Horror Movie Review: Burial Ground (1981)

Burial Ground is an Italian zombie film directed by Andrea Bianchi, releasing in 1981. However, it didn’t make it to the US until 1985. Also, across the years it has been given alternate titles such as; Nights of Terror, Zombi Horror, The Zombie Dead and as part of a collection known as Zombie 3. A professor accidently unleashes an evil curse after tampering with an ancient crypt.

The curse reanimates the dead buried in the area and the zombies devour the professor. Three couples and the son of one of the women arrive at the mansion at the professor’s invitation. The guests are quickly attacked by rotting corpses as they begin rising from their graves.

As night falls, the group of people lock themselves in the mansion. At this point, the zombie siege begins. The first victim is the maid who’s decapitated with a scythe after being pinned to the window. That’s right, these zombies can use garden tools for unintended purposes. They show high levels of intelligence which makes them very dangerous.

Can the rest of the guests survive the bloodthirsty horde of undead? Check out Burial Ground to find out.

Burial Ground looks like a film that was made in the 70s. It just has that vibe, that hue. Not to mention an obnoxious jazz heavy soundtrack. The whole thing has something of a seedy feel. There are a bunch of sex scenes and even an incest storyline involving the weird son. This kid is meant to be like 12 but he’s played by a 25 year old due to laws at the time.

The story is as minimalistic as I stated above. It doesn’t waste time explaining why or how the zombies came to be. You learn nothing of the professor’s research. They’re here, get used to it. The characters in Burial Ground are some of the dumbest I have ever witnessed. It just takes the cake, I’ve never seen anything like it. The zombies move as slow as snails, literally snails. The people just stand there as the zombies slowly make their way towards them. It’s infuriating but kind of hilarious at the same time. There’s one woman who spends the entire movie screaming, it’s super annoying.

As you can tell, the acting is pretty hit and miss. Considering it’s dubbed, it could be much worse.

Additionally, a little too much of the runtime is spent watching the undead move around, it’s a bit boring.

Still, the zombies and gore are the real highlights that make Burial Ground very much worth watching. You can pretty easily see the actors beneath the zombie costumes but they still look great. They may be slow as shit but they’re smart and gather in numbers which makes them quite scary. There’s something ominous seeing them plod towards you with one intention in mind. When they catch someone they don’t waste any time before mercilessly tearing into them. I was very impressed by the gore and inventiveness on display throughout, it holds up incredibly well. Truly, bravo to the effects team.