''Burial Ground'' (original title: ''Le Notti del terrore'', also known as ''Nights of Terror'', ''Zombi Horror'', ''The Zombie Dead'') is an Italian
grindhouse
A grindhouse or action house is an American term for a theatre that mainly shows low-budget horror, splatter and exploitation films for adults. According to historian David Church, this theater type was named after the "grind policy", a film ...
zombie movie
''Zombie Movie'' is a short zombie film produced by 2Chums Moving Pictures in 2005. 2Chums Moving Pictures consisted mainly of Michael J. Asquith & Ben Stenbeck, both former employees at Weta Workshop and current employees at Valve. The movie wa ...
directed by
Andrea Bianchi
Andrea Bianchi (31 March 1925 – 14 November 2013) was an Italian film Film director, director and writer.
Filmography
* ''Night Hair Child, Diabólica malicia'' (1972) (as Andrew White) (uncredited in English version)
* ''Treasure Island (1972 ...
. It is one of several films released under the alternative title of ''
Zombie 3''.
Plot
A scientist studying an ancient crypt near a grand mansion accidentally unleashes an evil curse. The curse reanimates the dead buried in the area, and the zombies devour the scientist. Three jet-set couples and the son of one of the women arrive at the mansion at the scientist's invitation. Rotting corpses quickly attack the guests as they begin rising from their graves. The group locks themselves in the mansion, and the zombies begin their siege past nightfall. The zombies then start to display unusually high levels of intelligence, using tools, axes to chop through doors, etc. One of the guests, George (Roberto Caporali), tries shooting at them but quickly runs out of bullets.
Zombies then break into the mansion and attack the guests in the library. One of the guests, the young Michael (Peter Bark), has become traumatized, and his mother, Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano), tries comforting him in another room. Michael, however, seems to be becoming sexually attracted to his mother and fondles her breasts while kissing her. Evelyn slaps him, and he runs off, screaming, "What's wrong?! I'm your son!" Michael then encounters the zombified Leslie, another guest, and stands still and stares at her while she shambles towards him, snarling and covered in blood. The group then decides to let the zombies inside the house, reasoning that they can distract them while they escape. Evelyn goes off to get Michael but finds Leslie has killed him, then has a nervous breakdown. The remaining survivors escape from the mansion and hide out until morning. They then find a monastery but discover that all the monks have become zombies. 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. The last two survivors, Mark (Gianluigi Chirizzi) and Janet (Karin Well), are assaulted and killed by zombies in the workshop; as the scene fades, the zombies put their hands on Janet's head while she screams in terror. 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.
Production
The film was shot in four weeks,
[Blumberg, Arnold (2013). ''Zombiemania''. .] at the
Villa Parisi
Villa Parisi - Borghese is a villa in Frascati, now in Monte Porzio Catone municipal territory, Italy.
Description and history
Villa Parisi was built between 1604 and 1605 by Mons. Fernando Taverna. In 1615 it was acquired by Cardinal Scipione ...
in
Frascati
Frascati () is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated with ...
, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Rome. Large portion of the film's budget was used on the special effects by Gino De Rossi and Rosario Prestopino.
The 25-year-old 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
__FORCETOC__
Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...
theatrically in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
by the Film Concept Group in 1985. The film grossed $542,501. It was subsequently released on
VHS by
Vestron Video
Vestron Video was the main subsidiary of Vestron, Inc., a home video company based in Stamford, Connecticut, that was active from 1981 to 1993, and is considered to have been a pioneer in the home video market.
The name is now used for a collecto ...
under the alternative title of ''Burial Ground''. In the UK the film was released on VHS, on the
Apex
The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to:
Arts and media Fictional entities
* Apex (comics), a teenaged super villainess in the Marvel Universe
* Ape-X, a super-intelligent ape in the Squadron Supreme universe
*Apex ...
label, in 1986 as ''Nights of Terror'' with over 13 minutes of
BBFC
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC, previously the British Board of Film Censors) is a non-governmental organisation founded by the British film industry in 1912 and responsible for the national classification and censorship of f ...
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
Media Blasters, sometimes abbreviated as MB, is an American entertainment corporation that was founded by John Sirabella in 1997 and is based in New York City. It is in the business of licensing, translating, and releasing to the North American ...
. It is available separately or in a triple feature package Zombie Pack, Vol. 2. The Zombie Pack, Vol. 2 includes ''Burial Ground: Nights of Terror'', ''
Flesheater
''Flesheater'' is 1988 horror film directed, written, produced, and co–edited by Bill Hinzman. An independent production, the film also stars Hinzman, best known for playing the cemetery ghoul in George A. Romero's ''Night of the Living Dead'' ...
,'' and ''
Zombie Holocaust
''Zombie Holocaust'' ( it, Zombi Holocaust) is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Marino Girolami. The film is about a team of scientists who follow a trail of corpses in New York to a remote Indonesian island where they meet a mad doctor (Dona ...
.'' In June 2011, Shriek Show released it on
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
.
Reception
Peter Dendle
Peter Dendle is a professor of English at Penn State Mont Alto, teaching classes on folklore, 20th and 21st century representations of the Middle Ages, Old and Middle English (language and literature), and the monstrous (in film, folklore, and s ...
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
''Zombi 2'' is a 1979 Italian zombie film directed by Lucio Fulci. It was adapted from an original screenplay by Dardano Sacchetti to serve as a sequel to George A. Romero's '' Dawn of the Dead'' (1978), which was released in Italy with the t ...
'', ''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
Fearnet was an American digital cable television network, website and video on demand service owned by Comcast. The network specialized in horror entertainment programming through a mix of acquired and original series, and feature films.
Backgr ...
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
A zombie film is a film genre. Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. They are commonly portrayed as cannibalistic in nature. While zombie films generally fall into the horror g ...
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.
References
External links
*
*
''Burial Ground''at
Variety Distribution
Variety Distribution is an Italian-based film distribution company.
It distributes Italian films worldwide, produced from the 1930s onward.
History
Variety Distribution (formerly Variety Film and Variety Communications) has been in the film ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burial Ground: The Nights Of Terror
1981 films
1981 horror films
1980s American films
1980s Italian films
1980s Italian-language films
Films directed by Andrea Bianchi
Films scored by Berto Pisano
Films set in country houses
Films shot in Italy
Incest in film
Italian exploitation films
Italian splatter films
Italian supernatural horror films
Italian zombie films
Living Dead films