31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 10 - Burial Ground
Burial Ground
85 mins.
Dir. Andrea Bianchi
Italy/1981
Back for more gore? Last night's gore was a brutal, in more ways then one, experience. Tonight we travel to the land of spaghetti to see how sauce should really be made. A little more seasoning and simmering all afternoon on low heat, instead of coming right out of a jar. Tonight is a gorehound's wet dream, welcome to the Burial Ground.
I get so excited watching this movie I don't even know where to begin. There is no pesky story to get in the way, it immediately goes straight into insanity. Movie opens with a professor discovering something in a crypt, what? Who knows, but it doesn't seem to be good. And then the zombies come. Did what he discover cause something to re-animate the dead? Who knows. Were the dead protecting a secret? Who knows. Was there some kind of protection that the professor removed that was keeping the dead at bay this whole time? Who knows. All that matters is the zombies have escaped their crypt and like all zombies, they are hungry. Enter our victims.
Six couples and one "man child" (more about him later) arrive at a villa to have sex. In reality I guess they were all called here because the professor from the beginning of the film wanted to show them his discovery, but that is never clearly explained or what their relationship is with the professor. Far as I can tell they all just arrived to fornicate.
I guess at this point we are going to have to talk about Peter Bark. So the "child" in this film is supposed to be the son of one of the guests. Not sure how old this kid is supposed to be in the film, presumably maybe 13ish(?), but he is portrayed by a mid 20s man who is very short in stature and has a badly over dubbed voice that makes matters all the more worse. As soon as you see him, you are like WTF, but when he starts putting the moves on his mom and slides his hand up her skirt this movie is brought to a whole other level. And then there is the infamous scene at the end that I don't want to spoil if you have seen it, but it will either make you stand up and cheer, wince in pain or laugh out loud in disbelief. Or if you are like me, all three at once.
So back to our story or lack there of. Six couple plus one "child" arrive at a villa (and for those keeping score at home it is actually the same villa that was used in the movie we just watched a couple nights ago, Nightmare Castle). It is night time and everyone has sex (not like an orgy, couples only.) The next day they all go out and explore around the grounds and then the zombies come. This movie wastes no time in getting right into the action. The rest of the film is these six people, one "child" and two servants running from the zombies all night. Revel in the gore when the zombies eat people and tear open their guts, watch the zombies use tools to break into the villa, watch the zombies throw nails and use a battering ram to break down doors, see people so stupid the zombies actually seem to outwit them. At one point these people actually think it is a better idea to let the zombies inside the villa because they are slow and can easily maneuver past them, even though previous attempts have led to people getting eaten. Once the zombies are in the villa the remaining people run out to a local monastery, however all the monks have become zombies so they run out of there into a random sculpture studio or something. Zombies everywhere, one of the most amazing cinematic events in a zombie film ever happens, surviving people are fucked and then the movie just ends. It's like they either ran out of money, ran out of film or didn't know how to end it. Because suddenly the following quote appears on the screen, "The Earth shall tremble, graves shall open...they shall come among the living as messengers of death, and there shall be the nights of terror." Or so sayeth the Profecy of the Black Spider. Whatever the hell that is.
And there you have it, one of the greatest zombie movies ever made. 85 minutes of solid slow moving zombie mayhem. The zombies look great, Italian make up artist Roasrio Prestopino who also worked on Fulci's Zombie, Zombie Holocaust, Demons and a slew of other Italian genre classics helped out with these effects. So if you liked the zombie look in Fulci's Zombie or Zombie Holocaust these are along the same lines. Paper mache looking, potato sack wearing, slow moving, rotted zombies, my favorite kind. A fast paced film, every 5 minutes something is happening and throw Peter Bark's character into the mix and you have at the very least a memorable film. You come to my house and want to watch a zombie film, you will be watching Burial Ground over The Walking Dead, Zombieland or any other modern zombie flick. Viva Italia.
Burial Ground
85 mins.
Dir. Andrea Bianchi
Italy/1981
Back for more gore? Last night's gore was a brutal, in more ways then one, experience. Tonight we travel to the land of spaghetti to see how sauce should really be made. A little more seasoning and simmering all afternoon on low heat, instead of coming right out of a jar. Tonight is a gorehound's wet dream, welcome to the Burial Ground.
I get so excited watching this movie I don't even know where to begin. There is no pesky story to get in the way, it immediately goes straight into insanity. Movie opens with a professor discovering something in a crypt, what? Who knows, but it doesn't seem to be good. And then the zombies come. Did what he discover cause something to re-animate the dead? Who knows. Were the dead protecting a secret? Who knows. Was there some kind of protection that the professor removed that was keeping the dead at bay this whole time? Who knows. All that matters is the zombies have escaped their crypt and like all zombies, they are hungry. Enter our victims.
Six couples and one "man child" (more about him later) arrive at a villa to have sex. In reality I guess they were all called here because the professor from the beginning of the film wanted to show them his discovery, but that is never clearly explained or what their relationship is with the professor. Far as I can tell they all just arrived to fornicate.
I guess at this point we are going to have to talk about Peter Bark. So the "child" in this film is supposed to be the son of one of the guests. Not sure how old this kid is supposed to be in the film, presumably maybe 13ish(?), but he is portrayed by a mid 20s man who is very short in stature and has a badly over dubbed voice that makes matters all the more worse. As soon as you see him, you are like WTF, but when he starts putting the moves on his mom and slides his hand up her skirt this movie is brought to a whole other level. And then there is the infamous scene at the end that I don't want to spoil if you have seen it, but it will either make you stand up and cheer, wince in pain or laugh out loud in disbelief. Or if you are like me, all three at once.
So back to our story or lack there of. Six couple plus one "child" arrive at a villa (and for those keeping score at home it is actually the same villa that was used in the movie we just watched a couple nights ago, Nightmare Castle). It is night time and everyone has sex (not like an orgy, couples only.) The next day they all go out and explore around the grounds and then the zombies come. This movie wastes no time in getting right into the action. The rest of the film is these six people, one "child" and two servants running from the zombies all night. Revel in the gore when the zombies eat people and tear open their guts, watch the zombies use tools to break into the villa, watch the zombies throw nails and use a battering ram to break down doors, see people so stupid the zombies actually seem to outwit them. At one point these people actually think it is a better idea to let the zombies inside the villa because they are slow and can easily maneuver past them, even though previous attempts have led to people getting eaten. Once the zombies are in the villa the remaining people run out to a local monastery, however all the monks have become zombies so they run out of there into a random sculpture studio or something. Zombies everywhere, one of the most amazing cinematic events in a zombie film ever happens, surviving people are fucked and then the movie just ends. It's like they either ran out of money, ran out of film or didn't know how to end it. Because suddenly the following quote appears on the screen, "The Earth shall tremble, graves shall open...they shall come among the living as messengers of death, and there shall be the nights of terror." Or so sayeth the Profecy of the Black Spider. Whatever the hell that is.
And there you have it, one of the greatest zombie movies ever made. 85 minutes of solid slow moving zombie mayhem. The zombies look great, Italian make up artist Roasrio Prestopino who also worked on Fulci's Zombie, Zombie Holocaust, Demons and a slew of other Italian genre classics helped out with these effects. So if you liked the zombie look in Fulci's Zombie or Zombie Holocaust these are along the same lines. Paper mache looking, potato sack wearing, slow moving, rotted zombies, my favorite kind. A fast paced film, every 5 minutes something is happening and throw Peter Bark's character into the mix and you have at the very least a memorable film. You come to my house and want to watch a zombie film, you will be watching Burial Ground over The Walking Dead, Zombieland or any other modern zombie flick. Viva Italia.
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