The wealthy cataleptic painter Guy Carrell (Ray Milland) believes that he overheard his father, who also had catalepsy, crying in the crypt of his family when he was a kid and is obsessed by the fear of being buried alive. He leaves his fiancée Emily Gault (Hazel Court) and lives alone with his sister Kate Carrell (Heather Angel) in the family manor. However Emily seeks him out and convinces Guy to marry her, despite the disapproval of Kate, promising that she would never bury him without the certainty of his death by her friend, Dr. Miles Archer (Richard Ney),and her father Dr. Gideon Gault (Alan Napier).

After the wedding, Guy does not travel in honeymoon to Venice, as he had promised to Emily, and builds a crypt with safety devices to avoid that he is trapped alive inside. However Emily and Miles convince him to demolish the building. Guy has nightmares and visions with the gravediggers and weird events happen in the mansion. He decides to prove that is cured of his fear and opens his father grave, but someone has moved his skeleton and Guy is diagnosed of heart attack. However he is catatonic indeed and is buried alive as he has always feared. Will be the end of Guy? Who might have caused the shock on Guy?

"Premature Burial" is a creepy tale of paranoid obsession and madness, with good scenarios and locations and good acting. Ray Milland is a great actor but does seem to be miscast for the role of Guy Carrell that should be of an insane man instead of so dramatic. The conclusion is disappointing with the overprotective Kate disclosing the mystery after killing her insane brother. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not Available on VHS / DVD / Blu-Ray

Like all of Roger Corman's movies based on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe, this one only has a superficial similarity to the Poe tale. In many cases, Corman took only the title from Poe and the story was completely new!

In this movie, Ray Milland plays a bit of a flake. When the movie begins, the grave of his father is opened--to reveal that the man had not been dead but in some sort of catatonic stupor and had been buried alive. Naturally this would mess with Milland's mind (he shows many, many signs of post-traumatic stress disorder),but frankly he seems quite a few fries short of a Happy Meal, so to speak. To put it bluntly, he's rather obsessed with his own death--so obsessed that his new bride thinks he's crazy--and, based on his actions, this isn't too far-fetched! He spends so much of his time worrying about death and his own potential premature burial that he even designs the coolest burial vault in history. Watching him proudly show off its many, many innovations to allow for easy escape is pretty cool, but as for me, give me the old burning Viking long ship! As far as the plot goes, you eventually see that all is NOT as it seems. There are lots of interesting twists and in the end, there is a wild and crazy finale. I could say more, but don't want to spoil the suspense. However, I would say that the ending, though perhaps filled with too much exposition, was quite entertaining.

Overall, a very good low-budget horror thriller. It has the usual excellent Corman direction and Milland is very good taking on a role that usually would have gone to Vincent Price. The only negative, and it's tiny, is the part played by Milland's on-screen wife--she does overact a bit here and there--but not so much the film is seriously impacted.

By the way, this is one of two Milland/Corman films that have been packaged together on one DVD--the other being "X, the Man With X-ray Eyes". Both are very enjoyable and seem like a pretty good deal if you're in the market for horror/sci-fi stories.

This is a fun story if one doesn't think too much. Ray Milland stands in for Corman's usual suffering protagonist, Vincent Price. Milland lives with catalepsy, which makes a person appear dead, even if he is not. He lives in abject fear of being buried alive. He then builds a state of the art crypt with numerous fail-safe devices that can be employed if he finds himself in his suspended state. It seems if he could just get someone to leave him on a shelf if they think he is dead, it would work out better. Hazel Court plays his suffering wife. He is a true nut who believes his father had been buried alive, even though his sister tells him that is not so. The thing is that there are so many things that happen, as we reach a conclusion, that require some big time suspension of disbelief. Still, it's quite entertaining watching Milland being dragged down by his fears.