History Main / BuriedAlive

* A portion of the ''[[Franchise/TheHauntedMansion Phantom Manor]]'' ride at [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland Paris]] has the Doombuggies going underground, where the dead are rising from their graves.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' fanfiction ''Fanfic/{{Buried}}'', a two-bit hood kidnaps Kim and buries her alive in order to get a job working for Drakken. [[EvenEvilHasStandards Drakken is so disgusted by this action that he has Kim's abductor killed.]] This story starts dark and stays there as it deals with Kim dealing with the trauma of being buried alive in increasingly self-destructive ways. The sequel story ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2226958/1/The-Chrysanthemum-and-the-Sword The Chrysanthemum and the Sword]]'' deals with her recovery.

* In ''Film/WalledIn'', this is combined with the DrowningPit method as a form of HumanSacrifice in which residents of an apartment building are imprisoned inside hollow columns holding the building up that are then filled with cement. The opening scene depicts a little girl ending up as one such victim.

** "Cyclone": A sadistic extortionist and his band of thugs hijack a school bus full of children -- the bus just happened to be driven by C.D., and Alex was the chaperone -- after a trip to the museum. The bus is driven to a landfill, parked in a ditch, and then buried with everyone inside in tons of dirt and fill. Walker and Trivette race against time and [[BigStormEpisode a threatening storm system]] to rescue the kids, Alex and C.D. before the bus crumples under the weight of the fill and/or the air runs out or they get swallowed by the storm.

** "Cyclone": A sadistic extortionist and his band of thugs hijack a school bus full of children -- the bus just happened to be driven by C.D., and Alex was the chaperone -- after a trip to the museum. The bus is driven to a landfill, parked in a ditch, and then buried with everyone inside in tons of dirt and fill. Walker and Trivette race against time and a threatening storm system to rescue the kids before the bus crumples under the weight of the fill and/or the air runs out.

* In the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' mission "Deconstruction," you have to stop a nearby construction company from screwing with your newfound gains. Smashing up their portables would have been plenty, but C.J. goes the extra mile by also trapping the foreman in a porta-potty, pushing it into a hole, and filling it up with concrete, all while listening to him scream "OH GOD, NO!" Stone. Cold. And the reason C.J. did this? [[DisproportionateRetribution The guys who were working for the man called Kendl, C.J.'s sister, a hooker, and C.J. wanted to teach them some respect.]]

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': Rimmer is buried alive by the hidden psychopath in "Cured".

* ''Series/TalesFromTheCrypt'': "Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone" 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 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....]]

** In the finale episode of series two, [[spoiler:Jack's brother Gray has Jack buried alive sans coffin; bear in mind [[AndIMustScream Jack can't die]]. Or rather, he does die, but returns to life a few minutes later. So Jack spends ''2000 years'' choking to death on soil ''over and over again!'']].
** It sorta happens again in the ''Children of Earth'' story. [[spoiler:Under orders to neutralize Jack, and after proving he can survive being blown to smithereens, an arm of the government encases him in extremely quick-drying cement, where he presumably suffocates over and over again. Luckily, his team manages to rescue him before the day is out.]]

* ''Series/{{Wentworth}}'':
** The fate given to [[spoiler: Joan]]. A rare example dished out by a heroic character, though given this series' use of GreyAndGrayMorality, precisely how heroic they are generally depends on the episode.

** "Apocrypha". A [[BodySurf bodysurfing]] alien uses Alex Krychek to get back to its spacecraft, which has been left in an abandoned missile silo. The episode ends with Krychek locked inside the silo, eighty stories down, hammering on the door and screaming to be let out.
** Also happens in the end of the episode "Fresh Bones" to an evil Marine sergeant in charge of a Haitian refugee camp, who [[spoiler:turns out to be using the Haitian's native Voodoo to incapacitate/kill whistleblowers who were going to expose his ordered abuse of the refugees.]]
** And technically, even Mulder himself was buried alive during the episode "Deadalive".

* UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington used his last words to tell his niece not to bury him for at least two days after his death, in order to ensure he was actually dead.

* In ''Theatre/AidaVerdi'', this is the fate of the eponymous character and her lover Radames. Radames is condemned to die in this way as a punishment for treason and Aida, who had purportedly escaped, comes back and [[TogetherInDeath sneaks into the tomb to join him]]. In [[Theatre/AidaJohnRice the musical]], both Radames and Aida are captured and given this sentence, with Amneris exercising what power she has to give them the small mercy of being allowed to face their fate together rather than each facing it alone.

* In the 1995 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampoong_Department_Store_collapse Sampoong Department Store disaster]] in South Korea, large portions of the building collapsed into the store's multiple basement levels, trapping anyone who had been in those levels and who wasn't killed in the initial collapse under massive amounts of rubble. Despite the degree of devastation, 27 people were found alive in the rubble; a group of 24, who had the good fortune to be in a room that miraculously didn't cave in despite the weight of the building coming down on top of it, was rescued after two days, and three more survivors were found after more than a week, with the final survivor being pulled from the wreckage an astonishing ''17'' days after the collapse (the other two were trapped for 9 and 12 days). One of the survivors indicated that he had been aware of other people nearby who had survived the collapse, but that they had succumbed to the heat/their injuries/drowing before rescuers could reach them.

* When the USS ''West Virginia'' was finally raised six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, three sailors were found dead, trapped in a watertight storeroom. They had crossed off sixteen days after December 7 on a calendar hanging on the wall. Worse, others ''knew'' that there trapped men still alive in the wreckage -- honor guards posted nearby and salvage workers could hear rhythmic metal banging from the trapped men, who were desperately trying to signal for help. [[NightmareFuel Even more worse]], due to the limits of technology of the time and the USS ''West Virginia's'' position on the seabed, the men could not be rescued without killing them in the process. Everyone on the surface had to listen to the sounds get steadily weaker, until they finally silenced completely.

* One episode of ''Series/CrossingJordan'' involved a serial killer who buries his victims alive -- with a ''walkie-talkie so he can hear their dying pleas''. Shudder.

* In the British sci-fi drama ''Series/{{Misfits}}'', we have a rare case of this trope being played (mostly) for ''laughs''. [[spoiler:And it happens to the main character, no less. Nathan, after suffering a [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice brutal death]] some days before, turns out to have the power of Resurrection. He's thrilled to find himself alive and starts gloating ridiculously about his newfound power, actually uttering the phrase: "Who's laughing now?!" When it sinks in that he's been ''buried alive'' (yes, he's a bit of a dumbass), he gets furious and starts hurling hilariously futile abuse at no one in particular. Then he just lies back and begins [[CosyCatastrophe casually listening to his [=iPod=].]] [[CliffHanger And this happened in the season 1 finale]]. In the second season opener, a telepath visiting his grave overhears him [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbating]] and arranges for him to be exhumed.]]

** And the various demiliches, mages and superpowered imps who show up in the expansion or as {{Bonus Boss}}es 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.

* In ''Manga/AkameGaKill'', General Esdeath, after conquering the Northern Tribes, has 400,000 Northerners buried alive.
* In ''Manga/FutureDiary'' (''Diary of the Future''), this trope is combined with DrowningPit when Yuki's friends, in their effort to [[spoiler:rescue Yuki from Yuno's lair, where she has him chained up]], find themselves in a DeathTrap room that's slowly filling with liquid concrete.

* In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDoom'' Bane does this to Batman after ambushing him and rendering him unconscious. As an added bonus, [[spoiler:Bruce is buried in his father's coffin. And his father's skeletal corpse is ''still inside'']].

* ''Film/DiamondsAreForever''. Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint dump an unconscious Film/JamesBond in an oil pipeline under construction out in the desert. Bond gets out by short-circuiting a welding robot sent down the pipeline, so a repair crew will turn up and rescue him.

* Budd does this to the Bride in ''Film/KillBill: Volume 2''. She escapes, though not without difficulty. What makes it really creepy, however, is that ''the entire Buried Alive scene'' is shown from the Bride's POV. Which means that several minutes of the movie consist of heavy breathing, the sound of sand falling onto the coffin, and total darkness. Interestingly, Budd gives her a flashlight when he does so as a sign of respect (and maybe knowing that it could help her escape?)

* Exploited in the third ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' book. Mulch Diggums, a dwarf whose entire race can dig through the dirt using only their jaws and hands and breathe while doing so, convinces two [[DumbMuscle 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.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* Happens to Yoshiki in one of ''VisualNovel/CorpseParty'''s Wrong Ends.
* ''VisualNovel/TheFruitOfGrisaia'':[[spoiler: At the end of her route Michiru gets buried alive by Yuuji, in order to make her realise the value of being alive. Though Yuuji ensures air to flow through the coffin and doesn't bury that deep to make sure she can escape easily, if she really wants to, she still spends three days down there.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

--->'''Jeff:''' I can't breathe!\\

* Website/SCPFoundation: [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6502 SCP-6502 ("Harwick Cemetery")]] is a cemetery where anyone buried alive is unable to die; their consciousness remains intact as long as they stay buried, even as their body rots away completely. The Foundation discovered it in 1994 (at which point there were six such non-dead people buried in the cemetery courtesy of a local unlicensed coroner, the earliest dating back to ''1951''), and now uses it to preserve certain important personnel (and occasionally prisoners from rival Groups of Interest) for consultation/interrogation - although relying on information from people buried in Harwick might not be the best idea, since being [[AndIMustScream trapped in a dead body six feet underground for months to years and counting]] doesn't do great things to the subject's mental state or sanity.[[note]]and that's even assuming that the prisoners from the rival [=GoIs=] don't start actively feeding the Foundation misinformation as revenge for having left them in this deathless hell[[/note]] To mitigate this, researchers are encouraged to pretend that the Foundation is trying its level best to recover personnel from Harwick and that the subjects' interment is merely a temporary measure, but this doesn't work so well if the subject in question is a high-level Foundation specialist who already knows what Harwick really is and does:

** ''Boxborne Wraith'' involves a gangster being buried alive for upsetting the Don. He's accidebtally set free by a famine-struck tribe of [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghouls,]] who were hoping for a corpse they could eat (live, or at least fresh meat is poisonous to them, and they're pacifists.) He strikes a deal with them: If they help him get revenge, he'll bring them the bodies.
** ''The Other Side of the Grave''is about a botched suicide who is buried alive, and falls into the bowels of a NightmarishFactory run by higher-dimensional beings trying to save humanity from [[AndIMustScream being trapped in their own dead, rotting bodies after they die.]]

* In ''Fanfic/{{Glass}}'''s sequel/AU, ''Shattered'', [[spoiler:once Pegasus has finally had enough of Seto he has him buried alive. Since Seto is already weak from months of inactivity and everyone else on the island is under Pegasus's thumb, there's no escape]].

* In ''Tarzan and the Valley of Gold'', the villain meets his end when he's trapped in a room that is rapidly filling with gold dust. What makes it especially blood-curdling is that [[TechnicalPacifist the chief of the village]], who trapped him in there, is ''standing outside the door listening for him to stop screaming''.