Burial Ground (1980)

Man o’ man! If you like your zombie flicks really, really, dumb and loaded with sex, sleaze, and cheap (and I mean cheap) gore then “Burial Ground” is right up your alley. And if you answered no to the above, then what the hell are you doing here at the Apocalypse? Get lost before Zombo bites you in the ass!!

At a secluded castle somewhere in the European countryside, a bearded dude called the “Professor” has somehow resurrected the dead from their cave like tombs, just in time for them to attack a group of dimwits staying at the castle for a weekend of debauchery. Sounds simple huh? Zombie’s rise, zombie’s attack, and zombie’s decimate everything in their path! While this film is of course horribly acted and rather slow and tedious at times, not to mention incredibly dumb, several things are the saving grace for this flick. First, the undead fuckers in this one simply do not screw around. They waste no time in coming back to life and chomping on some euro trash ass. They are also pretty handy with various tools as they utilize a battering ram, scythe, steel spike, and buzz saw to their proper potential. These zombies would be ideal for a guest appearance on one of those yuppie “home remodeling” shows we see on the Discovery Channel. Man, the possibilities! Now, what I remembered from the old and rather dark U.S. tape was that the zombies looked pretty damn cool…sort of in the Fulci vein of things only slightly cheaper, if you can imagine that. That memory was ruined though when I watched the new “Shriek Show” DVD, which re-mastered everything so well that you can see how lame the zombies actually look. I can’t bitch too much though, most have loads of maggots and worms in their eyes and some are actually sorta creepy looking as well. Besides the undead, this flick contains the now infamous “weird looking thirty year old playing a nine year old that makes out with his mom and comes back as a zombie to bite her boob off” scene. That’s simply some wonderful sleaze my friends. The gore is plentiful and crude, with plenty of intestine ripping, neck biting, and scythe decapitating action. There also is a scene that will remind you of Fulci’s “Zombie”, in which a glass sliver (replacing the ten inch wood splinter) is slowly introduced to a very exposed and vulnerable eyeball. My only regret in the gore department was that they never showed the guy at the end get sliced up by that buzz saw…maybe the money ran out by that point huh?

Though not really a classic by any means, this is one of those “guilty treasures” as they say. If you go into this one knowing it’s going to be real bad and have plenty of suds and smart-ass friends surrounding you, a good time will be had.