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Burial Ground
Aka: Zombie 3
(Italian/Zombie) 5*****skulls
*Blood* *Very Violent* *No Strong Language* *Nudity* *Sexual Situations* *Extremely Gory*
1979/Color/85 Min./Vestron Video & Film Concept Group Inc./Italy/
Not Rated
Director.............Andrea Bianchi
Screenplay.......Piero Regnoli
Music................Elsio Mancuso & Burt Rexon
Producer...........Gabrielle Crisanti
Special Make-up Effects by Rosario Prestopino
Cast:*
Evelyn............Maria Angela Giordano
(not available) Karin Well
Gian Luigi Chirizzi
Simone Mattioli
Antonietta Antinori
Roberto Caporali
Peter Bark
Claudio Zucchett
Anna Valente
Renato Barbieri
Critique: Low film quality and low everything quality, and like so many Italian zombie films, this film comes in a bit too quickly with the zombies, and the result is that there is not much left to anticipate. The zombies themselves are quite well done, replete with maggots and parading various stages of decay. Some of them are quite handsome. There are some pace problems--the march of zombies sometimes lulls the viewer himself into a zombie-like state. However, all in all, a decent premise for a zombie movie: we've had Knights Templar, Heretics, Teutonic Knights, why the hell not Etruscans? Dr. Carol J. Clover ("Men, Women, and Chain Saws") theorizes that the American Redneck film is a result of American guilt over the annihilation of the native Americans. Could it be that the Roman answer to this is a guilt complex regarding excommunicated knights, pagans, and other heretics? Worth renting for what is clearly one of the most remarkable and shocking Oedipal scenes in the history of cinema.
Plot Summary: Professor Ayers is studying the ancient Etruscan spells concerning the the survival of the dead. His uncovering of the secret appears to have uncovered the Etruscans themselves. The Professor is gobbled up in a subterranean keep. We see zombies shambling up from their tombs. The dessicated corpses continue to rise. Michael intrudes on his mother in bed with a man. Does his angry reaction foretell an Oedipal conflict to come? A corpse crawls toward a pair of lovers involved in a sexual situation. They run away, easily avoiding the galumphing goons. However, the dead continue to rise, and soon the grounds are saturated with them. Shooting the shamblers doesn't succeed, and soon we have a feast as the zombies pull their next victim apart. It appears they (a) seek living flesh and (b) "can be destroyed by blowing their heads off", as is the case with so many of their ilk. Michael, a sickly child, is obviously taken by the primal scene at the beginning and is soon caressing his mother in a more than filial way, telling her of his need, reminding her of how she used to hold him. Mother, however, is offput and scorns his pawing. The creeping continues. Michael is soon devoured, and mother attacks the devourer--is it just the murder of her son that brings about such violence, or is it the vengeance of unrequited love? Dr. Ayer is now zombified, and devours a disciple at length. Will Michael rise again?
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