Karin Well, Gianluigi Chirizzi, Simone Mattioli

A professor opens a crypt and reanimates rotten zombies. The zombies attack a jet-set-group which is celebrating a party in a villa nearby...

Flixster Users

49% liked it

563 ratings

Unrated, 90 min.

Directed by: Andrea Bianchi

Release Date: October 15, 1981

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: June 11, 2002

Stats: 240 reviews

Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites

Your Rating



clear rating
Share on: Facebook Twitter

Flixster Reviews (240)


  • May 21, 2008
    *WARNING* - I probably give this movie way more credit (and star rating) than it deserves; but I can't help it, it's extremely nostalgic for me being that I saw it back in '86 (the year I became absolutely obsessed with horror after seeing Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD and Fulci's ZO...( read more)MBIE for the first time). Made in Italy in 1980 by sleaze-master Andrea Bianchi, BURIAL GROUND is nothing more than an imitation of Lucio Fulci's ZOMBI 2 (aka ZOMBIE), which was released a year earlier. In fact BURIAL GROUND was originally released in some areas of Europe as ZOMBIE 3 to cash in on the international box office success of Fulci's ZOMBI 2; which itself was cashing in on the success of George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD (released in Europe as ZOMBI). The scenario I just stated above is pretty much how the Italian exploitation film industry worked in the '80s. With the exception of the cannibal subgenre and the giallo film (which were distinctly Italian), most exploitation films made in Italy in the '80s were imitations of successful films from other countries. However, in my opinion the Italian "knock-offs" were often more entertaining and usually sleazier than the films they were imitating. Now on to the review. "When the moon turns red - the dead shall rise!". In the prologue an anthropologist, excavating a cave, is attacked and eaten by a zombie. Then the credits roll (over a suitably cheesy vocal soundtrack), and then the story follows a group of vacationers, staying at the anthropologist professor's mansion. Once these preliminaries are out of the way and all of the characters are introduced (don't expect much character development from this movie), the story settles into it's real function - to show as many disembowellings, gut-munchings, and assorted gore and gruesomeness as possible in 85 minutes. Most of the zombies in this movie are the usual Italian style oatmeal-faced, mummified corpses rather than the recently deceased. Thankfully the don't run. However, they're pretty handy with toolsl. As a potential victim is leaning out of a second story window, a zombie on the ground below throws a railroad spike which impales her hand to the side of the house; while another zombie raises a long scythe up to the window to decapitate her. Now that's efficiency. They also use axes and other assorted tools to chop down the doors of the mansion, where the remaining survivors are holed up. The "splinter-in-the-eye" scene from Fulci's ZOMBIE is imitated in this film as well; but instead of a huge splinter it's a jagged piece of broken glass! One of the zombified vacationers chows down on an incestuous kid who has run off because his mother slapped him after he tried to feel her up (here's the sleaze-factor I mentioned earlier). The mother finds the zombie eating her son, and bashes the zombies brains out on the side of a bathtub. The said kid comes back as a zombie later in the film, and the mother is so happy to see him that she changes her mind about the incest thing and bares her breast for him. Of course he takes a big chunk out of it (in one of the greatest splatter moments ever). By the way, the actor playing the kid was not really a kid at all but an adult actor named Peter Bark who was pretty small in stature and extrordinarily creepy looking .

    Peter Bark

    The zombified anthropologist professor shows up again and appears in one of the greatest zombie gut-munch scenes ever filmed. This movie has a genuine air of sleaziness to it as evidenced by the aforementioned scenes as well as a high level of splatter/gore. So in closing, if you're a fan of zombie cinema, splatter, and/or Italian horror and you haven't seen this film yet - what the hell are you waiting for! Go get it!
  • June 6, 2007
    Midget in the role of a incestuous son. More disturbing than it sounds.
  • December 1, 2006
    Pure cinematic illness. Cruddy, ugly, scummy atmosphere lends much weight and a certain sense of doom to this sleazy, gory, messy zombie flick. Bianchi is often maligned but his epics are always entertaining if not actually "good." This one has one of the most grotesque and tw...( read more)isted endings of many a zombie flick (it involves incest, breast-eating and a table-saw...) Watch at your own risk.
  • September 15, 2007
    Hilarious, disturbing and fucking gory. This is definetly one for euro shock fans only. It's such a weird story and there's this strange insest thing happening too.
  • January 29, 2007
    Any film with a man-child has 5 stars immediately. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
  • September 26, 2009
    Great gory creepy zombie movie! and by creepy i don't mean the zombies, i mean the kid. He looks like a 40 year old man in a childs body and he really wants to bang his mom! But this movie is a must see for halloween, especially the nipple biting scene!
  • September 15, 2009
    The people who I watched this movie w/ boo'd through the entire thing & a have to admit that it's pretty bad (maybe not as deserving to receive so many boos from the peanut gallery). These zombies are so slow (I thought the Zombies were slow in Night of the Living Dead) that the...( read more) pace of Burial Ground is excruciating. The zombies are introduced quickly so the entire film has our survivors running away from zombies, locking zombies out, running away from zombie, locking zombies out..etc. There is some gut munching once someone gets caught but this film really cheats you in the end w/ 4 victims still remaining; w/ them finally trapped by the zombies (one even going to get a little taste of band saw) & then it freezes the end of the movie w/out seeing anybody get some curmudgeons. What a fucking rip off..oh yeah & Peter Bark is creepy as shit especially when he is gnawing tit
  • September 12, 2009
    Peter Bark is creepier in this movie than the zombies!
  • July 13, 2009
    Okay movie,with an unrealistic look of the zombie makeup.
  • July 12, 2009
    The zombies are the real stars of this trashy and repulsive Italian splatter film. The little kid creeped me out.

Critic Reviews


No recent reviews.

Comments


  • sarahzombie
    October 30, 2008
    Ah, the dude playing the 'son' cracks me up. This movie is demented, and I love it.

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

More Like This


Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

  • Diary of the Dead
    Diary of the Dead (0%)
  • Versus
    Versus (50%)
  • From Dusk Till Dawn
    From Dusk Till Dawn (100%)
  • The House By The Cemetery (Quella villa accanto al cimitero)
    The House By The Cemetery (Quella villa accan... (100%)

Theater Showtimes & TV Listings


Le Notti del terrore (Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror) (The Zombie Dead) Trivia

Video Clips


No video clips yet. Want to upload one?

Recent News


No recent headlines. Got one?

Most Popular Skin


No skins yet. Interested in creating one?