Sunday, April 10, 2011


¡QUÉ HORROR! 2011
Candidate # 17

BURIED

(January 2010)



There isn’t much more you need to know about Rodrigo Cortés’ Buried other than that it’s a cracklingly intense bit of film-making that, unlike other recent examples of “experiential horror” (like Devil, or Frozen, or Altitude), never once leaves the environs of the protagonist’s circumscribed agony; we spend the entire running time of approximately 95 minutes trapped in a coffin alongside Ryan Reynolds.
And here, as in John August’s The Nines, we really do realize that Reynolds can honest-to-goodness act, as opposed to playing Ryan Reynolds on camera, which, sadly, he seems to do most of the time.

From its great Saul Bass-inspired opening title credits (by Spain’s Royal Cow Studios), on through to that final, telling shot, this is tense, claustrophobic cinema executed with dollops of skill, talent, and bravura.



Parting shot: As I’ve mentioned ‘round these parts before, Buried won last year’s Méliès d'Or Award for Best European Fantastic Film.
Do yourself a favour and see why…


(Buried OS courtesy of impawards.com; UK quad courtesy of empireonline.com.)

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