Burial Ground (1981)

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This loser Italian zombie film has a high gross out factor, and little else.

In the opening scenes, a bearded Professor Ayres (Benito Barbieri, looking like Rasputin) discovers a "secret" that looses zombies on the countryside, getting himself killed in the process. We never find out how he awakened the dead... Cut to three couples arriving at an Italian villa. They are guests of the late professor, and let themselves in. None of the couples are differentiated from each other. George (Roberto Caporali) and Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano) bring along Evelyn's weird son Michael (Pietro Barzocchini as Peter Bark- an obvious little person badly posing as a young boy). James (Simone Mattioli) and Leslie (Antonella Antinori) are here, and Mark (Gianluigi Chirizzi) and Janet (Karin Well) stand out only because Mark looks like Michael Keaton and Janet has psychic feelings that something awful is going to happen, and this subplot is never elaborated on. Nicholas (Claudio Zucchet) and Kathleen (Anna Valente) are the house servants who always do everything they are told, even in the heat of the zombie attacks. Stuff occurs. There is really not much of a plot here.

I love Italian zombie films as much as the next guy, but this film is so monotonous that boredom soon sets in. The gore is effective, local butcher shops must have run low on innards, but director Bianchi must deal with a terrible script. Bianchi pads the film with endless closeups of the maggot covered zombies. The killings are telegraphed by the default of a victim being alone. Until the actual bloody act, this results in some very boring stalking scenes. Obviously some of the cast has seen a Romero film, only a couple of them know to aim any violence toward the heads of the zombies in order to kill them.

"Burial Ground" is a very gory and very violent film, helped by some pretty good special effects. It is also very boring and very badly acted, not helped by some pretty bad scripting. Also known with the subtitle "The Nights of Terror."

Stats:
(1981) 85 min. (* *) out of five stars
-Directed by Andrea Bianchi
-Screenplay by Piero Regnoli
-Cast: Roberto Caporali, Mariangela Giordano, Pietro Barzocchini, Simone Mattioli, Antonella Antinori, Gianluigi Chirizzi, Karin Well, Claudio Zucchet, Anna Valente, Benito Barbieri
(Unrated)