Reviewed by Alicia Glass 

After failing to carry out his dying wifes last wish, her widower Henry starts experiencing strange phenomena that makes him think she’s back for revenge. 

This is a hard one to watch y’all, not the least of which because of everything that happens to poor Henry before, during, and even after his wife Catherine’s tragic demise. A great deal of racism directed at Henry as a black man is strongly implied, but never actually come right out and said directly, which is actually more infuriating. Most of the film has the unfortunate Henry wandering through his circumstances as though in a numb fever dream, and only some of it can be attributed to all the alcohol he starts chugging, almost in a medicating self-defense move. See if you agree that Henry deserves everything thrown at him, as we dig into Bury Me When I’m Dead. 

So Henry Samsa (Devon Terrell) and his wife Catherine (Charlotte Hope) are planning on selling their somewhat lucrative flower shop and buying a van and trooping off to California like some kind of hippies on a joy ride. The other flower shop employee Rebecca Gregor (Makenzie Leigh) is dubious about these plans, especially when it gets revealed fairly quickly that, not only are she and Henry having an affair, Beca is now pregnant. Henry seems quite reluctant to uproot their whole lives here, but because its what Catherine claims to want, at least gives lip service to the idea that yes, they are going ahead with a move to California. In theory. 

But none of that matters now because Catherine just had a terrible sudden seizure, and has been informed that she has an aggressive brain tumor and that even if she were to get chemotherapy and other forms of unpleasant treatment, she’d have maybe a year or two left at most. Then it’s off to visit Catherine’s dreadful parents, the hostile lawyer Gary Higdon (Richard Bekins) and his wife Patricia (Roxanne Hart), to tell them their only child is dying, refusing all forms of treatment, and wishes to be buried after being seeded in a clearing in the woods in her old hometown. Gary rants and raves and Patricia sits like she’s been stunned-dead herself, but Catherine is completely unmoved, almost serene in her decision of what she wants done with her flesh envelope after her spirits left it. 

The problem with that plan is that, Henry will still be here after Catherine is gone, and Henry is still sadly subject to things like manipulation over bills and property ownership. And Gary, being the very-controlling father that he is, informs Henry that he can promise Catherine whatever he wants, but that after she passes on he will bring her body back for a funeral and a proper burial in a graveyard, not some hippy-dippy tree-seeding nonsense, or Gary will take everything left that Henry has – the house, the bank account, any and all assets he can get his hands on, even the car, everything. 

At this point we can actually pause and sympathize with Henry, even just a little. A secretive affair and child aside, this man loved his wife in spite of her manipulative, rather racist parents, and here he is being subject to their abuse again, even before Catherine is gone. But logic and real-world consequences mean next to nothing to a vengeful ghost, so, onward we go. 

Henry dutifully drives Catherine out to her old stomping grounds, where they run into an old friend of the family, Buck Campbell (Mike Houston) at the gas station. Buck seems to be missing a few mental cookies but is a kind enough soul, and was somehow involved with a relative of Catherine’s and that’s how he knows of the rest of her rather sordid family. Catherine’s old hometown is out in the middle of nowhere and Buck seems to have a place out in the woods on the fringes of her families’ property, where he wanders around unsupervised with a shotgun, hunting animals and occasionally taking amusement in scaring the snot out of visiting religious panderers and the random teenager trespassing on his land. This becomes painfully relevant later on. 

So Catherine is where she wants to be, and after a jaunt to the woods where she informs Henry of the exact manner in which she wants to be seeded, and she does mean that quite literally, and then buried, Catherine quickly takes a turn for the worse. After what seems like a sorrowfully short while Henry, stoic and uncomplaining but becoming more and more heartbroken, has to help his wife out of the bed to the toilet when she can no longer feel her legs, and its all just rushing downhill after that. After Henry reluctantly spent an evening in Bucks company when his car ran out of gas and learning some interesting things about Catherine’s family, Henry returns to find his wife has left this mortal coil at some point in the night. 

The movie seems to imply that Catherine decided to go out on her own terms with pharmaceutical help rather than continue to just break down like a rag doll, but whatever the case, Henry is left just staring out at the world, shattered. He eventually ends up going back to Beca, who informs him with some surprise that Patricia, Catherine’s mother, had invited Beca to Catherine’s funeral – you know, the one she wasn’t supposed to have, because Henry was supposed to have buried her out there in the woods, like she asked. 

If Henry thought his wife dying was the worst thing that could happen, oh honey, that was only the opening gambit on things taking a turn for the far worse. Now, when Henry tries to console himself by getting physical with Beca, he suffers terrible bloody visions in an almost Suspiria-like fashion while trying to do the deed. Now, while attending Catherine’s funeral like a dutiful widower, Henry is informed by a vengeful Gary that Gary has no recollection of any deal over the dispensation of Catherine’s body being struck, and indeed, Gary is going ahead with his sadistic moves to take everything from Henry that he possibly can. Now, when Henry goes for help to his other lawyerly friend John Winter (Elisha Lawson), his friend ends up getting assaulted while out for dinner and being taken off Henry’s case entirely. Soon after that, Henry is informed by Steve Abbott (Teo Rapp-Olsson), another lawyer in Winters’ firm, that no-one else has the nerve or desire to take on Henry’s case and go up against his terrible former fatherinlaw. And perhaps the final icing on the retribution cake, Beca rushes to Henry one morning soon thereafter with blood running down her legs. 

Throughout the film, everyone who knows him tells Henry pretty often that he’s a terrible liar. And while most of the time Henry stays resignedly quiet on the outside, that doesn’t mean he isn’t absolutely shrieking on the inside. Henry’s final act of contrition turns out to be his final act ever, in an absolutely ironic end to a man tried to keep it all in, who tried to keep going no matter who or what was acting against him, but pathetically had no recourse against the curse from beyond the grave of a wife who did, indeed, deserve better from those around her. 

Don’t forget your shovel, to dig into Bury Me When I’m Dead, available on Digital and VOD now!