‘Bury Me When I’m Dead’ Starts Strong but Doesn’t Fulfill Its Potential: A Review
The first half of the movie is much more intriguing than the second half.
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What is Bury Me When I’m Dead About?
Bury Me When I’m Dead is a dark psychological thriller about one man’s perception of his guilt.
Henry is married to Catherine, and he’s having doubts about leaving their home and business and moving away together to California. The move doesn’t happen though, because Catherine discovers that she has a fatal brain tumor caused by cancer. She refuses treatment, giving her just days to live. She tells Henry that her dying wish is to be buried in a forest in New Hampshire, but Henry fails to fulfill her request due to intense pressure from her father. As Henry’s life falls apart after Catherine’s death, he begins to believe that Catherine is taking revenge on him from beyond the grave. But is that what’s really happening?
Bury Me When I’m Dead is the first feature film from writer and director Seabold Krebs. Devon Terrell (Barry, 2016) stars as Henry, and Charlotte Hope (The Piper, The Nun) plays his wife Catherine. Also featured are Makenzie Leigh (Salem’s Lot, 2024), Richard Bekins (You’re Not Alone), Roxanne Hart (Pulse, 1988), Mike Houston (Deliver Us From Evil), and Elisha Lawson.
Bury Me When I’m Dead About Review
One word of warning before I get into this review: don’t watch the trailer for Bury Me When I’m Dead! If you do, you’ll have something major spoiled for you.
Okay, with that out of the way, let’s talk about what Bury Me When I’m Dead isn’t. Despite being listed on many sites (e.g. IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon, etc.) listing the movie as horror, it is not. I would hesitate to even lean into the idea that Catherine might be in some way haunting Henry. That is something that Henry thinks after a while, but it’s not really something that is presented strongly to the viewer. If you sit down to watch the movie expecting a ghost story, you’re going to be disappointed.
Beyond the marketing, I’ve even read other reviews that refer to Bury Me When I’m Dead as a horror movie. I just don’t see it. The film is a dramatic psychological thriller with a pervading sense of unease stemming from Henry’s state of mind. From his subjective point of view, some viewers might attribute the hardships he faces after Catherine’s death as somehow originating from vengeful supernatural forces, but the movie never shows us anything explicitly supernatural. At least, nothing that can’t easily be explained by Henry’s deteriorating state of mind, his drinking, his intense guilt, and his dreams.
To me, the film never even tries to make us think there is something supernatural happening. Watching Henry interpret his misfortunes as supernatural payback, or karmic retribution, for his failure to fulfill Catherine’s wish is part of the film’s central tragedy. But I don’t want to get too much further into that, because too much analysis leads to heavy spoilers. But to be clear, however anyone chooses to interpret the movie, there just aren’t enough horror elements present in the story to qualify it as horror.
So, as a dramatic psychological thriller, Bury Me When I’m Dead is okay. The story gets moving rather quickly with a brief setup before going right into the discovery of Catherine’s tumor. But then everything takes its time to simmer. Maybe a little too much time. The hook of the story, of Henry’s decision to not honor his wife’s dying wish, happens halfway through the movie. The first overt psychological stuff doesn’t happen until about an hour in. I like slow burns, but the payoff for this smoldering story doesn’t have the impact it should.
The basic story is good, but it lacks intensity. As I mentioned above, the film has a sense of unease, but that never escalates into dread or beyond. More time inside of Henry’s head as he’s seeing the world from a warped perspective might have helped boost the emotional impact of the story. As it is, Bury Me When I’m Dead is disappointingly unemotional for a movie about death, grief, and guilt.
On the positive side, the movie looks wonderful. The cinematography is fittingly moody, and it’s darkly beautiful at times. I also think the first half of the movie is executed extremely well. The buildup of the strained relationship between Henry and Catherine is effective, and it sets up some very complex emotions. Henry makes a poor decision, but the pressures put on him from multiple people make his decision understandable even if it isn’t agreeable. The plot threads woven in the first forty-five minutes set up the potential for an intriguing character-driven finale. Unfortunately, the halfway point of the movie is also the most impactful it ever gets.
Rating and Recommendation
Star Rating: 3 out of 5
Despite not being what I expected from the marketing, I didn’t dislike Bury Me When I’m Dead. I will say that I didn’t particularly care for the final ten minutes or so, and that left a big shadow over a second half of the movie that I was already slowly becoming less invested in. I recommend this movie for people who enjoy blow-burn psychological thrillers with a bleak atmosphere, and who don’t mind the plot taking over at the expense of stronger character work.
Bury Me When I’m Dead is currently streaming as a digital rental and purchase on platforms including Amazon Prime Video.
Further Reading
- The Surfer is Deeper Than You Might Think: A Review
- Párvulos: Children of the Apocalypse Smartly Explores Brotherhood and Family in a Zombie Apocalypse: A Review
- Dangerous Animals Delivers Superb Genre Thrills: A Review
- Best Psychological Thrillers
- Horror Movies About Grief
- New/Upcoming Horror Movies
- Best and Worst Horror Movies of 2025
