Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick.
Happy New Year to everyone. Of course, as we enter a new year, it's out with the old and in with the new. Right wrong, because it's going to be out with the new and in with the old. As in The Rising Dead the Undead. We're kicking off twenty twenty six on Weird House Cinema with a healthy dose of optimism, but with Keith gritted against the onslaught of decay. It's time to discuss another grotesque Italian gut munching zombie
film from the nineteen eighties. Yes, we just did one in October, but now it's January and the dead must rise again.
Well put, yeah, this is going to be I think of a somewhat different flavor in The one we did in October was actually our Halloween episode was for Luccio Fulci's City of the Living Dead, part of his Gates of Hell trilogy. A weird, dream like, almost free associative kind of wander through strange bits of gore and characters that don't make a lot of sense, but it's always a both gross and nice texture to be over there
in fulciville. Today's film, the nineteen eighty one zombie movie Burial Ground, I would say is at least as much fun for me, at least as a City of the Living Dead, but I would say a notable downgrade in the quality of the dream like imagery. It is a more ground level film, and in a way you could almost say that's a virtue of it because somehow one of its main themes is dirt.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the film's most well known title is Burial Ground. It is essentially dirt. The movie is essentially dirt. The motion picture yes, Earth Earth.
You will see it sort of like unfolding as things come up from under the turf in the gardens. The zombies have a very earthy quality to them. We'll discuss more about this later, but Rob, I think was it off mic the other day you were comparing the zombies in this movie almost like Earth elementals.
Yeah yeah, and not only this movie, but also certain other Fulcy films, especially his movie Zombie or Zombie two. Get into that in just a second, but a number of these most famous Italian zombie films of the era do have these very earthy looking zombies, where a lot of effort was put into making them appear not just recently dead, but long dead, so dead that they have become part of the soil and even have worms wriggling throughout their bodies. Now, those worms might not be completely
biologically accurate. They might be earthworms, they might be maggots that have no business on them on a three hundred year old corpse, but there are a lot of effort is put into giving them that revolting, long dead look.
Yeah, I would agree, and.
Part of that is that they are so dead that they are probably mostly soil at that point. There's a strong case could be made that yes, they're more animated soil than they are reanimated body. And you could probably do a fair amount of zombie navel gazing over all of this as well. But to be clear, the movie we were watching here today is not a deep film it is. It doesn't even have that dream like depth
to it. You can certainly toss around a number of interesting concepts that come up in the film, but it is again sort of a fast and dirty Italian trash zombie film, and I love it.
For that my first experience of burial ground. I don't remember what year this was, but I don't know, maybe four or five years ago. My friend Chuck came down to visit us and he showed you know, so he showed up at our house with, you know, a collection of horror movies, as he often does. You know, we watch a lot of horror movies together, especially a lot of Italian horror movies, and this was at the top of his pile. I'd never heard of it, never seen it,
didn't know what I was in for. But he was just like, you need to meet a character named Michael. So we put it on and afterwards Rachel and I were very like, what did we just watch? There is a lot, I mean, there are a lot of images people recall from this movie, some weird bits of gore and the kind of the strange combination of like the baroque mansion setting and the very earthy, soil ridden zombies.
But yeah, one of the things that really sticks with people about this movie is the creepiest human character, an old man slash child named Michael, who in age is in some of the weirdest and most shocking behavior this film. I guess what this movie has in common with another movie we covered this past year, the Stephen King movie Sleepwalkers, is out of nowhere Oedipus complex stuff that really doesn't connect to anything else in the movie.
Yes, yeah, yeah, it's a head scratcher in that regard. We'll get into the basically two main scenes that play out, three main scenes that play out that pushed this this storyline. But it's mostly about the zombies, and that's one of
the reasons. This is one of many films that was released in Italy as Zombie three, not to be confused with ful Chi's Zombie three, a sequel to his Zombie two, which was an uno unofficial sequel to Romero's nineteen seventy eight film Dawn of the Dead, which was released in Italy as Zombie. So ful chie Zombie three is the official Zombie three, as much as these things can at all be settled.
You mean it's the official unofficial Zombie three, and this would be yeah, and this would be the unofficial unofficial Zombie three.
Right, we have one of many, I believe. Yeah. I think we've probably watched an unofficial Zombie three before, or at least we've discussed them before. All right, elevator pitch For this one, I'm gonna go with one of the other titles for it, The Nights of Terror, except mostly during the day.
Yeah, and sometimes alternating cuts between night and day, just going back and forth.
Yeah, but I think in general it's supposed to be like one night, not even nights, but sometimes it's the Nights of Terror. I don't know. Let's listen to part of that trailer. Yes, no, no, alright, so that's just sample from the trailer because it's mostly music and screams and so so forth. But hopefully you heard a little bit of the music, because I have to say, this is one of those Italian horror movies where the music really does a lot of heavy lifting.
I like the music in this one. It's pretty solid.
We'll come back to that more when we talk about the folks who did the score, and as we get into the plot and speaking of which, Yeah, we're going to get into the plot in here a bit. We're gonna start spoiling some things. If you would like to jump out and watch Burial Ground for yourself, well, just looking around here in the States. As of this recording, it's currently streamable on services like to be the excellent Eternal Family. If you want to pick it up on disc,
head to your local video store. But also you can just buy an excellent version from Severn. That's what I did it. I'm going to hold it up for you, Joe. No one else can see this, but there you go. It features a new restored two K scan with full shot by shot color correction, various extra features that I'll refer to as we discussed the film, and a limited
edition slip case by the always excellent Wes Benzcotter. So I had to pick this one up during one of Severn's recent Black Friday sales, and I'm glad I did. It will proudly be displayed inside the drawer where my wife lets me keep my horrid blue rays.
Oh well, you're not allowed to have a stack on the floor like me, you know.
I mean, I like them in the drawer too. It's kind of like it's like a secret stash of trashy films.
I cherish my stack.
All right, Well, shall we discuss some of the folks behind this film? I think most of them all but one are people we haven't discussed before. But most of them are a little more obscure. So the director here is Andrea Bianchi, who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty thirteen.
Italian film director, best known for his harrorjallo and sexploitation films, but he also directed comedies, dramas, actions, and even one family film, nineteen seventy two's Treasure Island starring Orson Wells as Long John Silver.
I haven't seen that one, but well I would like to. Yeah, Orson as Long John Silver.
It can only be amusing and entertaining on some level, bad or good. Yeah, it probably must be seen. So Burial Ground is perhaps his best known film internationally, but for people more like into Italian exploitation films in eurocinema, they might be familiar with some of these other titles. They're seventy two's What the Peeper Saw that has Brett Ecklund in it and child star Mark Lester, who is an Oliver. That's supposed to be rather controversial. There's nineteen
seventy four's Cry of a Prostitute starring Henry Silva. This is said to be one of his better films, not Henry Silva, Beyonce's better films. There's the seventy five Gjallo strip Nude for Your Killer.
That one great tasteful title, you know in the Jallo tradition. Rachel and I actually rented that one for Jallo Knight a few years back, and I recall that being a particularly like sweaty, odious bizarre of woman hating and gory seventies weirdness. But sometimes that's what you get on Jaalo Knight.
All right, let's see. There's also an exploitation film in the mix, seventy nine's Malabimba, And there's nineteen eighty five's Angel of Death aka Commando Mangola, co directed by Jess Franco, with Howard Vernon playing Joseph Mangola, and it's apparently an action movie. So yeah, there's some some trashy and questionable
titles in the filmography there. Yeah, multiple interview subjects on the extras on the disc that I watched, though commented on the director here being a silver haired gentleman, very professional to work with, but mostly remembered for his trashier films. Yeah, all right. The screenplay here is by Piero Regnoli, who lived nineteen twenty one through two thousand and one. Italian screenwriter, active from nineteen fifty one through nineteen ninety seven. His
filmography is an Italian B movie explosion. We're talking peplam, Western's action, romance, erotica, and of course various shades of horror, so the likes of fifty seven's Lust of the Vampire nineteen eighties, Patrick Still Lives. Sixty six is Navajo Joe starring Burt Reynolds, Heromberto Lindsay's Nightmare City from nineteen eighty eighty two's The Sword of the Barbarians and Guna and King of the Barbarians, and Sergio Martinez The Smile of
the Fox from nineteen ninety two. He wrote four films for Andrea Bianci, Crib, The Prostitute, Malabimba, Burial Ground, which we're talking about m Patrick Still Lives. He also wrote three Luccio Fulci films. Seventy three is White Fang, nineteen nineties Demonia and nineteen ninety one's Voices from Beyond.
Oh, I don't know if I've seen any of those three.
Yeah, those are three that I haven't seen either. Yeah, yeah, with Voices from the Beyond being definitely one of the both that in Demonia being two of the later pictures in his filmography. All right, let's get into the cast here, and I'm going to cover them in different order than they're build because the decaying heart of this picture in Key tow It's reputation is the oedipal relationship between Evelyn and her son Michael.
Yes, which goes pretty much in one direction.
Yes, yes, all right, So starting with the family unit, there's basically like a man and a woman and a child, and then like two other couples. Yeah, some supporting characters and a bunch of zombies, so this won't take too long.
But yeah, starting at the top. Playing Evelyn Michael's hot mom is mari Angelo Giordano, who lived nineteen thirty seven through twenty eleven, Italian actress of stage and screen, former beauty queen who acted in all manner of films, including historical epics, westerns, comedies, but she's often best remembered for her roles in horror exploitation cinema of the seventies and eighties. These include a pair of nineteen seventy films, Jalloh and Venice, and the
aforementioned Malabemba nineteen eighties. Patrick Still Lives, which by the way, was an unauthorized sequel in and out itself to the Australian horror film Patrick Let's See nineteen eighty two, Satan's Baby Doll and Michael Suavees The Sect in nineteen ninety one and Let's See Oh. Also of note, she played Countess von Fladermouse in the nineteen ninety six Jess Franco film Killer Barbies, about a Spanish female punk band that
winds up in a haunted house. That one also starred Santiago Segura from Day of the Beast that we recently covered on the show.
I would be interested to see this.
Yeah, it looks like it might be fun. I can't tell. I don't know much about it, all right, So that's Evelyn the mother. She was about forty three when this movie was filmed, and then playing her son, Michael is Peter Bark born nineteen fifty five, who I believe was like twenty five at the time.
That is odd. My impression is that Michael is supposed to be like ten. I don't know, I don't know, something like that, But he looks like he's been being played by an old man.
Yeah, like it seems like the situation here is they're like, yeah, let's really go for an uncomfortable, edible fixation on the part of the child, and then we'll have a zombie payoff on that later on. But they couldn't cast an actual child in a role like this, so they got a very short, fully grown man to play the role. And then I'm just spitballing here, but I'm guessing they realized, you know, it's really hard to buy him as an actual child, Like he straight up just looks like a man,
doesn't go off all. Yeah, right, so then maybe they just leaned into it more and that's one of the reasons we have just such a But it's just such a bizarre relationship portrayed on the screen. I mean, to be clear, you never really mistake any of the human characters in this for real people, you know, it's it's not that sort of film. But you never buy this
guy as as a kid. He's you just get this uncanny feeling about him, though, and that does feel like legitimately weird and unsettling on the screen.
Yeah, I guess he is part little kid, part twenty five year old, part old man.
Yeah. Yeah, because he's also yeah, he's made up in kind of ghastly makeup. Yes, so he does. Even before he you know, spoiler, gets zombiefied. That's going to come much later. But yeah, even before then, he already feels weird and otherworldly.
It looks like they have gone out of their way to make him look pale and sickly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so Peter bark here. He only has a scattering of credits, mostly Italian screwball comedies from seventy nine through eighty three, and this is his only horror film, all right, And then so that's that's Evelyn, Evelyn's kid, and then Evelyn's husband or current partner. I'm not sure. This is George and he is played by Roberto Capperatti. Dates unknown on this particular actor. He was active from nineteen sixty through nineteen ninety four, and this and nineteen
eighty's Terror Express are his only horror films. But is ohka, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I was just gonna say. His other work seems pretty varied, including Fellini's nineteen eighty three film and The Ship Sails On and you know, supporting role.
You know, he's also in an uncanny age range When I first saw him, I was thinking, like, okay, guy in his forties, and then I got a different angle on him, and I'm like, guy in his sixties. Maybe
I could can quite tell like he was alternating. And also he looks significantly younger or older based on what he's wearing, Like he looks like an older guy when they put him in that skin tight, long sleeve red T shirt where he almost looks like like he's a member of the Enterprise crew in Wrath of Khan with the red he's got that that Shatner look.
Yeah, so I guess maybe the situation George owns the like the manor house they're going to. Yeah, so maybe he's like, you know, richer, older guy. And then Evelyn is his newer, younger love interest, but she happens to have this weird son, and so that's their their new like you know, sort of perverse atomic nuclear family here. I don't know, I guess, so, all right, so that's that's that group. But then we have two couples. First of all, we have Janet and Mark. Janet is played
by Karen Well born nineteen fifty four. She's she's actually top build Italian actress, who mostly did sex comedies and erotic films, but with some other genre work thrown in there. Her films include seventy seven's The Perfect Killer starring Lee Van Cleef, and eighty six's Convent of Sinners That's a Joe Demata picture. And then playing Mark is Jean Luigi Choditzi dates unknown as well, active from seventy three through
nineteen eighty one, with this being his last film. His other films includes seventy Threes than None in the Devil.
This couple is funny. When we first meet them, she's already having premonitions of terrible things to come, and he's just like, what will everyone think if everyone will think you foolish if you leave this place early? But joke's on him.
Huh Yeah, And her premonition here doesn't really go anywhere. It's just kind of like there's usually somebody in a movie like this who has a bad feeling about this. Therefore that's Janet.
She also she gets stuck in a bear trap in like a beautiful garden.
Yeah, a bear trap maybe for the Etruscan zombies, but it could be a zombie trap. Yeah, all right. And then our other couple is Leslie and James Leslie is played by Antonella Antoni. Dates unknown, active from seventy six through at least twenty twenty one or seventy six through nineteen ninety, depending on which database you believe. I'm more inclined to think seventy six through nineteen ninety. That's just my guess, and maybe there's some sort of you know,
sometimes there's name confusion in the databases. In either case, she'd previously been in some Italian sex comedies. Her other horror titles include seventy nine's Play Hotel, eighty nine's Maya, and eighty nine's Eyewitness and Then playing James is Simone Mattiali Dates unknown. Primarily a theater actor. There's actually an interview with him on the disc, but he was active in Italian film and especially TV from nineteen sixty five through eighty one. The way he tells that he was
primarily focused on theatre and especially with this film. Did take it just for the money, but this was this was his last credited film, so I guess they get either the payday was amazing. Maybe he was like, you know, maybe I'm just good with theater at this point, but he has some other.
Film he'd seen and done it all by this point.
It was kind of interesting to hear him talk about the filming of Burial Ground, because with a piece of like sort of trashy eurocinema like this, it's easy to assume that everyone in the picture at this point is already a season that of doing nude scenes and then having a chunk of their fake flesh torn out of their neck by a zombie. But in that interview, he reflects on the production and points out that this was his first nude scene and he found it very uncomfortable
and embarrassing to film. So I was kind of like, oh, that's that's different insight than I was expecting.
Yeah, well, especially since the main characteristic of James and Leslie's characters is that they do sex.
Yes, yeah, that's pretty much. Yet, that's well, he's a he's a he's a writer, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, he brought his typewriter, and then he also does some writing outside, just as some free handwriting as well. He can do it all.
Yeah, writing on a notepad.
Yeah, imagine that people used to do it. Yeah, all right, we also have a we have a few supporting characters. There's the Professor. I think we eventually find out his last name, but he's I think just credited as Professor's professor Ayers, Oh, professor Ayers, Okay yeah, played by Benito Barbieri, living Well born nineteen thirty six, presumably still with us, seemingly has uncredited appearances in seventy six Salon Kitty and
eighty six is Othello, a Zephyrrelli picture. Nicholas is played by Claudio zukette to Live nineteen thirty five through two thousand and five, Italian stumpman and extra often popping up as a henchman. So His titles include seventy eight's The Inglorious Bastard's, seventy nine Star Odyssey, eighty five's Lady Hawk, nineteen nineties The Godfather Part three, and two thousand and two Gangs of New York.
Oh okay? Is he anybody significant in Godfather three?
I think just like a Hinchman background care. I mean, you know, he did a lot of stunt work, and I think he's one of these guys that if you're filming in Italy, there's a chance he'll he'll find his way into the set, delivers the canol laid Eli. Yeah, and then there's there's also so he's like the butler, and then there's also like a house servant named Catherine played by Anna Valente. Dates unknown as well. She did
like one other TV project the same year. Now getting into the special effects, though, Gino de Rossi is back in nineteen forty two through twenty twenty one. We recently discussed him in our episode on City of the Living Dead. Tremendous practical effects in that movie. Less I think less of a budget here and less maybe stand out special effect moments. But for the most part, I think everything
looks pretty good here and it makes sense. He also worked on Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, another zombie film Italian zombie film that we've discussed, and during the course of his career he worked with everyone from Joe Tomato to David Lynch.
Oh what did he work with David Lynch on Dune?
Oh?
Wow?
Okay, all right. Chief makeup artist on this was Moro Gavazzi, who this is another individual with dates unknown, active from sixty seven through nineteen ninety five, with credits that include seventy nine's The Killer None and nineteen sixty eight to Romeo and Juliet. The Zephyrrelli picture that I have. I distinctly remember watching in English classes, like in junior high or high school, and you would get to the nude scene and the teacher would have to hold like a book over the screen.
Yeah.
The zom bombie masks in this film are quite impressive
and quite grotesque. They are by Rosario Prostopino, who lived nineteen fifty through two thousand and eight, famed Italian practical effects artist whose other credits include eighty Zombie Holocaust aka Doctor Butcher MD, nineteen eighty five's Demons, eighty seven's The Barbarians, eighty seven's Opera, the Dario Argento film, eighty nine's The Church, nineteen nineties Meridian that's a band Charles Band picture, and nineteen ninety one's The Sect.
Oh okay, so a number of films I've seen here.
Yeah, because again, the zombies look amazing in this I thought, I mean, the thing about having a horde of zombies is you know you're going to have some that are even to look a little goofier than others and maybe a little less polished. That's just part of the course. And some of that applies here. But for the most part, your standout zombies look really great.
With a lot of zombie movies, it's unclear if you are supposed to be seeing the same main one or two zombies over and over again, or if they're supposed to be different ones and they're just assuming people are not going to notice they're the same ones because they're zombies, you know, but you often do. There's often a kind of lee to zombie who has more detailed work on
them than all of the others. Yeah, I think that's sort of the case here, with a couple of different zombies that are like the ones that clearly got the most love. And then in the background, a little more out of focus, there are some that are just kind of a mask with a little bit of crud on it.
Yeah, all right, And then coming back to the music, we have two credited composers here. There's Elsio Mancuso and Berto Pisano, who's credited as Bert Rexen and dates unknown on Elcio and Berto lived nineteen twenty eight through two thousand and two. Elcio's other credits include Malabimba that he also worked with Berto on that onearious Spaghetti Westerns, including the gloriously titled God Will Forgive My Pistol in nineteen
sixty nine. Number of theological questions arise from that title, but I love it.
Wait, who was the actor we recently talked about who was in some amazingly titled Italian Western movies. Was it the guy who was in Empire of the Dark. Do you remember what I'm talking about?
Oh? Well, a bunch of Yeah, the older guy they played, the cult leader.
Yes, exactly, he was in a bunch of Western movies that the title would be a really sinister entire sentence.
Richard Harrison.
Yes, what do you have any of those titles pulled up?
I well, let's see. I mean, I can glance at his filmography and I'm sure something will pop up, pop pop out at me.
You know, they had titles. There's things like you know, God will Spit on You three Times or something, Dig.
Your Grave Friend, Sabata's Coming seventy one. Titles like that, or even between God the Devil and a Winchester from sixty eight. Also great Titlember of the spaghetti westerns, especially some of the Franco Nero westerns, he had great The Django film sometimes had really alarming titles as well. Yeah, oh yeah. But then coming back to the other guy, Berto Pisano. His credits go from about sixty three through two thousand and seven. They include strip nude for Your Killer,
which has a great reputation as a soundtrack. I should add I've not seen it myself, but I hear more about the soundtrack than I do about the movie.
Well, as I said earlier, it's one of the I feel like thematically just grosser and more misogynistic of the Gallo films I've seen. So it's not the most fun watch. But I think I recall, yeah, I think he had good music.
Yeah, And the music here in Burial Ground is am I beinon really good. You have these glittering, almost mystical tracks that play in key moments that I guess under you know, underlies that the magic of the Etruscan sorcery that's taking place here, that's raising the dead. And then also some nice suspenseful notes as well. Yeah, really fun score as far as I'm concerned.
Also some fairly funny use of like cool jazz.
Yeah yeah, And I'm not sure if that's one, if that's the work of these guys or one of them, or if that's you know, the track that they dropped in from another source Best Library music. Yeah, but yeah, musically, Burial Ground really saw.
All right, You want to talk about the plot?
Oh yeah, let's do it.
So before we get any zombies, we begin the film in research mode. It's kind of like that little scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf frides off to Ministeriris to consult the ancient tomes and discover the lost history of the Ring. You know, he's like drinking out of a cup of something. We get a guy doing some research like that, but it's significantly less epic and more Italian. So we open on this very bearded guy who looks like an if they made it of the
five most famous Russian novelists. You noticed that, Yeah, yeah he does. He's sort of a Tolstoyevski And this is the Professor aka Professor Ayers, and so we meet him first in underground catacomb where he's just wandering around kind of scraping at rocks with a little pick, and then he ends up removing something from the rock wall. Later we see him back home in his study looking through
some documents. I guess translation notes and studying an ancient artifact, which I've got a picture you can look at in the outline here, Rob to zoom in. The artifact is a rectangular slab. I guess it's supposed to be of rock that has some kind of writing carved in it. And then down below that we have a carved feather, a capital A, and a smiley face just like like like a have a nice day smiley face, but not smiling.
It's a straight line for a mouth. Otherwise perfect smiley face dot ies line circle line mouth.
Yeah. I basically these are ancient Etruscan emoticons, and I knowing what's to come, I think it's plow zombie face, plant growing, and so the idea is like magic makes zombie grow like plant.
Oh good.
My translation my ancient Etruscan is a little rusty. But that's my take on what we see here in the film. I buy it.
I confer upon you the honorary PhD and zombie studies here. So yeah, I think that's right.
Uh.
Now, through this whole part, like you were saying earlier, Rob, there is some soft electronic music that's kind of bubbling up occasionally. It's you know, it's not instant's these tones come up. There's a shimmering quality to it, and there's also a steady white noise in the background, like wind blowing outside beyond the walls. And then while he's studying this artifact, the professor says in voice over, I am
the only one who knows the secret. It's incredible, incredible, yet it's true, it must be.
And we don't really see anything like too horrifying here, And especially with this music, I think the pre zombie opening of this film feels like a almost like a
transcendentalist vision quest. Yeah, there professor here making this discovery, and then very shortly he's going to he's going to set out once more to go back to the ruins of the cave I guess, you know, having discovered the secret back in his study, you know, ends up traversing this beautiful countryside, and we see stunning ruins as the sun comes up, you know, especially with that dreamy, glittering synth music in the background, and it feels like the
origin story of a new religious movement. M Yeah, like I almost forgot I was watching a zombie movie called Burial Ground for a moment there.
Yeah, there is a feeling of contemplation and discovery here at the beginning.
There will be no payoff, but not in the way we're talking about.
But also what the professor is like, it must be true. What is it that must be true? We don't know, He doesn't say. The Professor gets up from his desk and he gathers some equipment, including a flashlight, and he goes outside. Should probably also mention here, since we're gonna see him walk through the house. This house is the setting for most of the rest of the movie. The Professor apparently lives in some kind of palace or baroque mansion.
It's got what looks like marble everywhere, marble staircases, marble on the walls, with these gilded accents and weird bronze statues up on pedestals. The dominant colors throughout the house are white, red, and gold, so you've got red drugs, red cushions and upholstery on the furniture with the gold fringe, and these glossy red curtains and tapestries. It's very regal. It's a place fit for, you know, someone of great I don't know, great baron or something.
Yeah, And while I don't think the place actually was or is neglected within the film. It has a neglected feel to it, you know, it feels like dingy elegance. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about here, but yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it feels like people have not lived, actually lived here in a long time, like a lot of the manor houses and castles that pop up in movies like this.
Yeah.
The filming location here is the Villa Parisi, a seventeenth century Baroque estate some twenty kilometers or twenty miles southeast of Rome, and it's been used in quite a few Italian films and TV shows over the years this time period, but also like up until today, like recent productions. So this includes Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood in seventy one, Oh Weird Blood for Dracula in seventy four, and more recently,
there was a Sydney Sweeney horror film titled Immaculate. This was twenty twenty four and it was also some of it was filmed here. Burial ground was filmed entirely here. Like even the bits that I think are supposed to be like the ancient Etruscan ruins are just parts of this villa.
I've not seen immaculate. I don't recall if I've seen Blood for Dracula. I've definitely seen Bay of Blood, but I don't remember this location from it. I remember Bay of Blood taking place at a more modern looking house, some like the edge of a lake.
Yeah, yeah, well, I haven't seen a Bay of Blood, so I can't can't say too much. But I did look at a couple of screenshots, and one thing we have to take into account is, of course Mario Bava's lighting, which is not present in Burial Ground.
Yeah. Okay, so we're here at this beautiful house, this old, stately mansion, and the professor trudges out into the dark, and while he does this again, we get some very nice musical accents. I think this atmospheric synth music picks up. We've gone from the shimmering, kind of occasional, bubbling up sounds of music that we heard in the very opening into these deep, warm, mysterious synth chords. And there's also a dog barking in the background every now and then.
And for a moment here I was thinking, like, wow, the movie is actually building some atmosphere. And then in the next cut, we're suddenly alternating between daytime shots and night time shots while the dude is on the same walk out to the backyard, so it dissipates a bit of the mood they were constructing. But anyway, the Professor he makes his way out to a cavern in the earth that opens from the grounds outside his mansion. He takes out a flashlight and he descends into the tunnels.
Eventually he finds what he's looking for down there. Don't know what it is. It's just something on the wall, and he starts bashing it with a pick axe, just sort of hammering at a rock wall. We don't see what he's interested in. But while the Professor is busy whacking at the rock, something begins to move behind him. The stone lid of an ancient sarcophagus slides away, and then out of the void inside climbs a zombie. Now, question, Rob, do we have any indication why the zombie wakes up
at this moment? Is there anything that has like happened to make that to make the zombie get up?
No indication as far as I can tell. I mean, he's been here plenty of times before. We later find out that he sometimes sleeps here, so he's been here plenty of times and not encountered zombies. He did take that emoticon plaque out earlier. Maybe that had something to do with it. Or maybe it's the rece and hammering on that one spot, which I don't know why he's hammering there. Maybe he expects something to happen. Maybe that's what the translation was, hammereth here and the miracle of
unlife will be revealed to you or something. I don't know.
Maybe I like your original translation better. Yeah, the plow and the plant, I think that makes a lot of sense. But so we're gonna get to see our first zombie of the film, so I wanted to comment for a moment on the appearance of this zombie. It is a relatively bony undead. The head here is a nearly defleshed skull, not really recognizable as having human flesh on it, but
it's also not naked bone. It's just got kind of gunk or dirt all around it, and also a ridiculously toothy mouth like it's got long white teeth all lined up. It was, for some reason, reminding me of a row of cigarette filters.
Yeah, yeah, and I meanbviously, with when constructing a mask, you end up with an oversized skull when you're creating a skull mask on top of a human head, and so that just adds to the weirdness of it, Like is this even a human skeleton zombie or is this you know, is this some sort of archaic human relative. It just you know, creates all sort of a you know, uncanny waves through the mind.
So it's dressed in these nasty ancient rags and it has its hands outstretched in a fairly standard zombie posture. It's kind of half reaching at whatever is in front of it.
Yeah, very very earthy, as we've been discussing. Reminiscent of those folksgey zombies for sure. Again, strong connection there as well, because Geneto de Rossi also worked on Zombie, so you know, we might expect a similar look here. Yeah, they're they're earth They're they're like pottery zombies in a way. I'm to understand that they used clay and you know, making the masks here, so they're kind of walking them into moreize reflecting our connection to the Earth.
I think there is something really strong to that that it's true that they have that in common with some other Italian zombies of this period, especially with some ful chee zombies, but these in particular are of the wandering dirt clod. So I think you're exactly right about that. They're very earthy and they're if this makes any sense, they're quite dry as far as zombies go. Some zombies are very moist. I'd say your full cheese zombies are. Usually they're kind of like this, but they're on the
moister side. You feel like if you touched them, they would feel wet, and you can kind of see things dripping off of them.
More.
These zombies are not like this. They have a more a dry, crumbly texture almost. I guess in baking terms you would say that they're short.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right FULCI did like a good drip on just about everything. Yeah, these guys are drier, as we'll discuss when they start getting busted open. We do see some zombie juices and those are thoroughly disgusting as well.
They have gu but the gu is mostly contained on the outside. They're fairly dry and they're fairly crumbly.
Yeah.
So, anyway, the zombie approaches the professor and he turns and sees it, he yells stand back to the zombie, and then to the zombie he says, no, no, I'm your friend. What to make of this? The professor is the zombie's friend. I don't know of whatever that means to the professor. The zombie is not buying it or does not value the friendship. He eats his friend.
I guess it means he thought he was going to control some zombies and oh, really, it's not going to happen.
He was going to be commanding an army of the undead.
That's the only thing that makes sense to me, right, because otherwise, why would you say, hey, I'm your friend. It just seems like an odd response to zombie.
Or maybe that's just what you'd say to anybody who's approaching you menacingly, like hey, disarmy, Yeah.
Your buddies, we're pals.
We're all good. Yeah. But yeah, so the zombie, actually, I said, the zombie who's approaching and bites him. But first another zombie appears and bites him from behind first, So they both zombies take bites a friend here, And I wanted to add another thing I thought was interesting. This is one of those undead movies. Where you not only see the zombie biting the human victim, we also get a cutaway without the victim's full body and frame, so it's just the zombie gnawing on some now detached
red offal that it's got in his hands. Somehow, I think this carries thematic significance. Like some movies only really care to emphasize zombie kills man. Other movies decide it's at least as important to make the point that zombie gets plenty to eat.
Yeah, yeah, some I would also say that, yeah, part of that zombie kills man. A lot of times there's more emphasis on the actual like the killing bites. Yeah, and there are plenty of killing bites in this film, but yeah, there's a lot of emphasis on the zombie feast that comes afterwards. They're dry, they're thirsty. It makes sense.
There is a particularly good scene in that regard. I remember later when zombie Leslie is eating Michael and Evelyn comes into the room and she's like, oh no, and she goes to Michael's body, and then in the background of that scene, Evelyn or not Evelyn Leslie is still just munching.
Yeah, And it's like if a zombie in this film is munching. They're mostly content. They're just like, carry on, do what you want, I've got mine.
They don't attack while they're eating, Yeah, which is polite, right, so you know? So, yeah, the zombies munching on this hunk of the professor here. And then suddenly we cut to two yellow cars zooming down a country road with hep jazz music playing, and then up comes the title. Is it gonna say burial Ground? Nope, it says the Nights of Terror.
Yeah. I like burial grounds so much.
More, especially since as there's barely more than you could argue maybe two nights in this film, like if the first the opening here at the prologue is like early morning, hours before dawn. I guess you could say there are two.
Nights, yeah, Nights of Terror on a technicality only.
Yeah, So the portions of driving scene here are fairly generous. But as you could probably guess, the cars they're making their way up to the mansion where we met the professor. Everybody arrives at the mansion in one car. You've got the couple Evelyn and George. Are they supposed to be married? I don't remember.
Does it say I don't think it says yeah, yeah, it was left to our imagination.
Yeah. So Evelyn and George are a couple, and then you've got either their son or Evelyn's son, Michael. In this first scene, Evelyn is very glamorous, like she gives the this big, kind of pearly tooth smile even when delivering fairly mundane dialogue. George has a has a blazer and an ascot. He's sort of a yacht club type. And Michael, the first moment you see him, you're like, he looks like a peeping Tom Benjamin Button with consumption.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think this is supposed to be their house, or at least George's house, But also several lines make it sound like they've never been here before.
Yeah, and like what's the professor doing there? Does he? Do they co own it? The professor just stay here? Like what's the arrangement? We also hear later they're like, hey, you know, where's that professor guy? He invited us all out here to share some ancient secret with us that he'd discovered. So yeah, so that seems to be the purpose of the weekend, but they're also just happy to hang out.
So Yeah, I was gonna ask, are the other people there George and Evelyn's guests or the professor's guests?
Hm? I mean it may well. Okay, we do know that one of them is a photographer. Yeah, one of them is a writer, don't. I don't know if we really know what sort of writer. So maybe a journalist. So maybe he brought them out there because Hey, I'm about to reveal that I am the new ancient Etruscan sorcerer, master of the Undead, and I want this published in all the top Italian newspapers. So write this down, get.
Some good photosta, gotta get an article in the post about it.
Yeah.
Okay. So they arrive at the gate and we've got George, Evelyn, and Michael here. Evelyn makes several comments after they arrive. She's like, someone should be answering the gate. I thought you told me you'd hired all new staff. Didn't you telephone them to tell to tell them we were coming. And George responds by saying, no, I don't allow the use of telephones on my property. Okay, but that will
conveniently explain why later they can't call anyone for help. Yeah, that's right, And then Evelyn also assures George that he will now get to relax because they are at the house. So all the cars pull up and they're met by the butler and the maid. Here the butler's name Nicholas, the maid is named Kathleen, and the guests all unload their luggage and move into their rooms for a semi extended stay. I don't know how long they're supposed to
be here, maybe the weekend or something. And we learn that the professor only vanished earlier this morning, so it's the same day as the opening scene. And I love how the first guy we see in his bedroom it looks like Louis the fourteenth sleeps in here. It's just gilding and ornamentation everywhere. The fireplace is roaring, it's got this towering flame. And then next door, so I guess
this is George and Evelyn's room. And then in the room next door, Michael is sleeping, and this is one of the most memorable scenes from the film because it's got the Michael scare. So Evelyn peeks in at the kid and he's sleeping in this bed with this creepy flower print on the pillow matching on the pillow in the blankets, and then she shuts the door, and Michael's eyes just joint open and he's like laser eyes at the door.
Yeah. But when this happens, you know, you have to wonder. It's like, okay, is he just suddenly alert to the you know, weird supernatural happenings, the dead rising, you know somewhere outside the house, or has this like inner alarm clock gone off that Oh, if there's mommy daddy sheet monster times about to happen, I should go wander into their room.
Yeah. And then right after the Michael scare, we cut straight to somebody's butt. The next thing we see, well, so what's going on here? It is Leslie's butt. We cut to a scene of the couple, James and Leslie in in their room. Leslie is doing an erotic dance in some antique lingerie she found in a trunk. She says, yeah, in the bathroom. Yeah, I found this in a trunk. I don't know. It must be hundreds of years old,
I guess. So she's like doing a dance, and then it cuts to James and he says, quote, may I ask what you're doing? You nut so nutty and then they have some fascinating conversation. It's basically like, do you like doing sex? Yes, I'm rather interested in sex. And I think also after this, so like they have a sex scene that is intercut with at least one other couple sex scene and maybe multiple of the other couples there, but it's hard to tell because you can't see anybody's face.
Yeah, it's like just somebody's thighs. So yeah, it took me a minute to really piece together because yeah, we're also cutting over to Evelyn and George.
Yeah, so there are definitely some different people here, but I guess everybody's just having a good time up at the villa. And then eventually it becomes clear though that not everybody's having a good time, because while Evelyn and George are in bed, Michael, the old Man's last child is he gets the desire to creep and peep on his parents, and so he like comes in and the energy of this scene is so weird it is difficult to describe.
Yeah, because he like walks in wide eyed and he's like mother, and then she's like Michael, and she jumps out of bed newde to run across this enormous room to pick her nightgown up off the ground, off the floor and cover herself. Also ridiculous.
The editing in this scene makes it even funnier because it will like cut from her having like picked up the nightgown to cut to a shot where she hasn't done it yet. So yeah, bizarre vibes off the charts. Also somewhere in here we get our first scene with Janet and Mark as far as we know, the first time we're meeting them.
And Marcus the photographer, right and.
When we just pop right into them in the middle of an argument where Janet is freaking out saying she's got a bad feeling they have to leave the house. And this is where Mark's I said this earlier. Mark, He's like, calm down, you're just going to appear foolish to everyone. And I love the Google Translate quality of some of the dialogue, like some of the informality of human speech is missing here, and we get these textbook type sentences.
Yeah, yeah, and I was hoping. I watched it initially dubbed into English, and then I watched it well dubbed into Italian. This is one of those films whereas stuff but the subtitles were pretty much just the same as the English dubbing, so there were no additional revelations about any of the dialogue.
For me, I love the scene later where they're sitting around the breakfast table talking about how the professor has summoned them to learn something about the secrets of the dead, and Janet says, I've always been terrified of the dead. I hope we're going to leave them in peace.
Yes, maybe that is how the movie will play out.
Yeah. And then also we see scenes you know, it cuts away to show zombies assembling. They're all shambling out of their individual graves in the catacomb and they form a marching column.
In broad daylight.
Yes, yeah, and we're kind of off to the races here. So we get like, you know, the characters gather for breakfast, but after breakfast.
Oh, at breakfast, we also get a good old fashioned J and B placement shot. Love it, Yeah, where when Nicholas brings out the platter and there's a big bottle of JB, J and B.
There would not be an Italian horror movie without it.
I keep thinking I should have a bottle of it on hand, and then I like, I have to have some whenever it pops up an Italian film, but I've.
Yet to do that. Yeah one day.
Yeah, probably not a healthy choice to make.
So we are going to narrate some more. But I guess by way of summary, we can just say there is not a whole lot of plot in this film. The rest of the movie is basically human characters screwing around doing various things at the mansion and mostly like indulging in lust, Michael being a little weird sex school, and then zombies attacking people and laying siege to the house.
Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how things are going to play out, and you can guess exactly how things are going to end. Yeah, this is not a film that is going to greatly surprise you with how things turn out for the human characters.
So when the characters split up, let's see what does everybody go do. Janet and Mark and James and Leslie both separately go off and play, you know, to go do things in the garden, like Mark. Mark is a photographer and Janet is a model. I guess, so he's taken pictures of her in the garden and he's everything. He's like, yes, go with it. So at one point she like trips and falls and he's like, yes, hold it like that, you know, go with it, use it.
And meanwhile, you know, Mark is trying to write something Longhand on just a legal pad notepad paper and les Leslie comes up and she's like, but what about sex? And he's like, oh, yeah, I forgot I forgot about that. So you know, they're they're fooling around. Meanwhile, we get some strange doings going on inside the house there. They're they're a random poltergeist phenomena where light bulbs start exploding while the butler and the maid are looking on and they just, oh, what is that?
Yeah, and I guess it's just part of the ancient Etruscan magic that's raising the dead. It's also messing with the electrical devices.
What did you make of the scene where Evelyn, George and Michael are in what looks like a sculpture sculpture shop. It looks like a place where people make marble sculptures. I think that's what it is. And yeah, they're in there, and inside the shop, George and Evelyn are doing sexy gun training slash target practice amid all of the Roman busts.
Yeah, yeah, completely ridiculous in a movie that's filled with ridiculous moments. Yeah, they're just doing random pistol target practice inside, no ear protection or anything like that, presumably just live ammo. While Michael just wanders around the rest of the room.
Yes, wandering around the room. Where that's going. And then Michael at one point finds this strip of like burr lap it looks like, and he just runs over to Evelyn and he says, Mama, this cloth smells of death.
And she's like, put that down.
I think she says, it's just a piece of cloth.
Yeah, she doesn't smell it because, as we're about to find out, it probably fell off of a zombie. I guess one came through here, perhaps moments earlier.
Yeah, So while everybody's doing their thing, the zombies start busting up through the turf in the garden, and here we get our first look at one of the main zombies we're going to see in the movie, a real like creepy Crawley zombies, got maggots on his face. Again, he's quite he's a quite dry consistency, kind of crumbly dirt head with skull, you know, exaggerated orbital sockets in the skull and like big toothy mouth, bony fingers, but also grass all over him. I guess because he came
up from the grass. It's almost like grass is growing from some of his joints. And I like that.
Yeah, yeah, it reminds me of you know, various folk traditions where there'll be some sort of a costume tradition where you know, someone becomes a sort of beast and perhaps their body is made out of straw or moss or some other you know, you know, plant life slash earthen material. And you know, this is another one of those films where we're now seeing these zombies in far greater detail than was perhaps ever intended or expected by the filmmakers. And I have to say, looks still looks
really good. Why are there maggots on it? I'll get that's another question for another day. But yeah, who knows how ancient etruscan magic affects the decay rate of human remains.
So while out in the garden, Mark and Janet get attacked by a zombie. They're like making out in the grass and then the zombie comes up on them and they start talking about it while it's coming at them. They're having a conversation, I mean with some level of alarm, but they are just sort of talking it through. Mark says, whatever it is, it's not human, and they get chased through the grounds and through this sort of hedge labyrinth.
Lots of shots of zombies just shambling through the grass with no humans insight.
Yeah what the zombies.
I would say their clothing is somewhat varied here because some of them are wearing just what looks like rotten burlap, very earth tones and full of holes and dusty, and other ones are wearing like green silvery, you know, green or purple cloaks. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe this is supposed to be like a priest class. Presumably at this point in the film, these are all like og zombies that came out of that tomb, right, Like these are ancient zombies front of Etruscan origin, and it's too early for there to be a sprinkling of modern zombies.
I guess we have not seen any humans made zombie yet.
Yeah.
So later in this chase, this is the part where Janet gets her foot caught in the bear trap, in the garden.
Now, what would this possibly have been said? Out? Would you have it out for wolves? Again? This is what did I say, like ten twenty miles outside of Rome, Like what would this be out for just rabbits or something?
It doesn't make a lot of sense. But she gets her ankle caught, and this is of course played for suspense because Mark is there trying to He's like, I can't get it open, and the zombies are closing in and she's like, Mark helped me, and he's just struggling with it over and over. Finally he picks up a pitchfork, but then seems kind of reluctant to actually stab the zombies with the PRAWLNGS. Do you notice that it's like he's kind of unsure of himself. I don't know, maybe he's just a whimp.
Yeah.
But meanwhile, so that's going on, and then zombies attack the sculpture workshop where George, Evelyn, and Michael are hanging out, and George starts shooting the zombies. But here is where we learned that bullets appear to do no good, So we get lots of close ups of exploding bullet holes in zombie bodies with you know, holes popping in the old burlap and weird colored liquids squirting out.
Mixes of green, black, and sometimes gray paint coming out his blood, which I thought.
Looked pretty good, great sometimes yellow. Yeah. Eventually George runs out of bullets, but it doesn't I mean, he wasn't stopping him anyway, and the zombies surround him and so first they like press him down by the top of his head, and then you could just see them getting all around and digging for guts, and Evelyn and Michael escape out the door. So we're George down, repeat, George down.
Yeah, they tear. This is a film where we get like, not one, not too but I think multiple Romero gut the sequences, which is nice. I will go ahead and say it. It's nice in this film.
So next thing, James and Leslie are also making out in the garden. It's just a good place for that, I guess. So they're out there making out and they also get attacked by zombies, this time from one that climbs out of a stone planter full of hostas was this an ancient Etruscan stone planter?
I know this is one of this moment where it looks great, But when you stop and think about it, you're like, has there been a human body a zombie in that planter for centuries? Yeah? What?
Unclear? Yeah, or maybe it just got in there right before they showed up, Like that was a good ambush spot.
I don't know.
Yeah, they're big on theatrics, but how would it have gotten the plants back on top of it?
Tucked itself in?
So a chase breaks, the zombies run after them. Leslie keeps falling over. Of course, Oh I've fallen and I can't get up. But eventually Leslie and James cross paths with Mark and Janet. Janet's still stuck in the bear trap, and we're like, Leslie and James save the day. They go into action mode and they are much more effective than Mark at protecting Janet. They break out the head smash move, so James and Leslie both grab big rocks and just start bashing open zombie heads.
Yes, it is glorious, just like husky zombie heads. And then like a splash of one of these multicolored liquids, but yeah, they really start kicking zombie butt.
Here we get to see the skulls cracking open like Easter eggs, and also roughly the color of Easter eggs, like some real pastel pinks.
Yeah. Yeah, a certain feel of coconut to it as well.
Yeah, very pinata, actually quite quite pinata busting open. That visual theme will be repeated throughout the movie. Yeah, And at one point around here, I think, Leslie says, this must be what the professor was trying to warn us about. But I was like, what, what did he say? They never met the professor.
Yeah, we never. Yeah, there's nothing about a warning. It was just hey, come here, I got something to tell you. It wasn't hey, everyone, come here, I have something to warn you about. Right.
So Evelyn and Michael, meanwhile are running around in the some part of the house or some building, you know, the place where the sculpture shop was. They're trying to get away from zombies that have gotten in. And this is the part where we get to the Mama we can set that on fire scene. So Michael just points to these buckets of green napalms sitting all around the house. I don't know what they are, and he says, Mama, we can set that on fire. So Evelyn goes into
action mode. She throws this stuff on the zombies and sets them on fire indoors by the way.
Yeah. Yeah, two points. First of all, I want to stress we didn't mention this again, Michael is played by a grown up. Everybody is dubbed in this, and even in Italian not everyone supplies their own voice. They made they seemingly made the distinct choice to go ahead and dub.
If they dubbed Michael with a different actor, they still used an adult actor doing a child's voice, so they they do appear to have doubled down on the you know, the uncanniness and the weirdness of having a grown up play the child here.
It's like the it's like the dubbing and manos the hands of Faith. You know, it's like clearly obviously an adult sort of half trying to do a child voice.
Or Bob in House by the Cemetery, except that, of course, was an actual child actor. Oh. Another point is that apparently a stumpman was injured in these burn stunts here. So yeah, I mean, I anytime there's a person on fire in one of these films we watch, I always
it always disturbs me. I mean I know that, you know, professional stumpmen have their way of doing these things, and you know, in the right hands, you know, it's I guess the risks are low and the rewards are high cinematically, but yeah, occasionally you hear about one of these going wrong, and it's just like I carry that with me and then into every other film that I watched that features a burn suit.
Yeah, well, I'd just say, filmmakers, out there, whatever shot you think you can get, it's not worth cutting corners. I mean, come on, practice set safety people.
But within the context of the film, they burn up a couple of zombies, and yeah, very much. Our humans are on the offensive now, so they should really wrap this up pretty quickly. I think they're on top of the whole zombie invasion.
Yeah, yeah, you'd think so.
So the surviving guests all gather in the main house with Evelyn and Michael, and they're like, okay, zombies are attacking. We gotta, you know, go into siege mode. We're gonna lock the doors, board up the windows, and hunker down. So they do that, but then various new types of attacks emerge. So at one point, the maid Kathleen goes to a second floor window and then she succumbs to a ranged attack by the zombies.
So yeah, yeah, suddenly they can use weapons.
Yeah, so they throw a spike that pins her hand to the shutter beside the window, and then while she's pinned there, the zombies reach up and cut her head off with a scythe and then they so they pull it down and then they pass the head around like a rugby ball.
This is actually a pretty great sequence and really a pretty great gjallo style murder. Yeah, like this would feel completely at home and say like a Suspiria or any dary origent of film, you know, where it's a little bit complex, you know, number of moving pieces for an inventive kill. But he does feel a little weird and suddenly kind of out of place with the zombies are
suddenly pulling this off. We've been watching these guys just lumber about in traditional zombie style, and now they're working together to do a group kill with tools. Yeah, why, we don't know. Are they evolving? I don't know, are they waking up? Who knows?
So James comes along by the way and he finds Kathleen's decapitated body hanging out the window. He looks out, he sees the zombies down below, like slurping blood from her head, and then he gets a wild look in his eye and he's clearly thinking, I've got an idea.
What is that idea?
It is toss the rest of her down to them, So he tosses her down. I think his plan is let the zombies fill up on housekeepers. They will be too full to eat the guests.
Ah, you fool, Now the zombies are going to associate humans with food.
Yeah, exactly. So after the scene, the zombies they've already used tools in this one instance, but I think think they I don't know, they must be getting positive reinforcement about it. So the zombies all arm themselves with axes and hose and garden gardening tools, sharp implements, and they
start hacking at the doors. There's another scene on a balcony that's like a shotgun blasting scene where James comes out with a shotgun and he's like the only thing that the only thing that can kill them is blowing their heads off, and he starts shooting them with a shotgun, but he doesn't have enough shells to blast them all. There are a lot of zombies at this point. There's also a scene where Leslie is doing medical treatment on Janet. She says, let's look at that ankle. No wonder it's
killing you. It's very badly bruised.
He was in a bear trap.
And then there's a scene where Leslie I think she's going to get bandages for Janet, and she's walking through a hallway downstairs and she gets her hair grabbed through a window like window shatters. The zombie hand reaches in grabs her hair and then ooh like she gets her face pulled into the jagged glass of the window and dies that way.
Yeah, a rare, less than fully convincing moment of eyeball violence in European cinema. Usually it's a little more standout than this. But we've been spoiled. We've been spoiled.
Yeah, So here, generally, the zombies are kind of breaking through the defenses and attacking the house. They're getting in, they're attacking all the people. We get to see Janet wielding an antique pole arm that was like decorative on the walls of the mansion. In fact, throughout this part they're just a lot of character is using swords and other decorative militaria to hold off the zombies. At one point,
that's pretty cool. Evelyn chops some zombie heads off to protect baby Michael, and I can't even tell what tool she's using. It looks like is it a sword cane?
I don't know. Yeah, there's like she picks up something looks like a machete off of the table and she's like, there's a zombie crawling up and she like chops its hands off on the window seal. So yeah, she's she's a real bad ass. Evelyn is is pretty pretty awesome.
Unfortunately, right after this is the scene where Michael starts making bizarre sexual advances on his mom. WTF. It's like she gets weirded out and she slaps him and then he says, what's wrong, I'm your son, and then he runs away. He finds zombified Leslie and she bites him.
Uh oh yeah. The next time we see him, he's gonna have his arm off, laying dead while Leslie choose on the arm and various cuts of meat from dead Michael.
Yeah there are oh oh oh. One of the next scenes is what oh favorite the scene where zombies are approaching the house again, Like, wait, didn't they already get inside? They were just in the room attacking everybody, and they were fighting them. But now it's almost as if zombies we've reset and zombies are not inside anymore.
Or I guess we've killed all the ones that got inside. Maybe we've put a lot of work into keeping zombies out of the mansion at this point.
Right, and then Mark has an amazing idea. He gathers everybody says, I've got an idea, let's let them inside. But they explain the logic. Mark's like, maybe it's something in the house they want, and it's like, yeah, I think that's right.
Yeah, legit laugh out loud moment here, because yes, zombies are famously architecturally inclined, right, that's what they're drawn to. So if we just let you, They're like, we'll just let them in the house and will hide in like the side chambers or something. And then what's part two of that plan? They're gonna rush out once all the
zombies are inside. I'm not fully formed the zombie. The problem is the zombies wanted to get into the house to use the telephone, and they didn't know about George's rule no telephones in his house. They just want to order some pizzas. That's what they want.
Also here we get the scene where Evelyn discovers zombie Leslie munching on Michael and she just starts screaming, screaming, Leslie, you killed my son. Damn you you killed him. And she screams that like a hundred times. And meanwhile Leslie is just munching in the background.
Yeah what she she does? Kill those re kills the zombie Leslie just like bashing her head against the the tub there.
I think, yeah, and we get she like bashes her head into the tub until we see just fluid leaking down into the tub from behind, and it looks like gray paint.
Yeah, yeah, gray paint. This Yeah, nasty zombie brain juice.
So now the zombies are really inside. I guess they you know, they got lead inside. So they're just wandering all through the hallways. At one point, the butler comes across Professor Airs from earlier. I remember him.
The Professor's here to save the day.
Yeah, And the butler says, oh, Professor, we were getting very worried about you, sir. We've got to get you. We've got to get out of here. But you know, he doesn't quite say this, but it's almost like my what red eyes you have? H So the Professor is, you know, he pounces on Nicholas the butler and starts biting him, and then we have Mark, Mark and James come upon the scene of the Professor eating Nicholas's guts and Mark says, but that's professor ayers, and James says, he's a zombie too.
Then yeah, they put that together.
Yeah, clever, not getting anything past James. So the sun comes up the next day and who's left alive at this point It is Mark, James, Evelyn, and Janet that are still alive, and they're sleeping somewhere. They're in a room with a tile floor and these pastel blue walls. I'm not sure how they got where they are or where it.
Is where they are in relation to the main house.
Yeah, but they decide it's time to move out, so they like move out, and they're going to go ahead for civilization. Janet begs to be left to die rather than moving, but Mark makes her go, and so they wander through the woods and eventually they come to a building at the other edge of the woods and Mark sees a figure in a brown robe with a hood going around the corner and he says, look over there a monk. This must be a monastery exactly. So they head head into the monastery. But uh oh, it's the
wrong kind of monastery. This is a zombie monastery. All the brothers here are zombies, and as soon as they lay eyes on James, they're like dinner is served. They grab him, pull him onto the dinner table, and just start getting the guts.
If they had watched more European horror films, they would know that religious orders get zombified almost immediately, like it's it's a real epidemic.
Does tend to happen? So now, so he gets eaten. Our last three survivors are Janet, Mark and Evelyn, and they get crowded into this weird room with like a staircase and an upper walkway. It's kind of a stone basement room. And this is sort of where our climax takes place, and it leads into the infamous boob bite.
That's right, We get this moment where you know, Eveline's pretty delirious at this point, and to be clear, they've all been cornered in this basement environment and they're they're going to die here. There's not going to be an escape. Suddenly who walks in. It's Michael fully zombie fie, like we can tell he's a zombie now he's walking zombie like.
He's like purple and bloody.
Yeah, yeah, and she's like Michael my son, and she, you know, she reaches out and she embraces this stumbling zombie. Now, remember Michael is short. It only comes up breast high on Evelyn. Michael starts prodding at her shirt and she's again delirious, and she says, yes, let me breastfeed you like I did when you were little. And we all know what happens next, death by zombie boot bite.
And the legitimate laugh out loud at the cutaway to Mark and Janet here looking on with increasing skepticism and then horror as Evelyn is like talking herself into.
This, yeah, because we all know it's gonna happen.
And then oh no, so that's gross, and then the zombies just flood in that they come in from all the doors and there's no escape. At this point, Mark gets grabbed by the zombies and they take him over to a work table where there is a circular saw. It's a circular table saw, and they're like feeding his face toward it.
Oh wow, another upgrade in their technological advancement.
Though exactly they're using power tools.
Now, yeah, they're gonna be gene splicing by the end of the week.
There you go. And then Janet also is just screaming as the zombie monks crowd around, and so we're about to see. Oh no, Mark, he's gonna get his head sawed in half. What's that gonna look like? If Fulci would let us get a look at that? But not so lucky here, No look at that. Instead, it's freeze frame. And then text appears on the screen, and this is what it says. The earth shall tremble, graves shall open, they shall come among the living as messengers of death,
and there shall be the nights of terror. And then its sites a text called Prophecy of the Black Spider. I should have remembered to look that up and see if that's a real thing. I don't know what it is.
I do not know that this is an accurate quote from anything attributed to them, But I believe the Black Spiders at least partially related to some sort of Nostradamus style uh you know, Forecaster of the Future, diviner or what have you, soothsayer. The important thing to note here is that there are what there's at least one misspelling eish text that has played out over the screen here. Ye prophecy p r O F E c Y. It happens. It happens. You just got it. You got to proof
that stuff. Yeah, but it provides the viewers with one last laugh as we close out.
They didn't have Clippi back then. Yeah, I couldn't fix it for you.
I see you're trying to write a closing epilogue though. Yeah. But then but then the it plays again and we get that beautiful music, and you know, then all all
flaws are forgiven. I guess so, so if it was not already overtly obvious, This again is a grubby, gut munching zombie trash film and not a serious psychological study of anything, but it does seem like in its own shallow way, the film is playing around with some of the psychosexual concepts proposed by Sigmund Freud, especially concerning the the oral stage of development, as well as the ideas
of freud associate Carl Abraham. The oral sadistic phase was one of his concepts and Melanie Klein's a good slash bad breast interpretation. This is, this is the idea that, like an infant splits their mother in two, there's the good breast that feeds in the bad breast, which withholds because at this point they can't comprehend that the that
the same person would be capable of both things. Anyway, I hesitate to go to go too deep on any of these concepts because burial Ground gives all of it the exploitation treat me, you know, throw it all into a blinder and then you know, pour it out and paint your picture. So it's ridiculous as it's presented here. But I would argue that it that it does kind of hit in part because it is connecting to some far more complex dualities in the human experience.
Interesting, I mean, I want to go with you there. But I would also I would say that like the Oedipal stuff and all that, it doesn't there's nothing else in the plot other than those scenes that it connects to. So it doesn't, you know, there's no dialogue about anything that would raise these themes in any other way, you know, So it feels very out of nowhere, and for no reason we.
Oh absolutely, Yeah, I'm not making an argument that it is at all well crafted. Yeah, it is too horned in there, and it is only shallowly explored and only you know, really only executed to get a rise out of the audience. But it does get that rise.
I mean though, I would genuinely in this case be fascinated to hear the writer and director explain in their own words what they thought was going on with this stuff. Yeah.
But the flip side is, I don't know that I would want to see the well executed version of this vision anyway, So I'd far prefer like the sloppy, hilarious version of it on film. This is not a film where I'm like, they had great ideas here if only they could have perfected it. No, Burial Ground is perfect as it is.
No, I mean, as you mentioned earlier, I mean, I think the real theme of this movie for some reason is is earth. It's soil. It's something about the relationship between death and birth and the soil of the ground that that's got to be And it's not something that the characters talk about at all, But clearly I think that's a visual theme.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Oh wait, Okay, maybe I'm getting there. Maybe the soil is like the mother of all nature somehow, and.
You want to kiss your mother. Maybe yes, And maybe there's a good bread, good, good breast, bad breast thing with mother nature. It's like, how can mother nature nourish me and also punish me? You know, clearly it is not capable of both. It must be two mother natures? No, but it is one. Yeah, I don't know we're really reaching here.
I think what this really needs is the input of an Etruscan magic scholar. And then I believe so, yeah, all right, does that do it for Burial Ground?
I believe it does. Burial Ground pretty fun if you're into this sort of film, and if you are and you've seen Burial Ground right in, we would love to hear from you, get your take on any of these concepts. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns just talk about a weird film on weird House Cinema. If you are on letterbox dot com, you
can look us up there. Our username is Weird House and we have a nice list of all the films we've covered over the years, and sometimes there's a peek ahead at what comes next. We do not have the entire year plotted out for Weird House Cinema, so as always right in with your recommendations for films that we should consider.
Absolutely huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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