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Burial Ground

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    Ian Jane
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  • Burial Ground



    Released by: Severin Films
    Released on: October 25th, 2016.
    Director: Andrea Bianchi
    Cast: Karen Well, Mariangela Giordano, Peter Bark
    Year: 1981
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movie:

    "Mother, this cloth smells of death!" Rarely does such a simple proclamation result in one's legacy being so firmly cemented in cult film history but Peter Bark's place in said history was sealed with this, and a few other, lines from Andrea Bianchi's one and only stab at cashing in on the Italian zombie movie craze, 1981's Burial Ground.

    When the film begins, a crazy looking bearded professor who bears an uncanny resemblance to Rasputin looks at a rock and proclaims that he has discovered a secret! From there he shuffles off to a cave where, after whacking at the walls with an axe, he's promptly chewed up by some zombies.

    Cut to a mansion, a very fancy house that has seen better days. Here a trio of adult couples arrives: Janet (Karin Well) and Mark (Gian Luigi Chirizzi), Leslie (Antonella Antinori) and James (Simone Mattioli), and Evelyn (Mariangela Giordano) and George (Roberto Caporali). The later couple is accompanied by their twelve year old son, Michael (Peter Bark), who for reasons never explained has tagged along for the ride. It seems they've been summoned to this house by the professor who has to tell them something very important - but he's nowhere to be seen! So our couples, along with the maid and butler, make themselves at home. They wander around the house and the grounds eating, drinking and screwing, something Michael seems rather unsettled by, given the way he looks at and behaves around his mother.

    As night sets in, those zombies who made short work of the crazy looking bearded guy show up with reinforcements in tow. From here they proceed to wander around en masse and eat people, attack people with tools, and generally make things difficult for those waiting for the professor to arrive.

    Gory, sleazy and incredibly stupid, Burial Ground really is in a category all its own. With a fair bit of gratuitous nudity courtesy of Karin Well and the milf-tastic Mariangela Giordano, Bianchi's film is far more concerned with the gut munching effects from Gino de Rossi and wonky zombie make up appliances from Rosario Prestopino than with storytelling or atmosphere. Although to be fair, the movie does make very good use of the mansion in which the bulk of it was shot and that eerie underground chamber where it all beings. Throw logic out the window when thinking about this film - don't pay attention to the fact that the zombies all appear in largely varying states of decay and appear to have been buried in large green sack cloths. Ignore the fact that these zombies are down with using tools and team work to catch their prey, something they appear to be very adept at despite the fact that they shamble and shuffle around at a snail's pace. Ignore the fact that they can climb a stone column in one scene but appear to have trouble navigating stairs in others. The fact that there are gigantic plot holes here means nothing and takes away none of the enjoyment to be had from a deliriously screwed up film like this.

    And then there's the aforementioned Peter Bark, the ultimate horror movie man child (who appears to be sporting a toupee no less!) who was reportedly twenty-five years old when cast in this film to play a kid half his real age (in the extras - more on those in a bit - he says he was actually twenty). If the fact that he looks like the bastard love child of an aged Dario Argento and Weng Weng weren't weird enough, his character whines constantly and speaks in a strange, nasal voice. The icing on the cake is his incestuous relationship with his mom, the ultimate cinematic Oedipus Complex resulting in the film's most infamous scene. Bark's presence overpowers everyone else in the film. While you can't say that his work here is 'good' in the traditional sense, he's completely unforgettable in the part and makes for one of the most bizarre casting choices of all time. The dude is just fucking weird, and we love him for it.

    Wrap all of this up in a tweaked out electronic score that sounds like it was recycled from a late sixties sci-fi movie rather than composed for an early eighties horror film and shoot it all with a fair bit of style and you wind up with a pretty awesome package overall. There's no disputing the film's awfulness in terms of its plot and its adherence to little things like logic, but neither is there any disputing its bold attempt to avoid making any sense. As such, it's non-stop entertainment value.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    The AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer for Burial Ground is presented on a 25GB disc in its proper 1.66.1 aspect ratio taken from a '2k scan and restoration.' Things shape up quite nicely, with good color reproduction and solid skin tones. Black levels and shadow detail are quite good as is texture. There's plenty of grain but not much at all in the way of actual print damage to report. We don't have the UK Blu-ray release from 88 Films to compare this one to, but as to how it compares to the previous Blu-ray release from Shriek Show? Color reproduction is much stronger, detail is improved and black levels are better. Some quick comparison shots are below, with the Severin release up top and the Shriek Show release underneath.














    Severin provides a DTS-HD 2.0 Mono mix in English and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track Italian with optional English subtitles that translate the Italian track available in English only. The English track sounds good, it's properly balanced with no noticeable hiss or distortion. The score sounds pretty solid as do the effects while dialogue remains clearly discernable throughout the film.

    Extras start off with a fifteen minute piece called Villa Parisi - Legacy Of Terror which is an interesting featurette that details the historic house location that served as the primary setting for the film. Not only the setting for Burial Ground, the movie was also used in Nightmare Castle, The Third Eye, Beyond The Darkness, Bay Of Blood (which actually showed some of the house's original furniture), Hatchet For The Honeymoon, Patrick Still Lives and Blood For Dracula (VIVA UDO!) and is still used today, currently for a big budget Italian television series. This piece gives us a pretty great guided tour of the house as it looks today, and it shows off sections of the house and the surrounding grounds that were specifically used in Burial Ground and some of the other aforementioned films. This is pretty great stuff, and it's genuinely cool to get to check out this massive historic building in the context of some of the genre pictures that were shot there and even learn about its history along the way.

    Also on hand is the seven minute long piece entitled Peter Still Lives: Festival Q&A with actor Peter Bark. This was shot in 2013 after a screening of the film. While Bark gives really vague answers to some of the questions (telling the audience they'll have to buy his upcoming book to find out more), he does talk about his thoughts on horror pictures, some of the other films he made (there are some fun clips here, including a great shot of Bark disco dancing!), his age when shooting Burial Ground, working with Andrea Bianchi and, of course, what Mariangela Giordano's breast tasted like!

    Up next is the nine minute Just For The Money which is an interview with actor Simone Mattioli who played James in the film. He talks about his background as an actor and why he agreed to be in the film really just for the money as the title implies. He's open about the fact that he had no real interest in doing it and then goes on to talk about working with Bianchi and the man's directing style, how impressed he was with the locations, how he had fun working with Peter Bark who he describes as 'quite funny,' being naked on camera for the first time in his career, how he was impressed with the makeup effects and how one of the effects men was later convicted of murder! He then talks about some of the other projects that he's been involved with over the years. How does he feel about it overall? “They paid me, and that's it!”

    The Smell Of Death: Interviews With Producer Gabriele Crisanti And Actress Mariangela Giordano is a nine minute piece featuring the two noted participants. Cristani talks about the film's mix of horror and sex - “a winning formula” - how the movie was primarily cast with unknowns save for Giordano, and how it was shot fast in four weeks. He and Giordana both talk about working with Bark, how he was cast because Italian law wouldn't allow them to cast an actual kid in a movie like this, and how they used makeup to get him to look like a kid. Giordana refers to him as good in the part, but notes that he had a weird face! They also talk about the effects work, the screenplay and a fair bit more.

    The outtakes that first popped up the Shriek Show release are carried over here as well. As to what they contain, be on the lookout for a would-be romantic encounter in a moving car on the way to the home and most of which is the characters riding around in cars. There's also more of the 'sexy lingerie' scene, some gratuitous nudity and love scene extensions, some trimmed bits from the outdoor photo shoot scene, and a great scene with Peter Bark playing with a human skull, Hamlet style. Oh, and zombies. There are some extra shots of the zombies here too and a bit with the maid and her death scene. This material is presented in HD (all the other extras are SD) but there was no sound for this material so it has no dialogue, just some canned music over top.

    Rounding out the extras is a theatrical trailer, animated menus and chapter selection. There's also a fairly easy to find Easter Egg on the disc that showcases an alternate trailer. The disc fits inside a standard blue colored Blu-ray case that features some very cool reversible cover insert artwork showcasing two different one sheet images for the film. The case in turn fits inside a nice slipcover that features a new painting from Wes Benscoter.

    The Final Word:

    Burial Ground remains an awesome cinematic headscratcher, a mind-meltingly awful and awesome slice of gory Italian zombie horror and if nothing else it deserves credit for introducing the world to the one and only Peter Bark. Severin's Blu-ray presents the film in great shape and with plenty of fun extras too.

    Click on the images below for full size Blu-ray screen caps!































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