Buried Alive: Difference between revisions

Sometimes, he'll tie the hero up before dumping him/her in the coffin. If the villain's a sporting sort of fellow, he'll provide a flashlight or an air canister. Regardless, the villain is going to kill the hero in one of the most appalling ways imaginable.

 

 

Of course, as with most forms of killing the hero that [[Complexity Addiction|favor cruelty over efficiency]], the hero frequently manages to dig their way out of this, or a sidekick will pop out of the bushes and dig him up the moment the villain is satisfied and leaves.

** A [[Filler]] episode has a villain who isn't satisfied just doing this -- he first holds a funeral where all the attendants have to just stand there while the guy in the casket is screaming his lungs out and pleading for his life. Raiga would recall the "good memories" they shared and "forgive" them for betraying his trust... right before proceeding with the burial.

** There's also Gaara, who can do this with his sand to restrain particularly tough enemies, though he generally prefers the less subtle technique of ''making them implode''.

*** ...eventually. Word of God is also that before he dies his body will begin to rot. [[And I Must Scream]] indeed.

*** Making this one of the few rare cases of a hero using this tactic. [[Justified Trope|Justified]], since [[I Did What I Had to Do|he pretty much needs to]].

=== Comics -- Books ===

* One issue of ''Tales from the Crypt'' has a tale of a man who was hanged and declared dead. The twist was that his neck was broken but his spinal cord was not severed -- so he was still very much alive. He went on to be a complete b*stard to the town that had punished him, because it was impossible to prosecute a legally dead man for any crime. However, some of his enemies decided to use that loophole to their advantage as well, because there is nothing in the world wrong with burying a dead man, either....

* ''[[Batman]]''

** This happens in ''Batman R.I.P.'' Interestingly, they plan not to kill Batman, but merely wait for him to be permanently brain-damaged, believing killing Batman's mind is more important than killing his body. {{spoiler|He escapes. And he's P*SSED....}}

 

=== Films -- Animation ===

* The title character of Tim Burton's ''[[Vincent]]'', in the throes of one of his Vincent Price/Roger Corman/Poe fantasies, believes he's buried his wife alive, and digs up his mother's flower bed trying to "retrieve" her.

 

* Imhotep was wrapped up and buried alive in ''[[The Mummy (film)|The Mummy]]'' for attempting to raise the dead Anck-es-en-Amon. [[The Mummy Trilogy|The remake]] ups the ante by burying him alive with flesh eating scarabs.

* This accidentally happens to the doctor's wife in ''[[Tremors]]'' when one of the [[Sand Worm|Graboids]] drags the car she is hiding in underground.

* {{spoiler|Godzilla gets buried during an avalanche in the arctic}} at the end of ''[[Godzilla Raids Again]]''.

 

* [[Jack Vance]]'s ''[[Dying Earth (novel)|Dying Earth]]'' novels mention the Spell of Forlorn Encystment, which keeps its victims alive indefinitely inside solid rock some sixty kilometers underground. A few victims are (accidentally) released and found to be in near-catatonic states.

* Pre-subverted in the third ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'' book. Mulch Diggums, a dwarf whose entire race can dig through the dirt using only their jaws and hands and breathe while doing so (and we've known he can do this for three books), convinces two [[Dumb Muscle|dumb henchmen]] to do this to him. Needless to say, he has a good laugh about it afterwards. Hell, he has a good laugh ''during'' the burial, which he passes off as "shaking in fear". Right, Mulch.

* The protagonist of the [[Stephen King]] story ''Dolan's Cadillac'' (found in ''Nightmares and Dreamscapes'') does this to the title character as revenge for the murder of the protagonist's wife.

* In [[Tanya Huff]]'s ''[[Blood Books|Blood]]'' series, vampire Henry Fitzroy started his unlife by being buried alive for three days before his sire could dig him up. Several hundred years later, this is still a Very Unpleasant Memory.

* An episode of the ''[[Tales from the Crypt]]'' TV series, which was adapted from a comic, has a magician do this as his final trick. A doctor had transplanted into him the organ that gives cats nine lives, so he could die and just come back. After using this to make a small fortune at a sideshow, his final stunt (before he ran out of lives) was to be buried alive in front of hundreds of witnesses. {{spoiler|Only once he's in the ground does he start reminiscing about what an interesting life he's had, before he realizes he didn't count the death of the cat among his lives. He's on his ninth, not his eight....}}

* Happens to Nick in ''[[CSI]]''. He is rescued, though not until he's suffered quite a lot.

* This topic is darkly explored in the TV adaptation of ''The Casebook of [[Sherlock Holmes]]: The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax'' in which Holmes and Watson foil a con artist's attempts to bury a drugged woman alive. Unfortunately the woman is so mentally scarred by the experience that she's become a veritable vegetable.

* ''[[Smallville]]'': [[Psycho Lesbian]] Tina Greer does this to Lana.

* ''[[Big Wolf on Campus]]'' - When Merton discovers that Corey Haim is a real vampire, Corey knocks him out and buries him. Merton phones Tommy, whose werewolf senses are sharp enough to pick up where he is.

* In an episode of ''[[Good vs. Evil]]'', Chandler is buried alive by Morlocks, and spends most of the episode talking to Henry on his cell, going over the details of the previous night, hoping to figure out where he is. He's being used as a hostage, so that the Corps will release a Morlock prisoner: [[Webster|Emmanuel Lewis]].

** In the final episode, {{spoiler|Sloane, who has become somewhat immortal due to a Rambaldi thingy, has this happen to him. He's trapped in a cave with his legs pinned after Jack (a good guy) blows himself up}}.

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', the Season 1 episode "Nightmares".

*** He had her claw her way out of her grave in the Season 6 premiere. Bastard.

* ''[[Angel]]''

** In the episode "Revelations," the killer {{spoiler|forced Reid to start digging his own grave so he could bury him alive.}} The BAU saves the day, though.

* ''[[Torchwood]]''

* A couple of implied instances in ''[[Highlander the Series]]''

** Nefertiri took poison and was mummified after the death of Cleopatra. As far as the audience knows, she stayed unconscious for all 2000 years until set free by Duncan MacLeod.

** Another Immortal was wrapped in chains and tossed into a river during World War II. It took him 50 some years to free himself and come back for revenge.

* Recently done in ''[[Eastenders]]''. There were widespread complaints due to this going out pre-[[Watershed]], which were upheld by [[Ofcom]].

** ''[[Passions]]'': Sheridan Crane's death was faked (to escape criminals who were pursuing her) and she was buried to continue the ruse. Unfortunately, plans to rescue her immediately were hindered when the criminals in question kidnapped her would-be saviors, leaving her in considerable peril (Sheridan's claustrophobia didn't help matters much). Although she was ultimately rescued at the end of the "day", the scenes played out for over a ''month''.

** A rather gruesome example on ''[[All My Children]]'', which had the evil Dr.Madden buried alive while the voice of his unseen abductor tormented him, refusing to release him until he revealed the location of a missing child. This went on for several days before the man finally drowned when a rainstorm flooded the vent that had been providing him with oxygen.

* One episode of ''Boomtown'' featured the body of a dead gangbanger wrapped in plastic and hidden within the walls of a house. Investigation of former friends eventually reveals that he was knocked out dead during a hazing ritual and his freaked-out friends wrapped the body in plastic and hid him inside the walls. Only near the end of the episode is the awful truth revealed: The gangbanger was ''alive'' when they hid him inside the walls and the last shot of the episode shows a flashback from the gangbanger's POV, [[And I Must Scream|waking up inside the walls, wrapped in plastic and unable to have his screams heard because of the loud rap music]]

* There was an especially vindictive instance of this in ''[[Oz]]'', where the preacher for the Christians was beaten, tied up, sealed behind a brick wall in the cafeteria and then there was an industrial sized freezer placed in front of it, and the whole deal was orchestrated by his former second in command. After being freed after an explosion (though as a charred, barely alive husk) he was shown to have stood up, as if rising from his grave, still covered in 3rd degree burns, after seemingly appearing to other inmates and making them try to kill the one responsible, and then he disappeared. Guess where they found him a few episodes later? Sealed behind another wall, only this time dead for real.

* A subversion bearing the trope name: the traditional song "Buried Alive" as performed by musicians like the Dropkick Murphys is not about someone doing this to someone else deliberately, but the occupational hazard inherent in being a coalminer.

* "Dynamite Mine" by Murder By Death (the band), also about the occupational hazards of being a coal miner who pissed someone off in the past.

* The Creepshow have a song called "Buried Alive", which is about just that.

* The final disc of Thrice's ''The Alchemy Index'' has "Child of Dust", a funeral-like dirge which ends with the last two lines muffled and the sound gradually receding into unsettling silence. The group actually buried their microphones while recording the song, presumably to give the listener the sensation of being buried. [[Nightmare Fuel|Sweet dreams!]]

* ''[[Baldur's Gate]] 2''

** There's an optional subplot about finding some evil criminals who are robbing guys and burying them alive.

** And the various demiliches, mages and superpowered imps who show up in the expansion or as [[Bonus Boss|Bonus Bosses]] and who have "Imprisonment" as an ''at-will ability''. Whack 'em quick, or you've got a 1 in 6 chance of an instant game over per round.

* Happens to Stan in ''[[Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge|Monkey Island 2 Le Chucks Revenge]]'', where Guybrush has to get Stan to jump into one of his own coffins and nail the lid shut so he can steal a key from his office. Stan subsequently stays shut in the coffin until [[The Curse of Monkey Island|the sequel]], where Guybrush can finally open Stan's casket after the two are shut in the same crypt together.

 

=== Real Life ===

** Mary Roach's ''Stiff'' includes a section on live burial, the bizarre methods doctors once used to try to distinguish death from mere unconsciousness (e.g. an automatic tongue-pulling device!), and so on. She notes that the "coffin bells" never once saved a person who'd been prematurely buried, although some were disinterred when the corpse's decomposition caused its weight to shift and sound a false alarm.

** These days, accidental live burial would only be possible if the person's body was neither autopsied nor embalmed. In most jurisdictions, one if not both procedures are required by law for the majority of human burials.

* A gang of kidnappers in the American Southwest actually did this to an ''entire school bus full of children''. Thankfully, everyone escaped.

* On his deathbed, George Washington requested that his body be kept unburied for two days to make sure he was actually dead.

** He also spent over an hour in a sealed, underwater coffin to demonstrate that it could be done, to disprove another performer who claimed to use mystical powers to accomplish the feat. There was another buried alive escape planned, but it's not clear if it was ever performed prior to his death. Although rather ghoulishly the coffin that was to be used in the escape was put to use transporting his remains.

* 33 Chilean miners buried alive for 69 days in 2010. Their rescue was watched by the world in awe at the things humans can achieve when properly motivated.

 

=== Live-Action TV ===

* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', "Better than Life" -- with ants. And jam smeared on their faces....

* This happens in an episode of ''[[CSI]]''.