accidentally using black pins to mark the graves for a newly-married couple instead of white, he is shocked to discover that they died within hours of visiting the cemetary.

Feeling strangely responsible for the tragedy, he randomly changes another pin to test the notion. When the owner of the grave dies, Kraft is forced to test his theory again...and again...

Fairly standard cult film, with some marvellous, Hitchcock-like touches.

With Theodore Bikel, Peggy Maurer, Howard Smith, Herbert Anderson and Robert Osterloh.

I Bury the Living
Although you'll find it listed under "Horror/Thriller," about the only claim I BURY THE LIVING has to the genre is its provocative title and lurid tagline: 'A creature to freeze your blood! A story to chill your soul!'
The creature referred to must be Robert Kraft (Richard Boone), president of Kraft's Department Stores and newly selected committee chairman of Immortal Hills Cemetery. The cemetery's caretaker is Andy McKee, played in not very convincing aged makeup and with a Scottish brogue by veteran character actor Theodore Bikel. McKee introduces Kraft to The Map. The Map displays all the plots in the graveyard and their owners - a white pin in the map means that person is still alive, a black pin means they're dead. On his first day on the job Kraft mistakenly puts a pair of black pins where white ones ought to be and the owners of the plots die. When he replaces a third white pin with a black and THAT owner dies, all sorts of mayhem ensues.
Richard Boone is effective in what is nothing much more than a longish Twilight Zone episode. Rather than a slime creature carting off the living to their final rest I BURY THE LIVING sprays a mist of sweat on Boone's forehead and follows his descent into madness. Well, that may be overstating it a bit, but he does have to wrestle with an inner demon that seemingly gives him the power of life and death over people. At least he believes it's so, long after the audience has cast skeptical eyes at more likely suspects.
You'll have to stretch credibility to the breaking point to accept the premise of this movie and stretch it again some more to accept its resolution. I BURY THE LIVING doesn't deliver many shocks or thrills, but it does offer some fine performances, especially by Boone.

An Unacknowledged Classic
This film is terrifying. I expected some hoky fun when I rented it (judging from the cover), but then recalled that Stephen King had listed it (in "Danse Macabre") as one of the ten most frightening films he'd ever seen. All the same, I figured his memory must have gone foggy.

I was wrong. The plot, when laid out bare, sounds ridiculous. A rather ordinary, boring caretaker of a cemetery (accompanied by a hilarious 'Scottsman') happens to gain power over the fundamentals of life and death with a board that lays out the structure of the cemetery--where people are buried, have been buried, and will be buried. All this sounds absurd and very 1950's, yes, but it turns out well. You actually start believing it yourself and can feel the protagonist's anguish. The end is disappointing, but the buildup is more than worth it. Black pin, white pin, black pin, white pin.....