BURIAL GROUND

With a cast made up of Italian porn stars and a 45 year old midget passed off as a 12 year old boy, you know you're in for something different. Opening in an Etruscan cemetery, a bearded scientist accidently awakes the dead by tapping on a stone with a hammer. Well they must be light sleepers, 'cause a whole horde of the fuckers attack him within seconds, and despite his cries of "Don't eat me, i'm your friend," the good professor is zombie food.

Unaware of the danger, a group of aristocrates show up at the mansion next to the Etruscan tombs. After about 10 minutes of sleazy (yet boring) sex scenes, the dead arrive, and the action is unrelenting until the end.

It's the same basic people locked up in a house with zombies outside trying to get in, but Bianchi put a lot of effort into keeping the pace steady. The zombies are of the slow, staggering variety, but occasionaly use a throwing knife or a battering ram. There must have been a kick ass tool shed on the grounds, because the zombie get ahold of sycthes, pitchforks, axes, hammers and saws which they put to use on the house and it's inhabitants.

The make up, by is pretty bad, mostly poorly done masks and big Monty Python teeth, but the special effects, courtesy of Gianetto De Rossi (who also worked on Zombie) are very good. Lots of decapitations, gut ripping, slow-mo pus-exploding bullet hits and a eye ball puncture or two.

A lot of people gripe about this movie, but i can't see why. I mean, sure it's trash, but damn good trash. A non-stop parade of gore, some tits, hilariously awful dubbing and a downbeat ending, not to mention the bizarre incest sub plot between the midget and his mom, culminating in the zombified kid biting off his mommy's nipple! Now to me, thats some good shit.

A real trashy flick made by trash vets: Director Andrea Bianchi, writer Piero Regnoli, Composer Berto Pisano, all worked together on previous films like Nude Per L'Assassino and Malabimba, and they know how to deliver the goods.

Don't listen to what others say, this one's a winner. Find a copy somewhere and watch it. The bad thing is the US version (Vestron), while uncut, is badly cropped and severly dark in spots. This isn't Vestron's fault, but the US distibuter who picked up this film had it chemically darkend to tone down the more violent scenes. Why? who the fuck knows, it was still released with an X rating so why bother? The same process was used for the climax of Taxi Driver, but not nearly as bad as here. Fans may rejoice though because i heard Anchor Bay is planning on releasing this one in a new 16x9 enhanced widescreen version sometime in 2001. woohoo!