I Bury the Living (1958)

Directed by Albert Band
Written by Louis Garfinkle

Unrated

"I Bury the Living" was a pleasant surprise. In spite of the cheesy title and sensationalized movie poster, "I Bury the Living" actually turned out to be a surprisingly modern thinking-man's (or woman's) horror film.

Richard Boone stars as Robert Kraft, a department store owner whose business interests place him next in line to be the chairperson for the Immortal Hills Cemetery.  Though he doesn't want the position, Bob quickly finds himself being shown around the Cemetery manager's shack by the thick-brogued Scotsman groundskeeper Andy McKee (Theodore Bikel).

Bikel and Boone as Andy McKee and Robert Kraft (left to right)

Andy shows Bob around the groundkeeper's hut. The two key fixtures here are a heater that doesn't work and a creepy wall-mounted map of the cemetery grounds. Andy explains that the plots with white pins stuck in them on the map indicate people who have reserved grave plots but are still living, while the black pins denote graves whose owners have died and been buried. As they are talking, a couple of young newlyweds come to buy a pair of adjoining plots. The groom explains that his inheritance will only pay out after he's bought a plot each for himself and his wife at Immortal Hills Cemetery, which I personally thought was an oddly morbid stipulation. Robert sells them the plots and puts some pins in the map to reserve their plots for them, but he accidentally marks them with black pins instead of white.

When Robert receives word a few days later that the young couple has died in a car crash, he begins to suspect that the map has some kind of supernatural powers. Half-disbelieving, he sticks a black pin at random into one of the plots on the map, removing the white pin that had been there before. When the owner of this plot turns up dead too, Robert becomes convinced that there is some kind of dark sympathetic magic at play.

Robert tries to tell his story to the cops, who receive it with cynicism and disbelief. The police are convinced that Kraft is just superstitious and that the deaths are coincidental. They cannot claim wrongful death without any evidence of such. Robert tries to tell his coworkers on the board at his department store about the map, but they tell him he's just paranoid. In order to put his mind at rest, Kraft's coworkers arrange a "test" of the map's powers. They choose a random person who has a plot at Immortal Hills, and get Kraft to replace the white pin with a black one. The board members promise that if anything happens to the owner of the plot, Kraft can resign as chairperson at the cemetery with no questions asked.

Of course something DOES happen to the man in question, but Kraft is beginning to realize that the map can't be killing people on it's own. Some of the Kraft Department Store board members have been chairpersons for the cemetery before Robert, and they reported using the wrong pin color on the map many times with no mishap. Robert begins to suspect that it is not just the map that is killing people, but that something dark within himself is turning the map into a deadly weapon.

Kraft's fellow board members tell him that he can resign if he wants to, but now Robert is too obsessed with the map and his dark powers to back out. He insists that he stay at the cemetery, so that no one else will use the murderous map. Though they are uneasy about the most recent death, the other board members propose a final test. Robert will place black pins in the plots of his fellow board members, including his uncle George, to prove once and for all that the curse isn't real. Robert protests, knowing that the black pins could mean death for his coworkers, but they insist. When all three men die, one by one, Robert is left the sole surviving member of the board.

At this point, enough people have died that even the police are willing to entertain Kraft's outlandish theory. They bring their own test to Robert: Put a black pin in the map on the plot of someone who is young, healthy, and currently in France. Robert tells the police plainly that to do so would mean the man's death. They accept responsibility for any consequences of their test, and force Robert to pin the plot. They reason that the other deaths all occurred in an isolated area, and that a death so far away would establish the range of the map's "powers". After doing the deed, Kraft calls Paris to talk to the man, only to be told by his wife that he's passed away.

At this point, Kraft's mental disorientation begins to be reflected in the editing. Stylish transitions and surprisingly modern editing techniques herald in Kraft's mental breakdown. The map seems to grow and distort, nearly filling Kraft's office. As he stares at the map, Robert realizes that if he has the power to take lives with the black pins, he should also be able to reverse the process with the white ones. Robert replaces all of the black pins of the people who'd died with white ones, and then lights a fire in the middle of the room and locks himself inside. But the fire burns out without catching the building ablaze, and Kraft suffers some smoke-inhalation, but is otherwise unharmed. Rushing out to the graves he'd marked, Robert is horrified and amazed to discover the graves empty.

 

Richard Boone at first struck me as a rather boring choice for the lead, but as the film progressed, he performed some powerful scenes that gradually earned him my respect. Theodore Bikel lays on the thickest Scottish accent I've ever heard, but gives an overall good performance as the disgruntled groundskeeper. I was very impressed with the way this film took full advantage of it's catchy premise. Everyone who learns of the map's power feels the need to test it for themselves, each "test" resulting inevitably in a death. The idea of a supernatural killing tool falling into the hands of a normal guy reminds me a lot of the manga/anime series "Deathnote", in which a smart high-schooler finds a notebook which allows him to kill anyone just by writing their name in it. Like "Deathnote", "I Bury the Living" takes a simple premise and then systematically explores all the different possibilities that this premise allows for. While the deaths in "I Bury the Living" are eventually found to be non-supernatural in origin, the dark psychology behind Kraft's assumption of guilt, and his hallucinatory descent into madness are what I found fascinating about this film.

I give "I Bury the Living" a 9/10. It is a surprisingly well-done b-movie that is in many ways ahead of it's time. Many of the transitions and editing techniques are so modern and stylized I'm surprised this film wasn't considered for any visual editing awards. The film features fine acting all around (with an extra pat on the back to Robert Boone) and the music is appropriately moody. For an evening of thrilling fun, watch "I Bury the Living" with a friend or two and a six-pack of good beer.













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