I saw the ending of what I *think* was a movie on the Sci-fi Channel sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Someone was about to get the inheritance from someone they had murdered and for some reason gets into an empty coffin to watch a video-will sort of thing but the coffin is closed and moves on tracks to where the person is buried alive.
I remember this one too, and have been looking for it for years.
The man who ends up buried alive is trying to get his brother’s money. The brother sets a trap for him, a crystal coffin with a sign on it that tells the man to get in and lie down in it.
When he does, it seals shut. The coffin is motorized, and roboticized, and drives out of the house to the estate’s garden, where little digging wheels pop out and it digs it’s own grave.
All the while, a video is playing, made by the brother, on a monitor inside the coffin. The brother tells the victim that he knows the victim has been trying to kill him to get his money. I think the video may also feature the brother saying, “If you’re seeing this, it’s means I’m dead, and you killed me.”
The brother goes on to tell the victim, “that the thing about you, __________ (the victim’s name). is you’re impulsive and always do what you’re told. If there’s a glass of liquid with the words, “drink me” on it (Alice In Wonderland reference) you drink it.” I.E., the dead brother knew the scoundrelous brother would see the sign on the coffin and follow the directions to lie down in it. I think the victim thought the brother was going to tell him where to find the money and he had to follow clues to get it, and he thought one of the clues was in the coffin.
Anyway, this was not a movie. In the late 80’s and early ’90’s there was a myriad of 30 minute horror series on cable stations such as USA, TNT, and TBS; Freddy’a Nightmares, Friday the 13th, the New Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Tales From The Darkside, the New Twilight Zone, The Hitchhiker,etc. The Sci-Fi Channel picked some of these up in the mid to late ;90’s.
I think this episode was from either The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents, or The Hitchhiker.
If you can find online episode guides for those shows and have the patience to sift through them, you be able to find the episode from the description. It’s a keeper and if you do find it, please write back and let me know which one it is! It could even be on YouTube, if we can find the title. I will take a look tonight as well, as this is definitely one I have wanted to see again for a long time.
Oh, also, HBO’S Tales From The Crypt series aired later on on regular cable (minus any nudity.). I think there’s a very good chance that is was in fact, a Tales From The Crypt installment and I know for sure that somewhere online there is an episode guide for the series.
The Ray Bradbury Theater (1985–1992)
Season 2 | Episode 9 The Coffin
Good one Pori!