"Mother, this cloth smells of death!" Ewww! What else have you been sniffing, Michael? Join your faithful Grue Crew - Bill Mulligan, Chad Hunt, Crystal Cleveland, and Jeff Mohr - as they visit a genuine castle and witness the awakening of “living dead corpses” in Burial Ground (1981).
Decades of Horror 1980s
Episode 161 – Burial Ground (1981)
An archaeology professor discovers an ancient crypt that contains living dead corpses. The zombies go on a rampage and attack a group of people which the professor had invited to celebrate his discovery.
IMDb
What can be said about Burial Ground? As a low budget Italian zombie flick, it mightily tries to mimic Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (aka Zombi 2, 1979), and even uses Zombie 3 as one of its many, many titles, but it falls far short. Without exception, the Decades of Horror 1980s Grue Crew are gobsmacked by the presence of Michael, the film’s preteen character, played by an actor in his mid-twenties, who has an exceedingly creepy relationship with his mother. Exceedingly creepy! Trust them. Once you see his scenes, you won’t forget them. On the other hand, the 80s Grue-Crew finds the variety of zombie makeup effects to be, at least, interesting.
Does Burial Ground slide into the “so-bad-it’s-good” category? You’ll have to be the judge of that. You will, however, never forget it. Burial Ground is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime and as physical media on a Blu-ray from Severin.
Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The next episode will be dedicated to an interview with special effects artist Ed Martinez who joined the 1980s Grue Crew on episode 159 for our discussion on Dead Pit (1989) for which he was director of special effects.
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