Burial Ground (1981)

Director: Andrea Bianchi
Writer(s): Piero Regnoli
Starring: Karin Well, Gianluigi Chirizzi, Simone Mattioli, and Peter Bark

I saw Burial Ground (aka Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror) once as a teenager, and was immediately enthralled by its complete lack of plot, which felt exactly like the kinds of films I was attempting to write in school right around that time. I was never much into the time required to fully flesh out characters, and so my scripts would usually require the action to start well before the tenth page, or else I would quickly lose interest in it (I actually lost interest in just about all of them regardless...out of dozens of attempts, I only finished two or three, and they are awful by today's standards). Sure enough, here we are treated to a brief (five minutes or so) introduction that ever-so-vaguely hints at a cause for the ensuing zombie outbreak, another five minutes (or so) featuring characters meeting in a villa, and then the rest of the movie is survivors vs. zombies in an all-out zombie apocalypse.

I kind of have to give it some credit for that, because once the zombies start rising, the film never slows down or eases up on the survivors, who all tend to stand around until the last possible moment before fleeing from the oncoming hordes. Unfortunately, that's about all I can give it, because, while it manages to be entertaining for long stretches (unintentionally, of course, but “entertaining” nonetheless), there's very little talent on either side of the camera.

It clearly takes its queue from the sudden international success of Lucio Fulci's Zombie (which, in turn, took its queue from the sudden international success of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead). I've not made it a secret that I greatly admire Fulci's film--while still acknowledging it has more than its fair share of flaws—but what makes Fulci's vision work are the stupendous special effects. Sure, its characters are sublimely stupid, and unforgivably so, with the writers often having their characters stand “paralyzed with fear”, conveniently giving the incredibly-slow corpses time to shamble over and finish them off, but it worked because the make-up effects are still impressive to this day, while the gore effects just may be some of the best ever put to film.

Burial Ground is what would have happened had Fulci been a complete Z-grade director, with large chunks of screentime dedicated to lingering closeups of poorly made-up zombies slowly inching their way toward hapless victims, ear-piercing high-pitched synths often providing the sole musical backdrop for attack scenes (sounds made even more unbearable when seen in a theater, which I had the fortune of doing for the second viewing upon which this review is based). It has the feeling of a production that was shot and edited over the course of a single weekend, with only a day allotted for the atrocious English dubbing. The make-up effects, I suppose, are acceptable, but some of the zombies do look more humorous than scary, which offers up even more unintentional laughs. Meanwhile, the gore effects leave a lot to be desired, though many just consist of watching zombies tear out the insides of hapless victims, before gorging on their organs. It's appropriately disgusting, but the other effects are rare, generally weak and surprisingly tame.

The film would probably have slipped into complete cinematic limbo were it not for the random inclusion of a small child who is sexually obsessed with his mother. Played by 25-year-old Peter Bark, “Michael”, as he is known in the movie, has become a character of legend, with his likeness bearing T-shirts and other merchandise, even to this day. It shouldn't need to be said, but every sequence between Michael and his mother manages to be supremely uncomfortable, whether he's getting jealous as he watches her kiss his father (?), or attempting to feel her up as he makes out with her (?!); the infamous “climactic” scene between the two just may be one of the most nauseating scenes in movie history. (He does mostly redeem himself with one scene. Early on in the film, before the zombies attack, he grabs a random piece of cloth sitting on the floor, sniffs it, makes a weird face, shambles over to his mother, hands the cloth to her, and says, "Mother, this cloth smells of death!" I'd be lying if I didn't admit this is one of my favorite movie quotes of any film ever made.)

This is the kind of movie that will only appeal to a certain clique, and I cannot say that I am firmly entrenched within such a group. Sure, it has enough moments to keep you awake, but none of it could even remotely be classified as “gripping” or “suspenseful”. It's just an extreme cinematic cash grab, quickly written and shot so as to capitalize on the then-newfound explosion of the Italian zombie subgenre; seeing it in a theater only seems to heighten the amateurishness on display (while also magnifying the impact of the ridiculousness of it all). I have always admired it for its brazen lack of anything resembling a coherent story, but unfortunately when every other facet of the film suffers in a similar fashion, and the high point involves a weird-looking midget with a mommy fetish, there just isn't much there to recommend.

RATING: 3.5/10

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Nightmare City (1980)

Director: Umberto Lenzi
Writer(s): Antonio Cesare Corti, Luis María Delgado, Piero Regnoli
Starring: Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, and Francisco Rabal

Aaaah, the Italian zombie movie. On the one hand, it has provided us some classics, such as Lucio Fulci’s 1979 epic, simply and appropriately titled Zombie, and on the other, it has given us some abominations, like Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City. This is a film so inept, that it goes beyond the entertaining kind of bad, and instead becomes a masochistic exercise of unbearable proportions—and of course, I am talking about for the viewer.

Fulci’s zombie exercise worked because, although the plot was threadbare, and the writing atrocious, it was obvious that time and care went into something on the production; of course, I would be referring to the effects, both in the gore, and the make-up department. Very rarely are either of those anything less than astonishing, and that’s even comparing them to modern films, who have mastered the art of computer-generated blood but will never master the spirit of the “real” thing.

Lenzi’s film does not work, because the whole film looks like it was written and shot in one of those 72-hour filmmaking competitions, where contestants have three days to write, shoot, and edit a movie. The “zombies”, which I guess for technicality’s sake, are actually “mutants” (though billed as zombies in all film-related literature) simply look as if they’ve had mud smashed onto their faces, while a vast majority of the kill scenes simply consist of poorly edited attacks—a zombie will apparently stab (more on this later) a victim in the chest, with the camera set up behind the victim, the camera will cut to a shot in front of the victim, and all of a sudden the person’s face is covered in blood.

As with many Italian horror films period, this one is only loosely plotted: An airplane lands on a runway in an unmarked European city. After it becomes apparent there is no one in the cockpit, police are called to the scene to investigate. A reporter, Dean, is on hand to interview a scientist about a radioactive accident that is all over the news. He brings his cameraman with him to investigate this mysterious plane, in the meantime. Finally, the doors open, and out step the mud-faced radioactive mutant-zombies. What makes these undead creatures even more interesting than the normal brain-dead shamblers we’ve seen in so many previous movies, is that not only can these run, but they also seem to retain similar brain capacity compared to when they were alive. This spells trouble for survivors, because these mutant-corpses can shoot guns, swing axes, and stab with knives—so basically, they’re just radioactive supermen described as zombies in an attempt to appeal to the masses.

Anyway, Dean is so horrified by what he sees, that he runs to the nearest television station and interrupts a terrible live dance routine to try to warn people about the impending attack. Surprisingly, television station owners don’t take kindly to people interrupting their shows to ramble on about gun-toting zombies, and so his speech is cut off, and he is kicked out of the station. Down but not out, he instead narrows his focus; instead of trying to warn everyone in the city, he sets his sights on just warning his wife, Anna, who works at a nearby hospital.

After they escape the hospital (which is under attack), the rest of the movie consists of the couple on the run against seemingly insurmountable odds, interspersed with random footage of large groups of people being killed by the mutant beasts. That might sound like a formula that could work, but given the uncoordinated “fight” and kill scenes, it all just comes off as an improvised, rushed mess. Even the Dean and Anna scenes are largely uneventful, with Dean briskly walking away from a threat of danger that never feels urgent.

It doesn’t help matters that Dean is the kind of character who is always so calm and collected, that he can’t be bothered to run, even when the situation dictates it. His face also seems to be used only when absolutely necessary, meaning he frequently looks blank and lifeless in the face of dangerous situations, and this is the guy that we’re supposed to be rooting for. There’s also something that annoys me about his wiry facial hair that I can’t quite put my finger on…it looks like it was glued on, or something. Everything about him screams the opposite of “tough lead character in a mutant-zombie film”; “librarian” would be more the character that springs to mind.

I know, I know, these movies are often terrible and, to an extent, that’s their appeal. But as I said earlier, there has to be a line between “enjoyable bad”, and “just plain bad bad”, and this one tends to fit snugly in the latter category. It’s very rarely humorous, whether intentionally or not, and the kill scenes are largely thrown-together; as is everything else. Even Stelvio Cipriani’s score feels out-of-place, and he’s usually pretty reliable: it might be a pretty decent score, just not for this film. It’s not scary, it’s not adrenaline-pumping…it’s just a rather slow slog that never amounts to much. I guess in this regard, it might have more in common with the film than one would think.

RECAP: Nightmare City is that worst kind of horror film: one that’s so plainly godawful that it’s not even entertaining in a bad kinda way. The kill scenes are poorly-staged and terribly-edited, while the gore scenes are cheap and hokey. Makeup effects consist only of smearing mud on people’s faces, apparently, so even those are pure hokum. Even Stelvio Cipriani’s score feels like it was just thrown in randomly, and his music is usually pretty close to a sure thing. I really want to end this on a positive note, but I’m seriously struggling to even come up with a positive that I can justify. This movie does have a following, so fans of this kind of movie might like it, but I’m definitely not among its champions.

OVERALL RATING: 1.5/10

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