A professor awakens a horde of zombies from crypts near a castle near Rome which poses a threat to a group of people having a party nearby. The battle between the living and the dead moves forward as the living struggle to survive the zombie attack.
Alright, here we have one of the biggest zombie movies to hit standard times for zombie movies in the 1980's. Titled "Le Notti del Terrore" or better known as "Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror" was shot in a small town less than 15 minutes from Rome and only lasted one fateful night. Of course it was shot in 4 weeks which is a very short period of time in a castle that had not been inhabited for almost a century.
This movie has alot of characteristics of Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2, better known to Americans as Zombie. Zombies coming up out of the ground and covered in maggots and worms I kept feeling like it might have been trying to be a spinoff of the Fulci hit but I was wrong, there's lots of other things about this movie that set it at a higher bar.
As the doctor goes down into the.... Crypts.... sort of speak, we see that he's confronted by a few clay faced zombies. The funny thing is what he says before he's attacked. "STOP! STAY BACK! I'M YOUR FRIEND!". What person, rather a doctor or anyone of a less degree, would talk to a zombie, knowing that they were set on kill mode, and say "I'M YOUR FRIEND!" that was a bit goofy but it was a warm welcome to the movie's beginning.
After that, honestly for like 15 or 20 minutes I thought I was watching a 70's porno, people making out and fondling on the grass in the yard all over the place as zombies come out of the tombs just kinda threw me off. The zombies just happened to pop out of bushes, from behind potted plants and what not, it was like the castle was a resort for the dead.
 
I find it creative that Rosario Prestopino had made so many masks for the zombies, every one different though equally underdeveloped in the face, some having protruding eyes or the actor's nose poking out the holes covered in black. Either way it was very creative. And the best part is when the living start killing the zombies, smashing their heads with rocks like clay pots, beautiful!
Now aside from that I'd like to point out 3 important things about this movie and the first being that the zombie's in this movie are very smart, in fact in one scene we see the zombies going to a gardening shed and arming themselves with axes, shovels and pickaxes, and in another when the living take refuge in a neighbor's castle the proprietor sends his maid off to check the back side of the castle for intruders. Well needless to say as she tries to shut the shudders on one of the windows a zombie tosses what appears to be a railroad spike at her and it pins her hand to one of the shudders. As she tries to break free two of the zombies lift a scythe up from below and slice her head off, catching her head and devouring it. And lastly one of the zombies actually climbs up a pillar to the second story of the castle, like a zombie monkey. WOW!
Second thing I'd like to note is that the soundtrack made me feel like I was in a mixture of a porno, a Charley Brown cartoon, and some sort of lower budget sci-fi flick. Was a great mix though!
Lastly I have to say that I felt the character Evelyn's relationship with her son Michael was quite strange but intriguing. Evelyn was played by the beautiful and boobiful Mariangela Giordano who has been in countless Italian movies and tv shows. Anyways her son Michael, played by this guy Peter Bark seems like a mother and her 10 year old son are really close. Well first of all Michael has a lust for his mother and in one scene he's caught fondling her. At first I'm like "What the hell?" but later after the movie being over, I find that Peter Bark is actually a 25 to 30 year old dwarf which explains why he seems older than he appears and even his voice, Italian AND dubbed in English are that of an older man. Even still Peter Bark as Michael shows us what happens when a zombie boys' love for his mother turns "titillating" in a scene that would make even men's chesticles tinge with fear.
In all I'd have to come to two conclusions. The first, never, under any circumstance ask "WHO ARE YOU?" to a zombie and secondly, zombies are flammable. This movie definately has a good feel to it, mixing Fulci's Zombi 2 with an ending reminiscent of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, this movie is a definate watch.
This movie is beyond badass, I recommend this to anyone, especially the mild horror fans, it'll make you cry like a girl, which will make me smile. Burial Ground is tops! Go get it!
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Le Notti del terrore, Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, Zombie Horror
MOVIE YEAR: 1980
DIRECTOR: Andrea Bianchi
WRITING CREDITS: Piero Regnoli
GENRE: Horror
CAST: Karin Well, Gianluigi Chirizzi, Simone Mattioli
COUNTRY: Italy
RUNTIME: 85 min
RATING: 9/10
Burial Ground Website/IMDB Click here
Burial Ground Trailer
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