Burial Ground (film)

Burial Ground (original title: Le notti del terrore, also known as Nights of Terror, Zombi Horror, The Zombie Dead) is an Italian exploitation zombie movie directed by Andrea Bianchi. It is one of several films released under the alternative title of Zombie 3.

Plot

A professor (Benito Barbieri) is studying an ancient crypt near a grand mansion he owns and accidentally unleashes an evil curse. The curse reanimates the dead buried in the area and the zombies devour the professor. Three jet-set couples Mark (Gianluigi Chirizzi) and Janet (Karin Well), James (Simone Mattioli) and Leslie (Antonella Antinori), George (Roberto Caporali) and Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano), who also have their son Michael (Pietro Barzocchini) with them, arrive at the mansion as they were invited by the professor.

Rotting corpses suddenly rise from graves all over the property and attack the guests. George is killed in front of his wife and son when he tries to shoot the zombies. Janet is injured by a bear trap, but she, Mark, James, and Leslie are able to escape back to the mansion where they locked themselves up. While everyone is boarding up windows and doors around the mansion, a maid Kathryn (Anna Valente) goes to check one of the windows upstairs, but zombies pin her hand to the wall and decapitate her with a scythe. The zombies begin trying to find ways in the mansion as night falls. They start to display unusually high levels of intelligence, like using tools, axes, and giant logs to slowly break through the doors. And even climbing the pillars of the mansion to get up on the balconies. Leslie goes to find bandages for her friend's injured leg, but a zombie bursts through the window grabbing her by the hair, and she is impaled in the head by the shard of glass.

Zombies finally break into the mansion and attack the quests. Mark, James, and a butler Nicholas (Claudio Zucchet) defend Janet who was being attacked, while Michael has become traumatized and Evelyn tries comforting him in another room. Michael however, starts showing he is sexually attracted to his mother and fondles her breasts while kissing her. A shocked Evelyn slaps him and he runs off. Michael soon encounters the zombified Leslie who attacks him. Evelyn finds him dead with Leslie eating him, and she has a mental breakdown, and kills Leslie.

The group decide to let the zombies inside the house, reasoning that they can distract them while they escape. Nicholas is killed by the zombified professor, while the other remaining survivors escape from the mansion and hide out in an unused building on the property until morning. They find a nearby monastery, but discover that all the monks have become zombies. James is ambushed by zombies, killed, and soon turns into a zombie.

The zombie monks chase the rest of the survivors to a workshop in the middle of the forest, where they encounter the zombified Michael. Evelyn offers Michael to suckle at her breast, and he bites off her nipple, killing her. Mark and Janet are cornered by the zombies just as a zombified George and James show up, then the zombies turn on an electric saw, and kill Mark. Janet screams in terror as the zombies get closer to her and they put their hands on her. The misspelled "Profecy of the Black Spider" then 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 nigths (sic) of terror") as the film ends.

Cast

• Karin Well as Janet
• Gianluigi Chirizzi as Mark Template:Small
• Simone Mattioli as James
• Antonella Antinori as Leslie Template:Small
• Roberto Caporali as George
• Claudio Zucchet as Nicholas Template:Small
• Pietro Barzocchini as Michael Template:Small
• Anna Valente as Kathryn
• Benito Barbieri as Professor Ayers Template:Small
• Mariangela Giordano as Evelyn Template:Small

Production

The film was shot in four weeks, at the Villa Parisi in Frascati, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Rome. A large portion of the film's budget was used on the special effects by Gino De Rossi and Rosario Prestopino.

The 25-year-old Pietro Barzocchini, credited as Peter Bark, was cast as the young boy Michael to circumvent Italian laws restricting the use of children in film scenes featuring sexual and violent content.

Release

Burial Ground: Nights of Terror was given a belated limited release theatrically in the United States by the Film Concept Group in 1985. The film grossed $542,501. It was subsequently released on VHS by Vestron Video under the alternative title of Burial Ground. In the UK the film was released on VHS, on the Apex label, in 1986 as Nights of Terror with over 13 minutes of BBFC and distributor cuts. The film was finally released uncut in the UK in 2002 by low budget distributor VIPCO under the title The Zombie Dead, and given its first high definition release by 88 Films in 2016.

The film was released on DVD in the U.S in September 2006 by Shriek Show. It is available separately or in a triple feature package Zombie Pack, Vol. 2, which includes Burial Ground: Nights of Terror, Flesheater, and Zombie Holocaust. In June 2011, Shriek Show released it on Blu-ray. In 2024, the film was re-released on Blu-ray and for the first time in 4K UHD by Severin Films.

Reception

Peter Dendle called it "a high-impact, somber dirge that sustains tension mercilessly and wastes little time on plot and circumstance." Dendle states that though it is often dismissed as a cheap clone of Zombi 2, Burial Ground improves on that film's strong points. Marc Patterson of Brutal as Hell rated the film 2/5 stars and called it "uninteresting and dismissible." Sara Castillo of Fearnet stated that the film is "notable for its near total lack of plot and bloody zombie breast-feeding scene". Danny Shipka stated that the film was partially responsible for destroying the zombie film fad with its bad effects, acting, and writing. Peter Normanton rated the film 5/5 stars and called the pace "breathtaking". Normanton wrote that the film sacrifices plot for creative death scenes, but the low budget can cause the special effects to look "a tad farcical". Glenn Kay wrote that "there isn't one iota of suspense or terror" and that the film is dull and pedestrian.

External links

• Template:IMDb title
• Burial Ground at Variety Distribution