Burial Ground (1981) Starring Karin Well, Gianluigi Chirizzi, Simone Mattioli, Antonella Antinori & Roberto Caporali Written by Piero Regnoli Directed by Andrea Bianchi

I do this as a public service to you, the valued reader.

So how is this little dog and pony show going to work? Well it's quite simple: I slog my way through some zombie epic, give you a run down of the premise and then rank it on a number of criteria. We will be looking at a number categories: zombie efficiency, natural selection with zombies, and lastly gore. Bonus categories will come and go as I see fit.

So with that little bit of formality out of the way, we're going to move right along to our first film: For our premiere edition of Zombie Zeitgeist I bring to you the 1981 Italian zombie film LE NOTTI DEL TERRORE, or A NIGHT OF TERROR. It's also been called BURIAL GROUND, and some enterprising distribution companies out there have tried to rebrand the film as part of the ZOMBI series.

Like any Italian movie form the era you can't help but notice the fact that it borrows (read: stole) from other more popular films despite the lower budgets, but still manage to unintentionally create an environment that is not only ridiculous, unintentionally funny, and still at times creepy - and I'm not talking about the intentional horror.

BURIAL GROUND fits this mold down to a T.

The film starts off with Professor Ayres (Raimondo Barbeiri) who is studying an ancient tablet that he happened to find in a nearby Etruscan cave that reveals the secrets of reanimating the dead. Finding that this is a horrible thing, he what any self respecting scientist would do: go to the tomb where he found it and start taking apart tombs with a crowbar. Naturally, the sleeping dead don't take kindly to someone pounding the wall with a crow bar while they're trying to enjoy their eternal sleep, so they rise from the dead and proceed to corner the good processor and express their discontent with him by deciding to turn him into a post eternal slumber snack.

He never loses at staring contests.

They also bring along two couples Mark (Gianluigi Chirizzi) and his model wife Janet (Karin Well), as well as Leslie (Antonella Antinori) and her husband James (Simone Mattioli), who not only sports a weak Burt Reynolds moustache but also writes letters.

They arrive at the mansion and are greeted by the butler Nicholas (Claudio Zucchet) and maid Kathleen (Anna Valente) and settle in for the night. First thing everyone does? Have sex. Well except for Michael. So while James and Leslie dig up some lingerie they find laying around and get freaky, Geroge and Evelyn also get it on while they assume Michael has gone to bed for the night. Unfortunately for you dear audience Michael has not and pops in on them while they are in the middle of things, prompting his mother to bolt across the room stark naked and yell at Michael to go to bed. If this little bit isn't creepy enough for you, don't you worry my friend, it gets worse from here.

The next day, everyone decides to occupy themselves: George and Evelyn take Michael to take a look artifacts dug up by Professor Ayres; Mark and Janet go to take pictures on the property; and James goes out to take write a letter by a tree with Leslie in tow.

These characters all get distracted by their throbbing passions and soon there is no letter writing, or photo taking as two of our three couples decide to have more sex. George and Evelyn decide to stop looking at artifacts so that George can show her how to use his gun, until Michael steps in and creepily kisses his mothers hand before running off.

Of course, with all this fornication and creepy mother-love going on, the zombies in the nearby tomb are less than impressed so they decide to make their presence felt. The first person to get killed is George, who tries to hold off the zombies with his gun and gets eviscerated for his troubles. Mark and Janet try to make a break for it and Janet manages to step on a bear trap, it takes some help from Leslie and James to free themselves.

They manage to run back to the mansion, while Evelyn and Michael learn just how flammable zombies are. Getting into the mansion themselves they find that Nicholas and Kathleen had problems of their own, the light bulbs inside suddenly turned on and exploded and all the circuits in the house have been fried. Deciding to hole up, they board up the doors and windows best they can, however the zombies are not dissuaded by this and proceed to attempt to smash themselves in. Kathleen gets killed first when she goes to check that all the windows upstairs are closed and has her hand staked to the window shutter and then she is decapitated by a scythe.

Yeah, you might want to look into a therapist before watching this.

Michael ends up finding the remains of Leslie who comes back as a zombie and feasts on his hand (any surprise it's the one he used to try and cop a feel from his mother?) When Evelyn finds Leslie feasting on her son, she bashes her brains out on the side of the bathtub.

When the zombified Professor Ayres arrives and kills Nicholas, the crew lock themselves up and wait until dawn before making a break for it. They find a monastery and try to get help from the monks inside. Wouldn't you know it, this doesn't work out as they're zombies also and James becomes their Sunday brunch.

Fleeing to a nearby workshop, Mark, Janet and Evelyn find themselves trapped. When the zombified Michael approaches them, Evelyn finally snaps and goes to her son figuring he's okay. This proves to be a mistake, because Michael exposes one of her breasts and chomps her nipple clean off. Mark and Janet are then accosted by the zombies, as a group of them swarm Janet, Mark finds his head being forced toward a buzz saw.

The movie ends with a quote "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. - Prophecy of the Black Spider"

Well there you have it folks, let's take a moment to stack up how NIGHT OF TERROR stacked up:

Zombie Efficiency:

When it comes to zombie movies the first thing one has to consider is just how efficient where the zombies? That is a very important consideration to undertake. A good zombie has a skill set that is practical for the situation that it finds itself in. If you're zombie is good at running, but is terrible at cooking a souffle, then it might not be the right zombie for you.

Can you keep it down up there? I'm trying to eternal sleep!

Reason for Unliving:

The zombies in BURIAL GROUND are your typical pissed off ancient dead. Now unlike most movies that provide a little something called an explanation, ZOMBIE 3 decides to leave it all up to the viewers interpretation. I would like to think that the zombies were pissed off at Professor Ayres because he was poking around in their tomb banging shit around. Like anyone who is rudely awaken from their sleep these zombies are pissed off. Wouldn't you be? Ayres was pretty much doing the ancient crypt equivalent of thumping around in the apartment upstairs. After a few thousand years of being dead you get tired of that sort of shit.

The other unexplained thing is how these zombies make more of their own kind. That's left unexplained. Is it magic? A virus? Billy Crystal? Explain yourself movie!

It does take the generic zombie mythos by identifying that if a zombie bites you, you're going to become one of them. However, it's kind of a liberal application: When George is ripped apart, he doesn't come back as a zombie and one would assume that George was just messed up way to much to come back from the dead. However, James gets ripped apart just as bad if not worse than George and he comes back from the dead to stalk our surviving cast. My only theory is that weak Burt Reynolds moustache is the only key difference.

Ancient druids invented the emoticon.

Maintaining Your Decomposure:

The zombies in this film are ancient, and as you may surmise they are pretty decayed. They have maggots and worms dangling off their faces and oozing out of eye sockets. One thing I noticed, and it strikes me as kind of strange that in all zombie movies you can see plenty of maggots, but you never see a single fly. You'd figure that if there is a shambling decaying corpse hanging around the place there would be flies.

Some of these zombies must have been the product of inbreeding, considering that one of them has two noses, another two sets of lips, and countless number of them have teeth growing out of their lips.

Mind you, despite the fact that a lot of these zombies are going bald, they are enjoying an active lifestyle of: stalking, choking, and killing.

Fall fashions for the trendy zombie.

This seasons zombies can be seen decked out in the latest in 13th century robes. Yes, that's right folks, these robes aren't just for friers and monks anymore! Complete with fashionable hoods and tie up ropes, they are great for wearing around the tomb, while visiting potential victims in their home, or just kicking back outside in the open air!

Effectiveness:

The zombies in this film are of the slow walking variety, which makes a whole lot of sense when you consider how old they are. A lot of people will argue the points of zombies that run, and ones that don't. I personally would subscribe to the idea that a zombies mobility would depend on how fresh it is. I can believe someone who just got turned into a zombie would be better able to run and chase people since it hasn't really dried up all that much, hardly anything has atrophied or went into rigor mortis sets in.

Meanwhile, your long, er lived(?) zombie would probably be stiff moving and would not be able to chase after you very quickly.

At any rate, those of you who loathe running zombies, will be happy to know that these zombies are slow. However, they shuffle around as slow as my grandmother when she had to use a walker. How these undead creatures manage to get the drop on our characters so easily during the film can only be ascribed to either dumb luck, or the fact that our characters are terminally stupid (but more on that later).

Despite the fact that they are slow moving, the zombies in this film are pretty industrious bastards. They don't seem to care if the meat they are consuming is fresh or recently dead, they'll take it any way it comes. In fact, they seem to prefer catching and killing. Through the course of the movie they're choice method appears to be getting up close and choking out their victims in submission before gorging on their magnificent guts - which, as we all know, the human stomach is like Jiffy-Pop to zombies.

Heaven help us if they learn about the Home Depot!

Natural Selection With Zombies!

The best way to describe the characters in this movie can be summed up in one word: Stupid.

First of all, George owns the property which just also happens to be the site of an ancient crypt that has secrets to the undead? I understand that it's a great big mansion out in the country, but George didn't you notice the pit of the dead in your back yard? We're not just talking about the crypt either, they're buried under the ground and even in this guy's flower beds! I can just imagine what the real estate advertisement for this place looked like:

So the characters show up in three different vehicles and when they start getting attacked by zombies, what do they do? They flee back inside the house, and then the next day flee on foot! Now, while they show a scene where there are zombies standing in front of their cars, there is no indication that the zombies tampered with the vehicles. Why, when after they learn the zombies weaknesses do they not take this viable source of escape and get the hell out of there? Last I checked, zombies are not car proof, and considering they all have first hand experience that the zombies (even the newer ones) have really soft heads, running them down with your car shouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination.

When the characters hole themselves up, they send the maid up to make sure all the windows in the upper level have been closed. As I mentioned above, she gets killed when she tries to close one of the windows. James then goes up and spots her body. He does one smart thing: Dump her decapitated body down there - that'll keep them busy for a bit - but then he doesn't close and board up the window. You'd figure, that since they've now identified that the zombies are using tools to try and get past the boarded up doors, it wouldn't be very long until they found a ladder to use.

They manage to scrounge up a rifle and James starts taking head shots at the zombies. Now since he's such a crack shot would you think that he is shooting at the zombies trying to burst through the door? No, he's shooting the ones standing behind them waiting for their buddies to smash open the door.

Speaking of boarding themselves up inside, it's actually the most pathetic instance of holeing up in a place I have ever seen: They nail sticks to the doors. Remember in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD when they pretty much took everything apart to board up the doors and windows? Well picture that being done by a bunch of people worried about wrecking the antique furniture and that's the level of effort these characters in DIE RUCKKEHR DER ZOMBIES put into keeping themselves safe. It's so bad that they didn't even board up the windows, as illustrated when Leslie walks by one and a zombie smashes through a grab her. Let me point out the fact that this is after the point which the zombies begin ramming the doors with tools. Gee, if they'd pounding the door with make shift logs, why didn't they realize that eventually these creatures were going to realize that windows are made of glass.

The most laughable bit of stupidity is when the zombies actually get into the house, Mark turns to Nicholas the butler and says "Go to the armoury and get us some weapons! Anything!"

Yes, the house has an armoury apparently, and it took until the characters pathetic barricades get smashed through by the horde the undead that are trying to kill you do you decide hrm maybe it's a good idea to go poking around in there to see what sort of weapons we have to defend themselves.

Well our heroes manage to get away from the zombies (at the expense of Nicholas, Leslie, and that creepy Michael kid) they decide to crash for the night in the house even though the zombies had compromised it. That's really brilliant, I don't know who's dumber: The humans for sleeping in the poorly protected house, or the zombies for not capitalizing on the easy meals that are just waiting for them? Is there some sort of unwritten zombie rule of ethics about eating people who are sleeping?

So our characters realize that perhaps moving in the daytime is safe and they spot a monk wandering near a church. At no point do they make a connection that, gee, the zombies that attacked them last night were all wearing monks robes, completely escapes them and they decide to follow after the monk that conveniently doesn't hear them shouting at him.

So they explore a monastery, where James goes off alone to explore the property while Mark is left behind with his girlfriend Janet (with the injured foot) and Evelyn (who is in a complete state of shock due to her family being killed) When they suddenly hear James screaming as he is ripped apart by zombies what would the logical recourse be? If you said "Run the fuck away", congrats, you are smarter than the remaining cast of the film. Instead, Mark leads the two women who are effectively useless to the source of the screaming to see - well hot damn - James is being ripped apart by zombies! Well glad that mystery has been solved!

The Gore:

The gore in this movie is rare, but okay. A lot of it involves someone getting their guts ripped out. You ever notice that in these shots the zombies spend more time playing around with the guts in their hands and less time chowing down on entrails? Are zombies just notorious for playing with their food before eating it? There are three extended evisceration scenes where the zombies flop the bloody guts in their hands for a bit before eating, to the point where you just want to start shouting at them to stop.

Imitation is not always the best form of flattery.

The zombie gore is mostly showing them leaking green ichor when they are shot, and having what appears to be porridge inside their heads when they are smashed open. Nothing that is terribly exciting to say the least.

A special effect in this film that gets an honourable mention is, of course, the infamous nipple biting scene. It's your standard shot of showing a character ripping apart flesh off a human body, only this time it is of course coming off a woman's breast. The effect itself is unremarkable, what makes it creepy is two fold: Firstly, that the character Michael is Evelyn's just-hitting-puberty 13 year old son, and second the fact that Michael is played by a 26 year old dwarf.

Lost In Translation:

Is it just me, or is the fact that this movie lack any sort of exposition in terms of character development or explaining why the zombies are coming back from the dead just completely ridiculous?

I mean, not every zombie film needs an explanation as to how the zombies got there (like any Romero flick) but this movie briefly mentions tablets that hold the secret of reanimating the dead and that's as far as she goes. That's great, who the hell are all these dead monks that are attacking us? What's their motivation?

The characters are strictly one dimensional, I know more about their sex lives than I know about who they are.

Most Classic Line:

I can understand why Leslie was so into James, especially when he says this about her when she shows up in the random lingerie that she finds around the mansion:

"You look just like a little whore, but I like that in a girl."

Final Word on THE ZOMBIE DEAD:

First thing: Waaaaay too many alternate titles. Dumb characters who have sex more frequently than your average FRIDAY THE 13TH victim, incestuous advances, and zombies that can use tools, make NIGHTS OF TERROR one of those zombie movies that will keep you watching, laughing all the way. It also fortifies the law of Italian film making that zombie movies don't have to make sense as long as you've got the right amount of bare breasts, eye gouging, and Freudian nightmares.

Is it any surprise that this one was written by Piero "I hate nipples" Regnoli, the same guy who wrote the screenplay to Umberto Lenzi's NIGHTMARE CITY?