I’m not going to sit here and tell you that The Nights of Terror (released in most English-speaking countries under the more appropriate name Burial Ground) is a great movie. Far from it, in fact. It’s a terrible movie, painfully derivative of Fulci’s Zombi 2, but without the quality of acting that distinguishes that one. Still, though, it was one of the first (if not the very first) Italian horror films I ever saw, and because of that, it still holds a special place in my heart almost thirty years later. I watched it again last night for the first time in I don’t know how long, and I still find it appealing. Not nearly as much so as I did in the early eighties, naturally, because now I know more about the films that it siphoned so much of its content from (Zombi 2 is only the beginning on that score), but there’s a lot of downright twisted stuff going on here that still makes it fascinating, and while Bianchi comes from the Fulci “let’s apply make-up with a trowel” school, he did improve a lot on the zombie make-up anyway.
The film opens with Professor Ayres (Raimondo Barbieri in his first film role), an archeologist studying (we are later told) the ancient Etruscans, making a discovery of some sort in his notes, then scurrying off to his dig site in order to try and find something. (We are never apprised of what either of those somethings is.) While digging, he’s attacked by a group of zombies and killed. Meanwhile, back at the mansion, a group has arrived for a vacation. They are welcomed by the new servants, Nicholas (Fatal Fix’s Claudio Zucchet) and Kathleen (Anna Valente in her only screen appearance), and settle in to wait for the professor and indulge in some gratuitous sex. They then head outside to frolic in the sun (and for more gratuitous sex, of course), except that the frolicking is cut short by zombie attacks. Everyone who survives eventually finds his or her way back into the mansion, where they have to find a way to fend off the zombies. This would be a lot easier, naturally, if they weren’t all complete idiots.
Yes, it’s beyond bad, but it’s so far beyond bad that you just can’t stop watching. There’s a kid (actually a twenty-five-year-old actor, reportedly) who bears a striking resemblance to Dario Argento and has a serious Oedipal complex, a re-creation (with a lower budget) of Zombi 2’s infamous eye scene, zombie monks with papier-mache masks, plot threads that simply disappear, lack of communication among all the characters (wouldn’t it be valuable to know that zombies burn?), and a lot of unexplained zombie appearances in places they shouldn’t be. There was no thought given to continuity here, no ideas about coming up with a believable, or even serious, script, no attempt at making a decent movie. Bianchi, whose other classics include Strip Nude for Your Killer and Massacre, tossed this one off for a quick buck while everyone in Italy was making zombie movies, and it looks like it. But it’s so awful that it’s unintentionally funny for much of its length, and when screenwriter Piero Regnoli (who would later team up with Fulci for Voices from the Beyond) gets his weird on in the third act of this tragicomedy, he goes way, way over the top. It’s an adorable little movie as long as you’re in the proper mood for it. Unless you saw it as a kid and have the nostalgia bug, the only proper mood, however, is “drunk”. * ½
I remember watching this last year when we got out of high school because of a freak snow storm. (Good times!) Some parts are kind of boring. There are some good gore scenes. The story is about some people staying at a mansion, then zombies turn up to eat them. There is a love story about a kid who wants to make sweet passionate love with his mom. So if you are fans of gore, zombies, and incest, then you might like BURIAL GROUND: NIGHT OF TERROR!!!
An archaeologist w/ the world’s biggest beard accidentally unleashes a hellish horde of zombies in potato-sack nightshirts. The undead mob heads toward a rural mansion where a group of six (3 guys and 3 gals) travelers have gathered to meet w/ the hairy archaeologist. Unbeknownst to them, their host has already fallen prey to the flesh-eating throng. While they’re waiting, the group pairs off in order to partake of some carnal funny business. Oh no! The hungry zombies have arrived to crash the party, and they really know how to put a damper on things! From here, the movie turns from soft-core shag-a-thon into a zombie shred-fest! Our heroes are picked off and gobbled up in nasty ways. Intestines and other assorted organs shoot and squirt around, causing no small cramp in the style of our amorous adventurers. BURIAL GROUND is a messy, ugly movie w/ mega-nudity (at the beginning) and oceans of bloody gore! I liked the story and overall atmosphere of inescapable doom. No happy-sappy ending here! Watch for 25yo Peter Bark as the 10yo “kid” who is a little too close to his mum. He’s creepier than the zombies! Highly recommended…
Before I start the review, I wanna say anyone who plans on buying this movie I highy state you buy the Zombie Pack, Vol. 2 You get Burial Ground and 2 other movies for the price of one. Actually it’s cheaper to buy the set than any of the movies on their own.
Burial Ground is one of those movies that are so bad, but so damn fun; can a movie this bad really be so entertaining? Well one thing I can say for sure is yes. Burial Ground has so much going against it that all that makes this movie a cult classic and easily gives it the so bad it’s good status. To be honest this just might be the ultimate so bad its good flick or at the very least top 5.
You name it Burial Ground has it;
Incoherent plot? Yes.
Characters that do the dumbest things? Yes
Characters who say stupid things? Yes.
Very bizarre and weird situations? Yes
Nudity? Yes
Gore? Yes
The clear star of this movie is Peter Bark; forget De Niro and Brando, Peter Bark is the greatest actor ever! First up Peter Bark is a little person who looks like a mini-Dario Argento and was clearly in his late 20s at least, but he’s playing a pre-teen child! People often talk about actors being robbed for Oscars. How Peter Bark has never won one is beyond me. He deserves a lifetime achievement award for sure.
Burial Ground is also one of the strangest movies I have seen. Michael played by the brilliant Peter Bark really loves his mother if you catch my drift. There’s even a scene where he feels his mother up and even begins to slide his hand up a certain region. That scene is bound to not only creep the viewer out, but also makes for such a funny moment you might have a heart attack from laughter.
The screenplay by Piero Regnoli is brilliantly bad; it’s amazing how somebody can write such a terrible screenplay that due to that it becomes a freaking classic of a screenplay. There is no sense of character development or any logic. It’s just a bunch of stupid people getting killed by silly looking zombies.
The first 20-minutes not a whole lot really happens in the way of action, but what it lacks in action it makes up for in a nude scene 10-min by a very gorgeous woman. Don’t worry besides that we get some really funny moments. Here are some highlights.
As one character is about to be intimate with a woman he says, “You look just like a little whore, but I like that in a girl.”
Maybe one day I’ll give that line a try. Hey it worked wonders for he guy in the movie, but wait there’s more.
One guy is taking photos of a woman and he says, “You’re getting a raise out of me alright, but it has nothing to do with money.”
Come on how classic is that line? Pure brilliance!
One of my favorite lines comes from Peter Bark, he sees a cloth and smells it than runs over to his mother and says, “Mother, this cloth smells of death.”
When it comes to horror I pride myself on knowing the genre and my best knowledge though is American and Italian horror. Andrea Bianchi was the director, but I don’t know a lot of his work. The only other film I have seen by him is the Giallo Strip Nude For Your Killer; based off that film he seemed to have some directing skills, but that movie was one of the more sleazy Giallos with more focus on nudity and sex rather than suspense and tension. But there were some suspenseful moments, but Burial Ground clearly shows this guy as somebody with such little talent that it makes him an excellent filmmaker, if that makes any sense.
The one thing I’ll give Burial Ground credit for is there really are no slow moments; the first 20-minutes have some nudity, some really silly dialogue that it very much holds your interest, than once about the 20-min mark hits the next hour as plenty of action to keep you from being bored. One of the biggest highlights of the movie is the famous nipple scene, which has to be seen to be believed!
I highly recommend this movie to fans of trashy European cinema; no doubt this movie falls under the so bad its good category. This is some of the most fun you can have with a movie and it’s got the greatest actor of all time Peter Bark! All hail the power of Peter Bark!
I don’t know maybe it’s me, but Karin Well who plays Janet looks exactly like Paris Hilton.
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The Nights of Terror (Andrea Bianchi, 1981)
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that The Nights of Terror (released in most English-speaking countries under the more appropriate name Burial Ground) is a great movie. Far from it, in fact. It’s a terrible movie, painfully derivative of Fulci’s Zombi 2, but without the quality of acting that distinguishes that one. Still, though, it was one of the first (if not the very first) Italian horror films I ever saw, and because of that, it still holds a special place in my heart almost thirty years later. I watched it again last night for the first time in I don’t know how long, and I still find it appealing. Not nearly as much so as I did in the early eighties, naturally, because now I know more about the films that it siphoned so much of its content from (Zombi 2 is only the beginning on that score), but there’s a lot of downright twisted stuff going on here that still makes it fascinating, and while Bianchi comes from the Fulci “let’s apply make-up with a trowel” school, he did improve a lot on the zombie make-up anyway.
The film opens with Professor Ayres (Raimondo Barbieri in his first film role), an archeologist studying (we are later told) the ancient Etruscans, making a discovery of some sort in his notes, then scurrying off to his dig site in order to try and find something. (We are never apprised of what either of those somethings is.) While digging, he’s attacked by a group of zombies and killed. Meanwhile, back at the mansion, a group has arrived for a vacation. They are welcomed by the new servants, Nicholas (Fatal Fix’s Claudio Zucchet) and Kathleen (Anna Valente in her only screen appearance), and settle in to wait for the professor and indulge in some gratuitous sex. They then head outside to frolic in the sun (and for more gratuitous sex, of course), except that the frolicking is cut short by zombie attacks. Everyone who survives eventually finds his or her way back into the mansion, where they have to find a way to fend off the zombies. This would be a lot easier, naturally, if they weren’t all complete idiots.
Yes, it’s beyond bad, but it’s so far beyond bad that you just can’t stop watching. There’s a kid (actually a twenty-five-year-old actor, reportedly) who bears a striking resemblance to Dario Argento and has a serious Oedipal complex, a re-creation (with a lower budget) of Zombi 2’s infamous eye scene, zombie monks with papier-mache masks, plot threads that simply disappear, lack of communication among all the characters (wouldn’t it be valuable to know that zombies burn?), and a lot of unexplained zombie appearances in places they shouldn’t be. There was no thought given to continuity here, no ideas about coming up with a believable, or even serious, script, no attempt at making a decent movie. Bianchi, whose other classics include Strip Nude for Your Killer and Massacre, tossed this one off for a quick buck while everyone in Italy was making zombie movies, and it looks like it. But it’s so awful that it’s unintentionally funny for much of its length, and when screenwriter Piero Regnoli (who would later team up with Fulci for Voices from the Beyond) gets his weird on in the third act of this tragicomedy, he goes way, way over the top. It’s an adorable little movie as long as you’re in the proper mood for it. Unless you saw it as a kid and have the nostalgia bug, the only proper mood, however, is “drunk”. * ½
I remember watching this last year when we got out of high school because of a freak snow storm. (Good times!) Some parts are kind of boring. There are some good gore scenes. The story is about some people staying at a mansion, then zombies turn up to eat them. There is a love story about a kid who wants to make sweet passionate love with his mom. So if you are fans of gore, zombies, and incest, then you might like BURIAL GROUND: NIGHT OF TERROR!!!
This was another movie that i was pleasently surprised at. There was alot of blood and guts. Not realistic acting, though.
An archaeologist w/ the world’s biggest beard accidentally unleashes a hellish horde of zombies in potato-sack nightshirts. The undead mob heads toward a rural mansion where a group of six (3 guys and 3 gals) travelers have gathered to meet w/ the hairy archaeologist. Unbeknownst to them, their host has already fallen prey to the flesh-eating throng. While they’re waiting, the group pairs off in order to partake of some carnal funny business. Oh no! The hungry zombies have arrived to crash the party, and they really know how to put a damper on things! From here, the movie turns from soft-core shag-a-thon into a zombie shred-fest! Our heroes are picked off and gobbled up in nasty ways. Intestines and other assorted organs shoot and squirt around, causing no small cramp in the style of our amorous adventurers. BURIAL GROUND is a messy, ugly movie w/ mega-nudity (at the beginning) and oceans of bloody gore! I liked the story and overall atmosphere of inescapable doom. No happy-sappy ending here! Watch for 25yo Peter Bark as the 10yo “kid” who is a little too close to his mum. He’s creepier than the zombies! Highly recommended…
Before I start the review, I wanna say anyone who plans on buying this movie I highy state you buy the Zombie Pack, Vol. 2 You get Burial Ground and 2 other movies for the price of one. Actually it’s cheaper to buy the set than any of the movies on their own.
Burial Ground is one of those movies that are so bad, but so damn fun; can a movie this bad really be so entertaining? Well one thing I can say for sure is yes. Burial Ground has so much going against it that all that makes this movie a cult classic and easily gives it the so bad it’s good status. To be honest this just might be the ultimate so bad its good flick or at the very least top 5.
You name it Burial Ground has it;
Incoherent plot? Yes.
Characters that do the dumbest things? Yes
Characters who say stupid things? Yes.
Very bizarre and weird situations? Yes
Nudity? Yes
Gore? Yes
The clear star of this movie is Peter Bark; forget De Niro and Brando, Peter Bark is the greatest actor ever! First up Peter Bark is a little person who looks like a mini-Dario Argento and was clearly in his late 20s at least, but he’s playing a pre-teen child! People often talk about actors being robbed for Oscars. How Peter Bark has never won one is beyond me. He deserves a lifetime achievement award for sure.
Burial Ground is also one of the strangest movies I have seen. Michael played by the brilliant Peter Bark really loves his mother if you catch my drift. There’s even a scene where he feels his mother up and even begins to slide his hand up a certain region. That scene is bound to not only creep the viewer out, but also makes for such a funny moment you might have a heart attack from laughter.
The screenplay by Piero Regnoli is brilliantly bad; it’s amazing how somebody can write such a terrible screenplay that due to that it becomes a freaking classic of a screenplay. There is no sense of character development or any logic. It’s just a bunch of stupid people getting killed by silly looking zombies.
The first 20-minutes not a whole lot really happens in the way of action, but what it lacks in action it makes up for in a nude scene 10-min by a very gorgeous woman. Don’t worry besides that we get some really funny moments. Here are some highlights.
As one character is about to be intimate with a woman he says, “You look just like a little whore, but I like that in a girl.”
Maybe one day I’ll give that line a try. Hey it worked wonders for he guy in the movie, but wait there’s more.
One guy is taking photos of a woman and he says, “You’re getting a raise out of me alright, but it has nothing to do with money.”
Come on how classic is that line? Pure brilliance!
One of my favorite lines comes from Peter Bark, he sees a cloth and smells it than runs over to his mother and says, “Mother, this cloth smells of death.”
When it comes to horror I pride myself on knowing the genre and my best knowledge though is American and Italian horror. Andrea Bianchi was the director, but I don’t know a lot of his work. The only other film I have seen by him is the Giallo Strip Nude For Your Killer; based off that film he seemed to have some directing skills, but that movie was one of the more sleazy Giallos with more focus on nudity and sex rather than suspense and tension. But there were some suspenseful moments, but Burial Ground clearly shows this guy as somebody with such little talent that it makes him an excellent filmmaker, if that makes any sense.
The one thing I’ll give Burial Ground credit for is there really are no slow moments; the first 20-minutes have some nudity, some really silly dialogue that it very much holds your interest, than once about the 20-min mark hits the next hour as plenty of action to keep you from being bored. One of the biggest highlights of the movie is the famous nipple scene, which has to be seen to be believed!
I highly recommend this movie to fans of trashy European cinema; no doubt this movie falls under the so bad its good category. This is some of the most fun you can have with a movie and it’s got the greatest actor of all time Peter Bark! All hail the power of Peter Bark!
I don’t know maybe it’s me, but Karin Well who plays Janet looks exactly like Paris Hilton.