Review of Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror

When Burial Ground hit the screens Italy was in the midst of a horror boom that rampantly predicated itself on knocking off existing popular film trends only with an increased focus on the violence, the effects, and sexuality to win over dubious crowds. Some of those movies have gone on to garner a status on par with the movies they so liberally cribbed from (Lucio Fulci's zombie cycle, for example) but, more often than not, the bulk of them reveled in their infamy before being relegated to the depths of obscurity. Like any filth worth its name, however, something always clings on and leaves a stain. Burial Ground fits soundly in that category. 

Directed by Andrea Bianchi, a man more renown for his softcore features than horror, Burial Ground is not only blatant about being a knock-off but also a knock-off of a knock-off. That it owes a lot of its fabric to Fulci's zombie cycle is undeniable (it even ends with a double whammy that rips off The Beyond and teases a set piece from Gates of Hell). Alas, unlike Fulci, Bianchi and company are SOLELY content to revel in exploitative bunk. There is absolutely no effort put forth to inject any form of creative spark into this assembly line of Italian horror standards. Despite this, the film has found itself with a small cult following that persists to this very day. As it turns out, the movie benefits from being a wildly uneven cobbling of creative makeup/gore, weird sexual themes, bizarre music choices, clumsy shooting, and unintentionally hilarious/strange story elements. 

Make no mistake, this movie is a steamer of the highest (lowest?) order. No one will ever say this is a good movie (and rightfully so) but what they might say is that its a very fun movie. Assuming you might flirt with the occasional "so bad, it's good" type of film, that is. If so, then strap in for a movie that feels like a smorgasbord of crude exploitation shenanigans. 

The plot (what there is of it) centers around a group of friends visiting a villa where an anthropologist acquaintance of theirs is set to reveal some ancient Etruscan secrets he's stumbles across in a subterranean system on the property. Unbeknown to the group, those secrets have to do with eternal life...mainly, that of the hordes of rotting corpses that have been waiting for this very moment to rise again and, um, assert their dominance anew. Why they would have to wait for some interloper to bumble around their tombs to make use of their apparent long lives is never explained but, then again, not much is. You see, this movie simply sets up a reason for these zombies to wreak havoc. What follows is basically a drawn out body count movie only with zombies that hearken Jason Voorhees' penchant for tools and creative (and laughably idiotic) kills. 

Now, for anybody in the modern audience rolling their eyes at the idea of watching zombies in this age of zombie overkill: fear not! These are supernatural zombies (their life beyond death apparently the result of some ancient magick) and, moreover, they are actually quite visually unique. Makeup effects come courtesy of the legendary Giannetto De Rossi who made some of the most visually striking and memorable shambling dead. He, notably, did the stunning effects in Fulci's zombie cycle; so, no coincidence that they hired him for this. While a lot of the rough edges of a cheap production show here, the zombies still look pretty damn strange, if not downright inhuman. Of course, where zombies walk, so must humans fall prey to their insatiable bloodlust and De Rossi and his crew make sure that those endeavors please any gorehound. 

The music dabbles in moments of atmosphere but also confoundingly leans in on what I can only call "smooth jazz" at times. It is odd, to say the least but it's not as odd as the janky camerawork which feels like someone strapped a camera onto the least graceful person on earth and figured that would foment some sense of urgency or terror. It effectively doesn't. Oh, and have I mentioned the dubbing? Yes, there is an Italian language track but the TRUE Burial Ground experience demands the aurally overwhelming English dub to really highlight the piss poor (and, at times, batshit insane) dialogue. Trust me, it's a hoot. 

Should you ever stumble across a Burial Ground fan and mention any of these observations you'll probably be immediately redirected to the much more pressing topic of someone called Peter Bark. That, you see, is the number one reason to see this cinematic dung. Peter Bark was a very strange looking full-grown man that, in this movie, plays a child. Alright, not too bad but what if I told you that child has an alarmingly possessive relationship with his mother? And what if right after that I reminded you that this movie was directed by a softcore pornographer? And, of course, we must not forget that this is all in a ultra-violent zombie movie. Yeah, the less said the better and by that I mean, it's better to watch it for some real "wtf" moments. 

Obviously, this movie is not for everyone and, even among purveyors of the weird or extreme, it fits into a smaller niche. Is it it bad? Very. Is it oddly watchable? Very. Watch with a friend with a love for shitty movies for ultimate enjoyment. 

Realistically, this movie deserves like a 1 or 2 out of 10 and that is solely to laud the work of the effects crew. However, more must be awarded for providing for the denizens of bad movie lovers out there.