Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 2: Happy New Year to everyone. Of course, as we enter
Speaker 2: a new year, it's out with the old and in
Speaker 2: with the new. Right wrong, because it's going to be
Speaker 2: out with the new and in with the old. As
Speaker 2: in The Rising Dead the Undead. We're kicking off twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six on Weird House Cinema with a healthy dose
Speaker 2: of optimism, but with Keith gritted against the onslaught of decay.
Speaker 2: It's time to discuss another grotesque Italian gut munching zombie
Speaker 2: film from the nineteen eighties. Yes, we just did one
Speaker 2: in October, but now it's January and the dead must
Speaker 2: rise again.
Speaker 3: Well put, yeah, this is going to be I think
Speaker 3: of a somewhat different flavor in The one we did
Speaker 3: in October was actually our Halloween episode was for Luccio
Speaker 3: Fulci's City of the Living Dead, part of his Gates
Speaker 3: of Hell trilogy. A weird, dream like, almost free associative
Speaker 3: kind of wander through strange bits of gore and characters
Speaker 3: that don't make a lot of sense, but it's always
Speaker 3: a both gross and nice texture to be over there
Speaker 3: in fulciville. Today's film, the nineteen eighty one zombie movie
Speaker 3: Burial Ground, I would say is at least as much
Speaker 3: fun for me, at least as a City of the
Speaker 3: Living Dead, but I would say a notable downgrade in
Speaker 3: the quality of the dream like imagery. It is a
Speaker 3: more ground level film, and in a way you could
Speaker 3: almost say that's a virtue of it because somehow one
Speaker 3: of its main themes is dirt.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the film's most well known title
Speaker 2: is Burial Ground. It is essentially dirt. The movie is
Speaker 2: essentially dirt. The motion picture yes, Earth Earth.
Speaker 3: You will see it sort of like unfolding as things
Speaker 3: come up from under the turf in the gardens. The
Speaker 3: zombies have a very earthy quality to them. We'll discuss
Speaker 3: more about this later, but Rob, I think was it
Speaker 3: off mic the other day you were comparing the zombies
Speaker 3: in this movie almost like Earth elementals.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and not only this movie, but also certain
Speaker 2: other Fulcy films, especially his movie Zombie or Zombie two.
Speaker 2: Get into that in just a second, but a number
Speaker 2: of these most famous Italian zombie films of the era
Speaker 2: do have these very earthy looking zombies, where a lot
Speaker 2: of effort was put into making them appear not just
Speaker 2: recently dead, but long dead, so dead that they have
Speaker 2: become part of the soil and even have worms wriggling
Speaker 2: throughout their bodies. Now, those worms might not be completely
Speaker 2: biologically accurate. They might be earthworms, they might be maggots
Speaker 2: that have no business on them on a three hundred
Speaker 2: year old corpse, but there are a lot of effort
Speaker 2: is put into giving them that revolting, long dead look.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree, and.
Speaker 2: Part of that is that they are so dead that
Speaker 2: they are probably mostly soil at that point. There's a
Speaker 2: strong case could be made that yes, they're more animated
Speaker 2: soil than they are reanimated body. And you could probably
Speaker 2: do a fair amount of zombie navel gazing over all
Speaker 2: of this as well. But to be clear, the movie
Speaker 2: we were watching here today is not a deep film
Speaker 2: it is. It doesn't even have that dream like depth
Speaker 2: to it. You can certainly toss around a number of
Speaker 2: interesting concepts that come up in the film, but it
Speaker 2: is again sort of a fast and dirty Italian trash
Speaker 2: zombie film, and I love it.
Speaker 3: For that my first experience of burial ground. I don't
Speaker 3: remember what year this was, but I don't know, maybe
Speaker 3: four or five years ago. My friend Chuck came down
Speaker 3: to visit us and he showed you know, so he
Speaker 3: showed up at our house with, you know, a collection
Speaker 3: of horror movies, as he often does. You know, we
Speaker 3: watch a lot of horror movies together, especially a lot
Speaker 3: of Italian horror movies, and this was at the top
Speaker 3: of his pile. I'd never heard of it, never seen it,
Speaker 3: didn't know what I was in for. But he was
Speaker 3: just like, you need to meet a character named Michael.
Speaker 3: So we put it on and afterwards Rachel and I
Speaker 3: were very like, what did we just watch? There is
Speaker 3: a lot, I mean, there are a lot of images
Speaker 3: people recall from this movie, some weird bits of gore
Speaker 3: and the kind of the strange combination of like the
Speaker 3: baroque mansion setting and the very earthy, soil ridden zombies.
Speaker 3: But yeah, one of the things that really sticks with
Speaker 3: people about this movie is the creepiest human character, an
Speaker 3: old man slash child named Michael, who in age is
Speaker 3: in some of the weirdest and most shocking behavior this film.
Speaker 3: I guess what this movie has in common with another
Speaker 3: movie we covered this past year, the Stephen King movie Sleepwalkers,
Speaker 3: is out of nowhere Oedipus complex stuff that really doesn't
Speaker 3: connect to anything else in the movie.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, it's a head scratcher in that regard.
Speaker 2: We'll get into the basically two main scenes that play out,
Speaker 2: three main scenes that play out that pushed this this storyline.
Speaker 2: But it's mostly about the zombies, and that's one of
Speaker 2: the reasons. This is one of many films that was
Speaker 2: released in Italy as Zombie three, not to be confused
Speaker 2: with ful Chi's Zombie three, a sequel to his Zombie two,
Speaker 2: which was an uno unofficial sequel to Romero's nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: eight film Dawn of the Dead, which was released in
Speaker 2: Italy as Zombie. So ful chie Zombie three is the
Speaker 2: official Zombie three, as much as these things can at
Speaker 2: all be settled.
Speaker 3: You mean it's the official unofficial Zombie three, and this
Speaker 3: would be yeah, and this would be the unofficial unofficial
Speaker 3: Zombie three.
Speaker 2: Right, we have one of many, I believe. Yeah. I
Speaker 2: think we've probably watched an unofficial Zombie three before, or
Speaker 2: at least we've discussed them before. All right, elevator pitch
Speaker 2: For this one, I'm gonna go with one of the
Speaker 2: other titles for it, The Nights of Terror, except mostly
Speaker 2: during the day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and sometimes alternating cuts between night and day, just
Speaker 3: going back and forth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think in general it's supposed to be
Speaker 2: like one night, not even nights, but sometimes it's the
Speaker 2: Nights of Terror. I don't know. Let's listen to part
Speaker 2: of that trailer. Yes, no, no, alright, so that's just
Speaker 2: sample from the trailer because it's mostly music and screams
Speaker 2: and so so forth. But hopefully you heard a little
Speaker 2: bit of the music, because I have to say, this
Speaker 2: is one of those Italian horror movies where the music
Speaker 2: really does a lot of heavy lifting.
Speaker 3: I like the music in this one. It's pretty solid.
Speaker 2: We'll come back to that more when we talk about
Speaker 2: the folks who did the score, and as we get
Speaker 2: into the plot and speaking of which, Yeah, we're going
Speaker 2: to get into the plot in here a bit. We're
Speaker 2: gonna start spoiling some things. If you would like to
Speaker 2: jump out and watch Burial Ground for yourself, well, just
Speaker 2: looking around here in the States. As of this recording,
Speaker 2: it's currently streamable on services like to be the excellent
Speaker 2: Eternal Family. If you want to pick it up on disc,
Speaker 2: head to your local video store. But also you can
Speaker 2: just buy an excellent version from Severn. That's what I
Speaker 2: did it. I'm going to hold it up for you, Joe.
Speaker 2: No one else can see this, but there you go.
Speaker 2: It features a new restored two K scan with full
Speaker 2: shot by shot color correction, various extra features that I'll
Speaker 2: refer to as we discussed the film, and a limited
Speaker 2: edition slip case by the always excellent Wes Benzcotter. So
Speaker 2: I had to pick this one up during one of
Speaker 2: Severn's recent Black Friday sales, and I'm glad I did.
Speaker 2: It will proudly be displayed inside the drawer where my
Speaker 2: wife lets me keep my horrid blue rays.
Speaker 3: Oh well, you're not allowed to have a stack on
Speaker 3: the floor like me, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I like them in the drawer too. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like it's like a secret stash of trashy films.
Speaker 3: I cherish my stack.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, shall we discuss some of the folks
Speaker 2: behind this film? I think most of them all but
Speaker 2: one are people we haven't discussed before. But most of
Speaker 2: them are a little more obscure. So the director here
Speaker 2: is Andrea Bianchi, who lived nineteen twenty five through twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Italian film director, best known for his harrorjallo and sexploitation films,
Speaker 2: but he also directed comedies, dramas, actions, and even one
Speaker 2: family film, nineteen seventy two's Treasure Island starring Orson Wells
Speaker 2: as Long John Silver.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen that one, but well I would like to. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Orson as Long John Silver.
Speaker 2: It can only be amusing and entertaining on some level,
Speaker 2: bad or good. Yeah, it probably must be seen. So
Speaker 2: Burial Ground is perhaps his best known film internationally, but
Speaker 2: for people more like into Italian exploitation films in eurocinema,
Speaker 2: they might be familiar with some of these other titles.
Speaker 2: They're seventy two's What the Peeper Saw that has Brett
Speaker 2: Ecklund in it and child star Mark Lester, who is
Speaker 2: an Oliver. That's supposed to be rather controversial. There's nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four's Cry of a Prostitute starring Henry Silva. This
Speaker 2: is said to be one of his better films, not
Speaker 2: Henry Silva, Beyonce's better films. There's the seventy five Gjallo
Speaker 2: strip Nude for Your Killer.
Speaker 3: That one great tasteful title, you know in the Jallo tradition.
Speaker 3: Rachel and I actually rented that one for Jallo Knight
Speaker 3: a few years back, and I recall that being a
Speaker 3: particularly like sweaty, odious bizarre of woman hating and gory
Speaker 3: seventies weirdness. But sometimes that's what you get on Jaalo Knight.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see. There's also an exploitation film in
Speaker 2: the mix, seventy nine's Malabimba, And there's nineteen eighty five's
Speaker 2: Angel of Death aka Commando Mangola, co directed by Jess Franco,
Speaker 2: with Howard Vernon playing Joseph Mangola, and it's apparently an
Speaker 2: action movie. So yeah, there's some some trashy and questionable
Speaker 2: titles in the filmography there. Yeah, multiple interview subjects on
Speaker 2: the extras on the disc that I watched, though commented
Speaker 2: on the director here being a silver haired gentleman, very
Speaker 2: professional to work with, but mostly remembered for his trashier films. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right. The screenplay here is by Piero Regnoli, who
Speaker 2: lived nineteen twenty one through two thousand and one. Italian screenwriter,
Speaker 2: active from nineteen fifty one through nineteen ninety seven. His
Speaker 2: filmography is an Italian B movie explosion. We're talking peplam,
Speaker 2: Western's action, romance, erotica, and of course various shades of horror,
Speaker 2: so the likes of fifty seven's Lust of the Vampire
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, Patrick Still Lives. Sixty six is Navajo Joe
Speaker 2: starring Burt Reynolds, Heromberto Lindsay's Nightmare City from nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: eighty two's The Sword of the Barbarians and Guna and
Speaker 2: King of the Barbarians, and Sergio Martinez The Smile of
Speaker 2: the Fox from nineteen ninety two. He wrote four films
Speaker 2: for Andrea Bianci, Crib, The Prostitute, Malabimba, Burial Ground, which
Speaker 2: we're talking about m Patrick Still Lives. He also wrote
Speaker 2: three Luccio Fulci films. Seventy three is White Fang, nineteen
Speaker 2: nineties Demonia and nineteen ninety one's Voices from Beyond.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know if I've seen any of those three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are three that I haven't seen either. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: with Voices from the Beyond being definitely one of the
Speaker 2: both that in Demonia being two of the later pictures
Speaker 2: in his filmography. All right, let's get into the cast here,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to cover them in different order than
Speaker 2: they're build because the decaying heart of this picture in
Speaker 2: Key tow It's reputation is the oedipal relationship between Evelyn
Speaker 2: and her son Michael.
Speaker 3: Yes, which goes pretty much in one direction.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, all right, So starting with the family unit,
Speaker 2: there's basically like a man and a woman and a child,
Speaker 2: and then like two other couples. Yeah, some supporting characters
Speaker 2: and a bunch of zombies, so this won't take too long.
Speaker 2: But yeah, starting at the top. Playing Evelyn Michael's hot
Speaker 2: mom is mari Angelo Giordano, who lived nineteen thirty seven
Speaker 2: through twenty eleven, Italian actress of stage and screen, former
Speaker 2: beauty queen who acted in all manner of films, including historical epics, westerns, comedies,
Speaker 2: but she's often best remembered for her roles in horror
Speaker 2: exploitation cinema of the seventies and eighties. These include a
Speaker 2: pair of nineteen seventy films, Jalloh and Venice, and the
Speaker 2: aforementioned Malabemba nineteen eighties. Patrick Still Lives, which by the way,
Speaker 2: was an unauthorized sequel in and out itself to the
Speaker 2: Australian horror film Patrick Let's See nineteen eighty two, Satan's
Speaker 2: Baby Doll and Michael Suavees The Sect in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: one and Let's See Oh. Also of note, she played
Speaker 2: Countess von Fladermouse in the nineteen ninety six Jess Franco
Speaker 2: film Killer Barbies, about a Spanish female punk band that
Speaker 2: winds up in a haunted house. That one also starred
Speaker 2: Santiago Segura from Day of the Beast that we recently
Speaker 2: covered on the show.
Speaker 3: I would be interested to see this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like it might be fun. I can't tell.
Speaker 2: I don't know much about it, all right, So that's
Speaker 2: Evelyn the mother. She was about forty three when this
Speaker 2: movie was filmed, and then playing her son, Michael is
Speaker 2: Peter Bark born nineteen fifty five, who I believe was
Speaker 2: like twenty five at the time.
Speaker 3: That is odd. My impression is that Michael is supposed
Speaker 3: to be like ten. I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 3: something like that, But he looks like he's been being
Speaker 3: played by an old man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it seems like the situation here is they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's really go for an uncomfortable, edible fixation on the
Speaker 2: part of the child, and then we'll have a zombie
Speaker 2: payoff on that later on. But they couldn't cast an
Speaker 2: actual child in a role like this, so they got
Speaker 2: a very short, fully grown man to play the role.
Speaker 2: And then I'm just spitballing here, but I'm guessing they realized,
Speaker 2: you know, it's really hard to buy him as an
Speaker 2: actual child, Like he straight up just looks like a man,
Speaker 2: doesn't go off all. Yeah, right, so then maybe they
Speaker 2: just leaned into it more and that's one of the
Speaker 2: reasons we have just such a But it's just such
Speaker 2: a bizarre relationship portrayed on the screen. I mean, to
Speaker 2: be clear, you never really mistake any of the human
Speaker 2: characters in this for real people, you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: not that sort of film. But you never buy this
Speaker 2: guy as as a kid. He's you just get this
Speaker 2: uncanny feeling about him, though, and that does feel like
Speaker 2: legitimately weird and unsettling on the screen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess he is part little kid, part twenty
Speaker 3: five year old, part old man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, because he's also yeah, he's made up in
Speaker 2: kind of ghastly makeup. Yes, so he does. Even before
Speaker 2: he you know, spoiler, gets zombiefied. That's going to come
Speaker 2: much later. But yeah, even before then, he already feels
Speaker 2: weird and otherworldly.
Speaker 3: It looks like they have gone out of their way
Speaker 3: to make him look pale and sickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so Peter bark here. He only has
Speaker 2: a scattering of credits, mostly Italian screwball comedies from seventy
Speaker 2: nine through eighty three, and this is his only horror film,
Speaker 2: all right, And then so that's that's Evelyn, Evelyn's kid,
Speaker 2: and then Evelyn's husband or current partner. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: This is George and he is played by Roberto Capperatti.
Speaker 2: Dates unknown on this particular actor. He was active from
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty through nineteen ninety four, and this and nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty's Terror Express are his only horror films. But is ohka, sorry,
Speaker 2: I didn't mean to interrupt. I was just gonna say.
Speaker 2: His other work seems pretty varied, including Fellini's nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: three film and The Ship Sails On and you know,
Speaker 2: supporting role.
Speaker 3: You know, he's also in an uncanny age range When
Speaker 3: I first saw him, I was thinking, like, okay, guy
Speaker 3: in his forties, and then I got a different angle
Speaker 3: on him, and I'm like, guy in his sixties. Maybe
Speaker 3: I could can quite tell like he was alternating. And
Speaker 3: also he looks significantly younger or older based on what
Speaker 3: he's wearing, Like he looks like an older guy when
Speaker 3: they put him in that skin tight, long sleeve red
Speaker 3: T shirt where he almost looks like like he's a
Speaker 3: member of the Enterprise crew in Wrath of Khan with
Speaker 3: the red he's got that that Shatner look.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess maybe the situation George owns the
Speaker 2: like the manor house they're going to. Yeah, so maybe
Speaker 2: he's like, you know, richer, older guy. And then Evelyn
Speaker 2: is his newer, younger love interest, but she happens to
Speaker 2: have this weird son, and so that's their their new
Speaker 2: like you know, sort of perverse atomic nuclear family here.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I guess, so, all right, so that's
Speaker 2: that's that group. But then we have two couples. First
Speaker 2: of all, we have Janet and Mark. Janet is played
Speaker 2: by Karen Well born nineteen fifty four. She's she's actually
Speaker 2: top build Italian actress, who mostly did sex comedies and
Speaker 2: erotic films, but with some other genre work thrown in there.
Speaker 2: Her films include seventy seven's The Perfect Killer starring Lee
Speaker 2: Van Cleef, and eighty six's Convent of Sinners That's a
Speaker 2: Joe Demata picture. And then playing Mark is Jean Luigi
Speaker 2: Choditzi dates unknown as well, active from seventy three through
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one, with this being his last film. His
Speaker 2: other films includes seventy Threes than None in the Devil.
Speaker 3: This couple is funny. When we first meet them, she's
Speaker 3: already having premonitions of terrible things to come, and he's
Speaker 3: just like, what will everyone think if everyone will think
Speaker 3: you foolish if you leave this place early? But joke's
Speaker 3: on him.
Speaker 2: Huh Yeah, And her premonition here doesn't really go anywhere.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of like there's usually somebody in a
Speaker 2: movie like this who has a bad feeling about this.
Speaker 2: Therefore that's Janet.
Speaker 3: She also she gets stuck in a bear trap in
Speaker 3: like a beautiful garden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a bear trap maybe for the Etruscan zombies, but
Speaker 2: it could be a zombie trap. Yeah, all right. And
Speaker 2: then our other couple is Leslie and James Leslie is
Speaker 2: played by Antonella Antoni. Dates unknown, active from seventy six
Speaker 2: through at least twenty twenty one or seventy six through
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety, depending on which database you believe. I'm more
Speaker 2: inclined to think seventy six through nineteen ninety. That's just
Speaker 2: my guess, and maybe there's some sort of you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes there's name confusion in the databases. In either case,
Speaker 2: she'd previously been in some Italian sex comedies. Her other
Speaker 2: horror titles include seventy nine's Play Hotel, eighty nine's Maya,
Speaker 2: and eighty nine's Eyewitness and Then playing James is Simone
Speaker 2: Mattiali Dates unknown. Primarily a theater actor. There's actually an
Speaker 2: interview with him on the disc, but he was active
Speaker 2: in Italian film and especially TV from nineteen sixty five
Speaker 2: through eighty one. The way he tells that he was
Speaker 2: primarily focused on theatre and especially with this film. Did
Speaker 2: take it just for the money, but this was this
Speaker 2: was his last credited film, so I guess they get
Speaker 2: either the payday was amazing. Maybe he was like, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm just good with theater at this point, but
Speaker 2: he has some other.
Speaker 3: Film he'd seen and done it all by this point.
Speaker 2: It was kind of interesting to hear him talk about
Speaker 2: the filming of Burial Ground, because with a piece of
Speaker 2: like sort of trashy eurocinema like this, it's easy to
Speaker 2: assume that everyone in the picture at this point is
Speaker 2: already a season that of doing nude scenes and then
Speaker 2: having a chunk of their fake flesh torn out of
Speaker 2: their neck by a zombie. But in that interview, he
Speaker 2: reflects on the production and points out that this was
Speaker 2: his first nude scene and he found it very uncomfortable
Speaker 2: and embarrassing to film. So I was kind of like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's that's different insight than I was expecting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, especially since the main characteristic of James and
Speaker 3: Leslie's characters is that they do sex.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's pretty much. Yet, that's well, he's a
Speaker 2: he's a he's a writer, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: brought his typewriter, and then he also does some writing outside,
Speaker 2: just as some free handwriting as well. He can do
Speaker 2: it all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, writing on a notepad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine that people used to do it. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: we also have a we have a few supporting characters.
Speaker 2: There's the Professor. I think we eventually find out his
Speaker 2: last name, but he's I think just credited as Professor's
Speaker 2: professor Ayers, Oh, professor Ayers, Okay yeah, played by Benito Barbieri,
Speaker 2: living Well born nineteen thirty six, presumably still with us,
Speaker 2: seemingly has uncredited appearances in seventy six Salon Kitty and
Speaker 2: eighty six is Othello, a Zephyrrelli picture. Nicholas is played
Speaker 2: by Claudio zukette to Live nineteen thirty five through two
Speaker 2: thousand and five, Italian stumpman and extra often popping up
Speaker 2: as a henchman. So His titles include seventy eight's The
Speaker 2: Inglorious Bastard's, seventy nine Star Odyssey, eighty five's Lady Hawk,
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties The Godfather Part three, and two thousand and
Speaker 2: two Gangs of New York.
Speaker 3: Oh okay? Is he anybody significant in Godfather three?
Speaker 2: I think just like a Hinchman background care. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, he did a lot of stunt work, and
Speaker 2: I think he's one of these guys that if you're
Speaker 2: filming in Italy, there's a chance he'll he'll find his
Speaker 2: way into the set, delivers the canol laid Eli. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then there's there's also so he's like the butler,
Speaker 2: and then there's also like a house servant named Catherine
Speaker 2: played by Anna Valente. Dates unknown as well. She did
Speaker 2: like one other TV project the same year. Now getting
Speaker 2: into the special effects, though, Gino de Rossi is back
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty two through twenty twenty one. We recently
Speaker 2: discussed him in our episode on City of the Living Dead.
Speaker 2: Tremendous practical effects in that movie. Less I think less
Speaker 2: of a budget here and less maybe stand out special
Speaker 2: effect moments. But for the most part, I think everything
Speaker 2: looks pretty good here and it makes sense. He also
Speaker 2: worked on Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, another zombie film Italian
Speaker 2: zombie film that we've discussed, and during the course of
Speaker 2: his career he worked with everyone from Joe Tomato to
Speaker 2: David Lynch.
Speaker 3: Oh what did he work with David Lynch on Dune?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 2: Okay, all right. Chief makeup artist on this was Moro Gavazzi,
Speaker 2: who this is another individual with dates unknown, active from
Speaker 2: sixty seven through nineteen ninety five, with credits that include
Speaker 2: seventy nine's The Killer None and nineteen sixty eight to
Speaker 2: Romeo and Juliet. The Zephyrrelli picture that I have. I
Speaker 2: distinctly remember watching in English classes, like in junior high
Speaker 2: or high school, and you would get to the nude
Speaker 2: scene and the teacher would have to hold like a
Speaker 2: book over the screen.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The zom bombie masks in this film are quite impressive
Speaker 2: and quite grotesque. They are by Rosario Prostopino, who lived
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty through two thousand and eight, famed Italian practical
Speaker 2: effects artist whose other credits include eighty Zombie Holocaust aka
Speaker 2: Doctor Butcher MD, nineteen eighty five's Demons, eighty seven's The Barbarians,
Speaker 2: eighty seven's Opera, the Dario Argento film, eighty nine's The Church,
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties Meridian that's a band Charles Band picture, and
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one's The Sect.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so a number of films I've seen here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because again, the zombies look amazing in this I thought,
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing about having a horde of zombies
Speaker 2: is you know you're going to have some that are
Speaker 2: even to look a little goofier than others and maybe
Speaker 2: a little less polished. That's just part of the course.
Speaker 2: And some of that applies here. But for the most part,
Speaker 2: your standout zombies look really great.
Speaker 3: With a lot of zombie movies, it's unclear if you
Speaker 3: are supposed to be seeing the same main one or
Speaker 3: two zombies over and over again, or if they're supposed
Speaker 3: to be different ones and they're just assuming people are
Speaker 3: not going to notice they're the same ones because they're zombies,
Speaker 3: you know, but you often do. There's often a kind
Speaker 3: of lee to zombie who has more detailed work on
Speaker 3: them than all of the others. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 3: sort of the case here, with a couple of different
Speaker 3: zombies that are like the ones that clearly got the
Speaker 3: most love. And then in the background, a little more
Speaker 3: out of focus, there are some that are just kind
Speaker 3: of a mask with a little bit of crud on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, And then coming back to the music,
Speaker 2: we have two credited composers here. There's Elsio Mancuso and
Speaker 2: Berto Pisano, who's credited as Bert Rexen and dates unknown
Speaker 2: on Elcio and Berto lived nineteen twenty eight through two
Speaker 2: thousand and two. Elcio's other credits include Malabimba that he
Speaker 2: also worked with Berto on that onearious Spaghetti Westerns, including
Speaker 2: the gloriously titled God Will Forgive My Pistol in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty nine. Number of theological questions arise from that title,
Speaker 2: but I love it.
Speaker 3: Wait, who was the actor we recently talked about who
Speaker 3: was in some amazingly titled Italian Western movies. Was it
Speaker 3: the guy who was in Empire of the Dark. Do
Speaker 3: you remember what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, a bunch of Yeah, the older guy they played,
Speaker 2: the cult leader.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, he was in a bunch of Western movies
Speaker 3: that the title would be a really sinister entire sentence.
Speaker 2: Richard Harrison.
Speaker 3: Yes, what do you have any of those titles pulled up?
Speaker 2: I well, let's see. I mean, I can glance at
Speaker 2: his filmography and I'm sure something will pop up, pop
Speaker 2: pop out at me.
Speaker 3: You know, they had titles. There's things like you know,
Speaker 3: God will Spit on You three Times or something, Dig.
Speaker 2: Your Grave Friend, Sabata's Coming seventy one. Titles like that,
Speaker 2: or even between God the Devil and a Winchester from
Speaker 2: sixty eight. Also great Titlember of the spaghetti westerns, especially
Speaker 2: some of the Franco Nero westerns, he had great The
Speaker 2: Django film sometimes had really alarming titles as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh yeah. But then coming back to the other guy,
Speaker 2: Berto Pisano. His credits go from about sixty three through
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. They include strip nude for Your Killer,
Speaker 2: which has a great reputation as a soundtrack. I should
Speaker 2: add I've not seen it myself, but I hear more
Speaker 2: about the soundtrack than I do about the movie.
Speaker 3: Well, as I said earlier, it's one of the I
Speaker 3: feel like thematically just grosser and more misogynistic of the
Speaker 3: Gallo films I've seen. So it's not the most fun watch.
Speaker 3: But I think I recall, yeah, I think he had
Speaker 3: good music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the music here in Burial Ground is am
Speaker 2: I beinon really good. You have these glittering, almost mystical
Speaker 2: tracks that play in key moments that I guess under
Speaker 2: you know, underlies that the magic of the Etruscan sorcery
Speaker 2: that's taking place here, that's raising the dead. And then
Speaker 2: also some nice suspenseful notes as well. Yeah, really fun
Speaker 2: score as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 3: Also some fairly funny use of like cool jazz.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I'm not sure if that's one, if
Speaker 2: that's the work of these guys or one of them,
Speaker 2: or if that's you know, the track that they dropped
Speaker 2: in from another source Best Library music. Yeah, but yeah, musically,
Speaker 2: Burial Ground really saw.
Speaker 3: All right, You want to talk about the plot?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3: So before we get any zombies, we begin the film
Speaker 3: in research mode. It's kind of like that little scene
Speaker 3: in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf frides off to
Speaker 3: Ministeriris to consult the ancient tomes and discover the lost
Speaker 3: history of the Ring. You know, he's like drinking out
Speaker 3: of a cup of something. We get a guy doing
Speaker 3: some research like that, but it's significantly less epic and
Speaker 3: more Italian. So we open on this very bearded guy
Speaker 3: who looks like an if they made it of the
Speaker 3: five most famous Russian novelists. You noticed that, Yeah, yeah
Speaker 3: he does. He's sort of a Tolstoyevski And this is
Speaker 3: the Professor aka Professor Ayers, and so we meet him
Speaker 3: first in underground catacomb where he's just wandering around kind
Speaker 3: of scraping at rocks with a little pick, and then
Speaker 3: he ends up removing something from the rock wall. Later
Speaker 3: we see him back home in his study looking through
Speaker 3: some documents. I guess translation notes and studying an ancient artifact,
Speaker 3: which I've got a picture you can look at in
Speaker 3: the outline here, Rob to zoom in. The artifact is
Speaker 3: a rectangular slab. I guess it's supposed to be of
Speaker 3: rock that has some kind of writing carved in it.
Speaker 3: And then down below that we have a carved feather,
Speaker 3: a capital A, and a smiley face just like like
Speaker 3: like a have a nice day smiley face, but not smiling.
Speaker 3: It's a straight line for a mouth. Otherwise perfect smiley
Speaker 3: face dot ies line circle line mouth.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I basically these are ancient Etruscan emoticons, and I
Speaker 2: knowing what's to come, I think it's plow zombie face,
Speaker 2: plant growing, and so the idea is like magic makes
Speaker 2: zombie grow like plant.
Speaker 3: Oh good.
Speaker 2: My translation my ancient Etruscan is a little rusty. But
Speaker 2: that's my take on what we see here in the film.
Speaker 2: I buy it.
Speaker 3: I confer upon you the honorary PhD and zombie studies here.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: Now, through this whole part, like you were saying earlier, Rob,
Speaker 3: there is some soft electronic music that's kind of bubbling
Speaker 3: up occasionally. It's you know, it's not instant's these tones
Speaker 3: come up. There's a shimmering quality to it, and there's
Speaker 3: also a steady white noise in the background, like wind
Speaker 3: blowing outside beyond the walls. And then while he's studying
Speaker 3: this artifact, the professor says in voice over, I am
Speaker 3: the only one who knows the secret. It's incredible, incredible,
Speaker 3: yet it's true, it must be.
Speaker 2: And we don't really see anything like too horrifying here,
Speaker 2: And especially with this music, I think the pre zombie
Speaker 2: opening of this film feels like a almost like a
Speaker 2: transcendentalist vision quest. Yeah, there professor here making this discovery,
Speaker 2: and then very shortly he's going to he's going to
Speaker 2: set out once more to go back to the ruins
Speaker 2: of the cave I guess, you know, having discovered the
Speaker 2: secret back in his study, you know, ends up traversing
Speaker 2: this beautiful countryside, and we see stunning ruins as the
Speaker 2: sun comes up, you know, especially with that dreamy, glittering
Speaker 2: synth music in the background, and it feels like the
Speaker 2: origin story of a new religious movement. M Yeah, like
Speaker 2: I almost forgot I was watching a zombie movie called
Speaker 2: Burial Ground for a moment there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is a feeling of contemplation and discovery here
Speaker 3: at the beginning.
Speaker 2: There will be no payoff, but not in the way
Speaker 2: we're talking about.
Speaker 3: But also what the professor is like, it must be true.
Speaker 3: What is it that must be true? We don't know,
Speaker 3: He doesn't say. The Professor gets up from his desk
Speaker 3: and he gathers some equipment, including a flashlight, and he
Speaker 3: goes outside. Should probably also mention here, since we're gonna
Speaker 3: see him walk through the house. This house is the
Speaker 3: setting for most of the rest of the movie. The
Speaker 3: Professor apparently lives in some kind of palace or baroque mansion.
Speaker 3: It's got what looks like marble everywhere, marble staircases, marble
Speaker 3: on the walls, with these gilded accents and weird bronze
Speaker 3: statues up on pedestals. The dominant colors throughout the house
Speaker 3: are white, red, and gold, so you've got red drugs,
Speaker 3: red cushions and upholstery on the furniture with the gold fringe,
Speaker 3: and these glossy red curtains and tapestries. It's very regal.
Speaker 3: It's a place fit for, you know, someone of great
Speaker 3: I don't know, great baron or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And while I don't think the place actually was
Speaker 2: or is neglected within the film. It has a neglected
Speaker 2: feel to it, you know, it feels like dingy elegance.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know what I'm talking about here,
Speaker 2: but yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it feels like people have
Speaker 2: not lived, actually lived here in a long time, like
Speaker 2: a lot of the manor houses and castles that pop
Speaker 2: up in movies like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The filming location here is the Villa Parisi, a seventeenth
Speaker 2: century Baroque estate some twenty kilometers or twenty miles southeast
Speaker 2: of Rome, and it's been used in quite a few
Speaker 2: Italian films and TV shows over the years this time period,
Speaker 2: but also like up until today, like recent productions. So
Speaker 2: this includes Mario Bava's A Bay of Blood in seventy one,
Speaker 2: Oh Weird Blood for Dracula in seventy four, and more recently,
Speaker 2: there was a Sydney Sweeney horror film titled Immaculate. This
Speaker 2: was twenty twenty four and it was also some of
Speaker 2: it was filmed here. Burial ground was filmed entirely here.
Speaker 2: Like even the bits that I think are supposed to
Speaker 2: be like the ancient Etruscan ruins are just parts of
Speaker 2: this villa.
Speaker 3: I've not seen immaculate. I don't recall if I've seen
Speaker 3: Blood for Dracula. I've definitely seen Bay of Blood, but
Speaker 3: I don't remember this location from it. I remember Bay
Speaker 3: of Blood taking place at a more modern looking house,
Speaker 3: some like the edge of a lake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, I haven't seen a Bay of Blood,
Speaker 2: so I can't can't say too much. But I did
Speaker 2: look at a couple of screenshots, and one thing we
Speaker 2: have to take into account is, of course Mario Bava's lighting,
Speaker 2: which is not present in Burial Ground.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, so we're here at this beautiful house, this old,
Speaker 3: stately mansion, and the professor trudges out into the dark,
Speaker 3: and while he does this again, we get some very
Speaker 3: nice musical accents. I think this atmospheric synth music picks up.
Speaker 3: We've gone from the shimmering, kind of occasional, bubbling up
Speaker 3: sounds of music that we heard in the very opening
Speaker 3: into these deep, warm, mysterious synth chords. And there's also
Speaker 3: a dog barking in the background every now and then.
Speaker 3: And for a moment here I was thinking, like, wow,
Speaker 3: the movie is actually building some atmosphere. And then in
Speaker 3: the next cut, we're suddenly alternating between daytime shots and
Speaker 3: night time shots while the dude is on the same
Speaker 3: walk out to the backyard, so it dissipates a bit
Speaker 3: of the mood they were constructing. But anyway, the Professor
Speaker 3: he makes his way out to a cavern in the
Speaker 3: earth that opens from the grounds outside his mansion. He
Speaker 3: takes out a flashlight and he descends into the tunnels.
Speaker 3: Eventually he finds what he's looking for down there. Don't
Speaker 3: know what it is. It's just something on the wall,
Speaker 3: and he starts bashing it with a pick axe, just
Speaker 3: sort of hammering at a rock wall. We don't see
Speaker 3: what he's interested in. But while the Professor is busy
Speaker 3: whacking at the rock, something begins to move behind him.
Speaker 3: The stone lid of an ancient sarcophagus slides away, and
Speaker 3: then out of the void inside climbs a zombie. Now, question, Rob,
Speaker 3: do we have any indication why the zombie wakes up
Speaker 3: at this moment? Is there anything that has like happened
Speaker 3: to make that to make the zombie get up?
Speaker 2: No indication as far as I can tell. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's been here plenty of times before. We later find
Speaker 2: out that he sometimes sleeps here, so he's been here
Speaker 2: plenty of times and not encountered zombies. He did take
Speaker 2: that emoticon plaque out earlier. Maybe that had something to
Speaker 2: do with it. Or maybe it's the rece and hammering
Speaker 2: on that one spot, which I don't know why he's
Speaker 2: hammering there. Maybe he expects something to happen. Maybe that's
Speaker 2: what the translation was, hammereth here and the miracle of
Speaker 2: unlife will be revealed to you or something. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe I like your original translation better. Yeah, the plow
Speaker 3: and the plant, I think that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: But so we're gonna get to see our first zombie
Speaker 3: of the film, so I wanted to comment for a
Speaker 3: moment on the appearance of this zombie. It is a
Speaker 3: relatively bony undead. The head here is a nearly defleshed skull,
Speaker 3: not really recognizable as having human flesh on it, but
Speaker 3: it's also not naked bone. It's just got kind of
Speaker 3: gunk or dirt all around it, and also a ridiculously
Speaker 3: toothy mouth like it's got long white teeth all lined up.
Speaker 3: It was, for some reason, reminding me of a row
Speaker 3: of cigarette filters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I meanbviously, with when constructing a mask,
Speaker 2: you end up with an oversized skull when you're creating
Speaker 2: a skull mask on top of a human head, and
Speaker 2: so that just adds to the weirdness of it, Like
Speaker 2: is this even a human skeleton zombie or is this
Speaker 2: you know, is this some sort of archaic human relative.
Speaker 2: It just you know, creates all sort of a you know,
Speaker 2: uncanny waves through the mind.
Speaker 3: So it's dressed in these nasty ancient rags and it
Speaker 3: has its hands outstretched in a fairly standard zombie posture.
Speaker 3: It's kind of half reaching at whatever is in front
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very very earthy, as we've been discussing. Reminiscent of
Speaker 2: those folksgey zombies for sure. Again, strong connection there as well,
Speaker 2: because Geneto de Rossi also worked on Zombie, so you know,
Speaker 2: we might expect a similar look here. Yeah, they're they're
Speaker 2: earth They're they're like pottery zombies in a way. I'm
Speaker 2: to understand that they used clay and you know, making
Speaker 2: the masks here, so they're kind of walking them into
Speaker 2: moreize reflecting our connection to the Earth.
Speaker 3: I think there is something really strong to that that
Speaker 3: it's true that they have that in common with some
Speaker 3: other Italian zombies of this period, especially with some ful
Speaker 3: chee zombies, but these in particular are of the wandering
Speaker 3: dirt clod. So I think you're exactly right about that.
Speaker 3: They're very earthy and they're if this makes any sense,
Speaker 3: they're quite dry as far as zombies go. Some zombies
Speaker 3: are very moist. I'd say your full cheese zombies are.
Speaker 3: Usually they're kind of like this, but they're on the
Speaker 3: moister side. You feel like if you touched them, they
Speaker 3: would feel wet, and you can kind of see things
Speaker 3: dripping off of them.
Speaker 2: More.
Speaker 3: These zombies are not like this. They have a more
Speaker 3: a dry, crumbly texture almost. I guess in baking terms
Speaker 3: you would say that they're short.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right FULCI did like a good
Speaker 2: drip on just about everything. Yeah, these guys are drier,
Speaker 2: as we'll discuss when they start getting busted open. We
Speaker 2: do see some zombie juices and those are thoroughly disgusting
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: They have gu but the gu is mostly contained on
Speaker 3: the outside. They're fairly dry and they're fairly crumbly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, anyway, the zombie approaches the professor and he turns
Speaker 3: and sees it, he yells stand back to the zombie,
Speaker 3: and then to the zombie he says, no, no, I'm
Speaker 3: your friend. What to make of this? The professor is
Speaker 3: the zombie's friend. I don't know of whatever that means
Speaker 3: to the professor. The zombie is not buying it or
Speaker 3: does not value the friendship. He eats his friend.
Speaker 2: I guess it means he thought he was going to
Speaker 2: control some zombies and oh, really, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 3: He was going to be commanding an army of the undead.
Speaker 2: That's the only thing that makes sense to me, right,
Speaker 2: because otherwise, why would you say, hey, I'm your friend.
Speaker 2: It just seems like an odd response to zombie.
Speaker 3: Or maybe that's just what you'd say to anybody who's
Speaker 3: approaching you menacingly, like hey, disarmy, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Your buddies, we're pals.
Speaker 3: We're all good. Yeah. But yeah, so the zombie, actually,
Speaker 3: I said, the zombie who's approaching and bites him. But
Speaker 3: first another zombie appears and bites him from behind first,
Speaker 3: So they both zombies take bites a friend here, And
Speaker 3: I wanted to add another thing I thought was interesting.
Speaker 3: This is one of those undead movies. Where you not
Speaker 3: only see the zombie biting the human victim, we also
Speaker 3: get a cutaway without the victim's full body and frame,
Speaker 3: so it's just the zombie gnawing on some now detached
Speaker 3: red offal that it's got in his hands. Somehow, I
Speaker 3: think this carries thematic significance. Like some movies only really
Speaker 3: care to emphasize zombie kills man. Other movies decide it's
Speaker 3: at least as important to make the point that zombie
Speaker 3: gets plenty to eat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, some I would also say that, yeah, part
Speaker 2: of that zombie kills man. A lot of times there's
Speaker 2: more emphasis on the actual like the killing bites. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and there are plenty of killing bites in this film,
Speaker 2: but yeah, there's a lot of emphasis on the zombie
Speaker 2: feast that comes afterwards. They're dry, they're thirsty. It makes sense.
Speaker 3: There is a particularly good scene in that regard. I
Speaker 3: remember later when zombie Leslie is eating Michael and Evelyn
Speaker 3: comes into the room and she's like, oh no, and
Speaker 3: she goes to Michael's body, and then in the background
Speaker 3: of that scene, Evelyn or not Evelyn Leslie is still
Speaker 3: just munching.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like if a zombie in this film
Speaker 2: is munching. They're mostly content. They're just like, carry on,
Speaker 2: do what you want, I've got mine.
Speaker 3: They don't attack while they're eating, Yeah, which is polite, right,
Speaker 3: so you know? So, yeah, the zombies munching on this
Speaker 3: hunk of the professor here. And then suddenly we cut
Speaker 3: to two yellow cars zooming down a country road with
Speaker 3: hep jazz music playing, and then up comes the title.
Speaker 3: Is it gonna say burial Ground? Nope, it says the
Speaker 3: Nights of Terror.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like burial grounds so much.
Speaker 3: More, especially since as there's barely more than you could
Speaker 3: argue maybe two nights in this film, like if the
Speaker 3: first the opening here at the prologue is like early morning,
Speaker 3: hours before dawn. I guess you could say there are two.
Speaker 2: Nights, yeah, Nights of Terror on a technicality only.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the portions of driving scene here are fairly generous.
Speaker 3: But as you could probably guess, the cars they're making
Speaker 3: their way up to the mansion where we met the professor.
Speaker 3: Everybody arrives at the mansion in one car. You've got
Speaker 3: the couple Evelyn and George. Are they supposed to be married?
Speaker 3: I don't remember.
Speaker 2: Does it say I don't think it says yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was left to our imagination.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So Evelyn and George are a couple, and then
Speaker 3: you've got either their son or Evelyn's son, Michael. In
Speaker 3: this first scene, Evelyn is very glamorous, like she gives
Speaker 3: the this big, kind of pearly tooth smile even when
Speaker 3: delivering fairly mundane dialogue. George has a has a blazer
Speaker 3: and an ascot. He's sort of a yacht club type.
Speaker 3: And Michael, the first moment you see him, you're like,
Speaker 3: he looks like a peeping Tom Benjamin Button with consumption.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think this is supposed to be their house,
Speaker 3: or at least George's house, But also several lines make
Speaker 3: it sound like they've never been here before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like what's the professor doing there? Does he?
Speaker 2: Do they co own it? The professor just stay here?
Speaker 2: Like what's the arrangement? We also hear later they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, where's that professor guy? He invited us all
Speaker 2: out here to share some ancient secret with us that
Speaker 2: he'd discovered. So yeah, so that seems to be the
Speaker 2: purpose of the weekend, but they're also just happy to
Speaker 2: hang out.
Speaker 3: So Yeah, I was gonna ask, are the other people
Speaker 3: there George and Evelyn's guests or the professor's guests?
Speaker 2: Hm? I mean it may well. Okay, we do know
Speaker 2: that one of them is a photographer. Yeah, one of
Speaker 2: them is a writer, don't. I don't know if we
Speaker 2: really know what sort of writer. So maybe a journalist.
Speaker 2: So maybe he brought them out there because Hey, I'm
Speaker 2: about to reveal that I am the new ancient Etruscan sorcerer,
Speaker 2: master of the Undead, and I want this published in
Speaker 2: all the top Italian newspapers. So write this down, get.
Speaker 3: Some good photosta, gotta get an article in the post
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay. So they arrive at the gate and we've got George, Evelyn,
Speaker 3: and Michael here. Evelyn makes several comments after they arrive.
Speaker 3: She's like, someone should be answering the gate. I thought
Speaker 3: you told me you'd hired all new staff. Didn't you
Speaker 3: telephone them to tell to tell them we were coming.
Speaker 3: And George responds by saying, no, I don't allow the
Speaker 3: use of telephones on my property. Okay, but that will
Speaker 3: conveniently explain why later they can't call anyone for help. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's right, And then Evelyn also assures George that he
Speaker 3: will now get to relax because they are at the house.
Speaker 3: So all the cars pull up and they're met by
Speaker 3: the butler and the maid. Here the butler's name Nicholas,
Speaker 3: the maid is named Kathleen, and the guests all unload
Speaker 3: their luggage and move into their rooms for a semi
Speaker 3: extended stay. I don't know how long they're supposed to
Speaker 3: be here, maybe the weekend or something. And we learn
Speaker 3: that the professor only vanished earlier this morning, so it's
Speaker 3: the same day as the opening scene. And I love
Speaker 3: how the first guy we see in his bedroom it
Speaker 3: looks like Louis the fourteenth sleeps in here. It's just
Speaker 3: gilding and ornamentation everywhere. The fireplace is roaring, it's got
Speaker 3: this towering flame. And then next door, so I guess
Speaker 3: this is George and Evelyn's room. And then in the
Speaker 3: room next door, Michael is sleeping, and this is one
Speaker 3: of the most memorable scenes from the film because it's
Speaker 3: got the Michael scare. So Evelyn peeks in at the
Speaker 3: kid and he's sleeping in this bed with this creepy
Speaker 3: flower print on the pillow matching on the pillow in
Speaker 3: the blankets, and then she shuts the door, and Michael's
Speaker 3: eyes just joint open and he's like laser eyes at
Speaker 3: the door.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But when this happens, you know, you have to wonder.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, is he just suddenly alert to the
Speaker 2: you know, weird supernatural happenings, the dead rising, you know
Speaker 2: somewhere outside the house, or has this like inner alarm
Speaker 2: clock gone off that Oh, if there's mommy daddy sheet
Speaker 2: monster times about to happen, I should go wander into
Speaker 2: their room.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then right after the Michael scare, we cut
Speaker 3: straight to somebody's butt. The next thing we see, well,
Speaker 3: so what's going on here? It is Leslie's butt. We
Speaker 3: cut to a scene of the couple, James and Leslie
Speaker 3: in in their room. Leslie is doing an erotic dance
Speaker 3: in some antique lingerie she found in a trunk. She says, yeah,
Speaker 3: in the bathroom. Yeah, I found this in a trunk.
Speaker 3: I don't know. It must be hundreds of years old,
Speaker 3: I guess. So she's like doing a dance, and then
Speaker 3: it cuts to James and he says, quote, may I
Speaker 3: ask what you're doing? You nut so nutty and then
Speaker 3: they have some fascinating conversation. It's basically like, do you
Speaker 3: like doing sex? Yes, I'm rather interested in sex. And
Speaker 3: I think also after this, so like they have a
Speaker 3: sex scene that is intercut with at least one other
Speaker 3: couple sex scene and maybe multiple of the other couples there,
Speaker 3: but it's hard to tell because you can't see anybody's face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like just somebody's thighs. So yeah, it took
Speaker 2: me a minute to really piece together because yeah, we're
Speaker 2: also cutting over to Evelyn and George.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there are definitely some different people here, but
Speaker 3: I guess everybody's just having a good time up at
Speaker 3: the villa. And then eventually it becomes clear though that
Speaker 3: not everybody's having a good time, because while Evelyn and
Speaker 3: George are in bed, Michael, the old Man's last child
Speaker 3: is he gets the desire to creep and peep on
Speaker 3: his parents, and so he like comes in and the
Speaker 3: energy of this scene is so weird it is difficult
Speaker 3: to describe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he like walks in wide eyed and he's
Speaker 2: like mother, and then she's like Michael, and she jumps
Speaker 2: out of bed newde to run across this enormous room
Speaker 2: to pick her nightgown up off the ground, off the
Speaker 2: floor and cover herself. Also ridiculous.
Speaker 3: The editing in this scene makes it even funnier because
Speaker 3: it will like cut from her having like picked up
Speaker 3: the nightgown to cut to a shot where she hasn't
Speaker 3: done it yet. So yeah, bizarre vibes off the charts.
Speaker 3: Also somewhere in here we get our first scene with
Speaker 3: Janet and Mark as far as we know, the first
Speaker 3: time we're meeting them.
Speaker 2: And Marcus the photographer, right and.
Speaker 3: When we just pop right into them in the middle
Speaker 3: of an argument where Janet is freaking out saying she's
Speaker 3: got a bad feeling they have to leave the house.
Speaker 3: And this is where Mark's I said this earlier. Mark,
Speaker 3: He's like, calm down, you're just going to appear foolish
Speaker 3: to everyone. And I love the Google Translate quality of
Speaker 3: some of the dialogue, like some of the informality of
Speaker 3: human speech is missing here, and we get these textbook
Speaker 3: type sentences.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I was hoping. I watched it initially
Speaker 2: dubbed into English, and then I watched it well dubbed
Speaker 2: into Italian. This is one of those films whereas stuff
Speaker 2: but the subtitles were pretty much just the same as
Speaker 2: the English dubbing, so there were no additional revelations about
Speaker 2: any of the dialogue.
Speaker 3: For me, I love the scene later where they're sitting
Speaker 3: around the breakfast table talking about how the professor has
Speaker 3: summoned them to learn something about the secrets of the dead,
Speaker 3: and Janet says, I've always been terrified of the dead.
Speaker 3: I hope we're going to leave them in peace.
Speaker 2: Yes, maybe that is how the movie will play out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then also we see scenes you know, it
Speaker 3: cuts away to show zombies assembling. They're all shambling out
Speaker 3: of their individual graves in the catacomb and they form
Speaker 3: a marching column.
Speaker 2: In broad daylight.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, and we're kind of off to the races here.
Speaker 3: So we get like, you know, the characters gather for breakfast,
Speaker 3: but after breakfast.
Speaker 2: Oh, at breakfast, we also get a good old fashioned
Speaker 2: J and B placement shot. Love it, Yeah, where when
Speaker 2: Nicholas brings out the platter and there's a big bottle
Speaker 2: of JB, J and B.
Speaker 3: There would not be an Italian horror movie without it.
Speaker 2: I keep thinking I should have a bottle of it
Speaker 2: on hand, and then I like, I have to have
Speaker 2: some whenever it pops up an Italian film, but I've.
Speaker 3: Yet to do that. Yeah one day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably not a healthy choice to make.
Speaker 3: So we are going to narrate some more. But I
Speaker 3: guess by way of summary, we can just say there
Speaker 3: is not a whole lot of plot in this film.
Speaker 3: The rest of the movie is basically human characters screwing
Speaker 3: around doing various things at the mansion and mostly like
Speaker 3: indulging in lust, Michael being a little weird sex school,
Speaker 3: and then zombies attacking people and laying siege to the house.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how things are going
Speaker 2: to play out, and you can guess exactly how things
Speaker 2: are going to end. Yeah, this is not a film
Speaker 2: that is going to greatly surprise you with how things
Speaker 2: turn out for the human characters.
Speaker 3: So when the characters split up, let's see what does
Speaker 3: everybody go do. Janet and Mark and James and Leslie
Speaker 3: both separately go off and play, you know, to go
Speaker 3: do things in the garden, like Mark. Mark is a
Speaker 3: photographer and Janet is a model. I guess, so he's
Speaker 3: taken pictures of her in the garden and he's everything.
Speaker 3: He's like, yes, go with it. So at one point
Speaker 3: she like trips and falls and he's like, yes, hold
Speaker 3: it like that, you know, go with it, use it.
Speaker 3: And meanwhile, you know, Mark is trying to write something
Speaker 3: Longhand on just a legal pad notepad paper and les
Speaker 3: Leslie comes up and she's like, but what about sex?
Speaker 3: And he's like, oh, yeah, I forgot I forgot about that.
Speaker 3: So you know, they're they're fooling around. Meanwhile, we get
Speaker 3: some strange doings going on inside the house there. They're
Speaker 3: they're a random poltergeist phenomena where light bulbs start exploding
Speaker 3: while the butler and the maid are looking on and
Speaker 3: they just, oh, what is that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess it's just part of the ancient
Speaker 2: Etruscan magic that's raising the dead. It's also messing with
Speaker 2: the electrical devices.
Speaker 3: What did you make of the scene where Evelyn, George
Speaker 3: and Michael are in what looks like a sculpture sculpture shop.
Speaker 3: It looks like a place where people make marble sculptures.
Speaker 3: I think that's what it is. And yeah, they're in there,
Speaker 3: and inside the shop, George and Evelyn are doing sexy
Speaker 3: gun training slash target practice amid all of the Roman busts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, completely ridiculous in a movie that's filled with
Speaker 2: ridiculous moments. Yeah, they're just doing random pistol target practice inside,
Speaker 2: no ear protection or anything like that, presumably just live ammo.
Speaker 2: While Michael just wanders around the rest of the room.
Speaker 3: Yes, wandering around the room. Where that's going. And then
Speaker 3: Michael at one point finds this strip of like burr
Speaker 3: lap it looks like, and he just runs over to
Speaker 3: Evelyn and he says, Mama, this cloth smells of death.
Speaker 2: And she's like, put that down.
Speaker 3: I think she says, it's just a piece of cloth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she doesn't smell it because, as we're about to
Speaker 2: find out, it probably fell off of a zombie. I
Speaker 2: guess one came through here, perhaps moments earlier.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So while everybody's doing their thing, the zombies start
Speaker 3: busting up through the turf in the garden, and here
Speaker 3: we get our first look at one of the main
Speaker 3: zombies we're going to see in the movie, a real
Speaker 3: like creepy Crawley zombies, got maggots on his face. Again,
Speaker 3: he's quite he's a quite dry consistency, kind of crumbly
Speaker 3: dirt head with skull, you know, exaggerated orbital sockets in
Speaker 3: the skull and like big toothy mouth, bony fingers, but
Speaker 3: also grass all over him. I guess because he came
Speaker 3: up from the grass. It's almost like grass is growing
Speaker 3: from some of his joints. And I like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it reminds me of you know, various folk
Speaker 2: traditions where there'll be some sort of a costume tradition
Speaker 2: where you know, someone becomes a sort of beast and
Speaker 2: perhaps their body is made out of straw or moss
Speaker 2: or some other you know, you know, plant life slash
Speaker 2: earthen material. And you know, this is another one of
Speaker 2: those films where we're now seeing these zombies in far
Speaker 2: greater detail than was perhaps ever intended or expected by
Speaker 2: the filmmakers. And I have to say, looks still looks
Speaker 2: really good. Why are there maggots on it? I'll get
Speaker 2: that's another question for another day. But yeah, who knows
Speaker 2: how ancient etruscan magic affects the decay rate of human remains.
Speaker 3: So while out in the garden, Mark and Janet get
Speaker 3: attacked by a zombie. They're like making out in the
Speaker 3: grass and then the zombie comes up on them and
Speaker 3: they start talking about it while it's coming at them.
Speaker 3: They're having a conversation, I mean with some level of alarm,
Speaker 3: but they are just sort of talking it through. Mark says,
Speaker 3: whatever it is, it's not human, and they get chased
Speaker 3: through the grounds and through this sort of hedge labyrinth.
Speaker 3: Lots of shots of zombies just shambling through the grass
Speaker 3: with no humans insight.
Speaker 2: Yeah what the zombies.
Speaker 3: I would say their clothing is somewhat varied here because
Speaker 3: some of them are wearing just what looks like rotten burlap,
Speaker 3: very earth tones and full of holes and dusty, and
Speaker 3: other ones are wearing like green silvery, you know, green
Speaker 3: or purple cloaks. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Maybe this is supposed to be
Speaker 2: like a priest class. Presumably at this point in the film,
Speaker 2: these are all like og zombies that came out of
Speaker 2: that tomb, right, Like these are ancient zombies front of
Speaker 2: Etruscan origin, and it's too early for there to be
Speaker 2: a sprinkling of modern zombies.
Speaker 3: I guess we have not seen any humans made zombie yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So later in this chase, this is the part where
Speaker 3: Janet gets her foot caught in the bear trap, in
Speaker 3: the garden.
Speaker 2: Now, what would this possibly have been said? Out? Would
Speaker 2: you have it out for wolves? Again? This is what
Speaker 2: did I say, like ten twenty miles outside of Rome,
Speaker 2: Like what would this be out for just rabbits or something?
Speaker 3: It doesn't make a lot of sense. But she gets
Speaker 3: her ankle caught, and this is of course played for
Speaker 3: suspense because Mark is there trying to He's like, I
Speaker 3: can't get it open, and the zombies are closing in
Speaker 3: and she's like, Mark helped me, and he's just struggling
Speaker 3: with it over and over. Finally he picks up a pitchfork,
Speaker 3: but then seems kind of reluctant to actually stab the
Speaker 3: zombies with the PRAWLNGS. Do you notice that it's like
Speaker 3: he's kind of unsure of himself. I don't know, maybe
Speaker 3: he's just a whimp.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But meanwhile, so that's going on, and then zombies attack
Speaker 3: the sculpture workshop where George, Evelyn, and Michael are hanging out,
Speaker 3: and George starts shooting the zombies. But here is where
Speaker 3: we learned that bullets appear to do no good, So
Speaker 3: we get lots of close ups of exploding bullet holes
Speaker 3: in zombie bodies with you know, holes popping in the
Speaker 3: old burlap and weird colored liquids squirting out.
Speaker 2: Mixes of green, black, and sometimes gray paint coming out
Speaker 2: his blood, which I thought.
Speaker 3: Looked pretty good, great sometimes yellow. Yeah. Eventually George runs
Speaker 3: out of bullets, but it doesn't I mean, he wasn't
Speaker 3: stopping him anyway, and the zombies surround him and so
Speaker 3: first they like press him down by the top of
Speaker 3: his head, and then you could just see them getting
Speaker 3: all around and digging for guts, and Evelyn and Michael
Speaker 3: escape out the door. So we're George down, repeat, George down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they tear. This is a film where we get like,
Speaker 2: not one, not too but I think multiple Romero gut
Speaker 2: the sequences, which is nice. I will go ahead and
Speaker 2: say it. It's nice in this film.
Speaker 3: So next thing, James and Leslie are also making out
Speaker 3: in the garden. It's just a good place for that,
Speaker 3: I guess. So they're out there making out and they
Speaker 3: also get attacked by zombies, this time from one that
Speaker 3: climbs out of a stone planter full of hostas was
Speaker 3: this an ancient Etruscan stone planter?
Speaker 2: I know this is one of this moment where it
Speaker 2: looks great, But when you stop and think about it,
Speaker 2: you're like, has there been a human body a zombie
Speaker 2: in that planter for centuries? Yeah? What?
Speaker 3: Unclear? Yeah, or maybe it just got in there right
Speaker 3: before they showed up, Like that was a good ambush spot.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're big on theatrics, but how would it have
Speaker 3: gotten the plants back on top of it?
Speaker 2: Tucked itself in?
Speaker 3: So a chase breaks, the zombies run after them. Leslie
Speaker 3: keeps falling over. Of course, Oh I've fallen and I
Speaker 3: can't get up. But eventually Leslie and James cross paths
Speaker 3: with Mark and Janet. Janet's still stuck in the bear trap,
Speaker 3: and we're like, Leslie and James save the day. They
Speaker 3: go into action mode and they are much more effective
Speaker 3: than Mark at protecting Janet. They break out the head
Speaker 3: smash move, so James and Leslie both grab big rocks
Speaker 3: and just start bashing open zombie heads.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is glorious, just like husky zombie heads. And
Speaker 2: then like a splash of one of these multicolored liquids,
Speaker 2: but yeah, they really start kicking zombie butt.
Speaker 3: Here we get to see the skulls cracking open like
Speaker 3: Easter eggs, and also roughly the color of Easter eggs,
Speaker 3: like some real pastel pinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, a certain feel of coconut to it as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very pinata, actually quite quite pinata busting open. That
Speaker 3: visual theme will be repeated throughout the movie. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: at one point around here, I think, Leslie says, this
Speaker 3: must be what the professor was trying to warn us about.
Speaker 3: But I was like, what, what did he say? They
Speaker 3: never met the professor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we never. Yeah, there's nothing about a warning. It
Speaker 2: was just hey, come here, I got something to tell you.
Speaker 2: It wasn't hey, everyone, come here, I have something to
Speaker 2: warn you about. Right.
Speaker 3: So Evelyn and Michael, meanwhile are running around in the
Speaker 3: some part of the house or some building, you know,
Speaker 3: the place where the sculpture shop was. They're trying to
Speaker 3: get away from zombies that have gotten in. And this
Speaker 3: is the part where we get to the Mama we
Speaker 3: can set that on fire scene. So Michael just points
Speaker 3: to these buckets of green napalms sitting all around the house.
Speaker 3: I don't know what they are, and he says, Mama,
Speaker 3: we can set that on fire. So Evelyn goes into
Speaker 3: action mode. She throws this stuff on the zombies and
Speaker 3: sets them on fire indoors by the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, two points. First of all, I want to
Speaker 2: stress we didn't mention this again, Michael is played by
Speaker 2: a grown up. Everybody is dubbed in this, and even
Speaker 2: in Italian not everyone supplies their own voice. They made
Speaker 2: they seemingly made the distinct choice to go ahead and dub.
Speaker 2: If they dubbed Michael with a different actor, they still
Speaker 2: used an adult actor doing a child's voice, so they
Speaker 2: they do appear to have doubled down on the you know,
Speaker 2: the uncanniness and the weirdness of having a grown up
Speaker 2: play the child here.
Speaker 3: It's like the it's like the dubbing and manos the
Speaker 3: hands of Faith. You know, it's like clearly obviously an
Speaker 3: adult sort of half trying to do a child voice.
Speaker 2: Or Bob in House by the Cemetery, except that, of course,
Speaker 2: was an actual child actor. Oh. Another point is that
Speaker 2: apparently a stumpman was injured in these burn stunts here.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I anytime there's a person on
Speaker 2: fire in one of these films we watch, I always
Speaker 2: it always disturbs me. I mean I know that, you know,
Speaker 2: professional stumpmen have their way of doing these things, and
Speaker 2: you know, in the right hands, you know, it's I
Speaker 2: guess the risks are low and the rewards are high cinematically,
Speaker 2: but yeah, occasionally you hear about one of these going wrong,
Speaker 2: and it's just like I carry that with me and
Speaker 2: then into every other film that I watched that features
Speaker 2: a burn suit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'd just say, filmmakers, out there, whatever shot
Speaker 3: you think you can get, it's not worth cutting corners.
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, practice set safety people.
Speaker 2: But within the context of the film, they burn up
Speaker 2: a couple of zombies, and yeah, very much. Our humans
Speaker 2: are on the offensive now, so they should really wrap
Speaker 2: this up pretty quickly. I think they're on top of
Speaker 2: the whole zombie invasion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you'd think so.
Speaker 3: So the surviving guests all gather in the main house
Speaker 3: with Evelyn and Michael, and they're like, okay, zombies are attacking.
Speaker 3: We gotta, you know, go into siege mode. We're gonna
Speaker 3: lock the doors, board up the windows, and hunker down.
Speaker 3: So they do that, but then various new types of
Speaker 3: attacks emerge. So at one point, the maid Kathleen goes
Speaker 3: to a second floor window and then she succumbs to
Speaker 3: a ranged attack by the zombies.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, suddenly they can use weapons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they throw a spike that pins her hand
Speaker 3: to the shutter beside the window, and then while she's
Speaker 3: pinned there, the zombies reach up and cut her head
Speaker 3: off with a scythe and then they so they pull
Speaker 3: it down and then they pass the head around like
Speaker 3: a rugby ball.
Speaker 2: This is actually a pretty great sequence and really a
Speaker 2: pretty great gjallo style murder. Yeah, like this would feel
Speaker 2: completely at home and say like a Suspiria or any
Speaker 2: dary origent of film, you know, where it's a little
Speaker 2: bit complex, you know, number of moving pieces for an
Speaker 2: inventive kill. But he does feel a little weird and
Speaker 2: suddenly kind of out of place with the zombies are
Speaker 2: suddenly pulling this off. We've been watching these guys just
Speaker 2: lumber about in traditional zombie style, and now they're working
Speaker 2: together to do a group kill with tools. Yeah, why,
Speaker 2: we don't know. Are they evolving? I don't know, are
Speaker 2: they waking up? Who knows?
Speaker 3: So James comes along by the way and he finds
Speaker 3: Kathleen's decapitated body hanging out the window. He looks out,
Speaker 3: he sees the zombies down below, like slurping blood from
Speaker 3: her head, and then he gets a wild look in
Speaker 3: his eye and he's clearly thinking, I've got an idea.
Speaker 2: What is that idea?
Speaker 3: It is toss the rest of her down to them,
Speaker 3: So he tosses her down. I think his plan is
Speaker 3: let the zombies fill up on housekeepers. They will be
Speaker 3: too full to eat the guests.
Speaker 2: Ah, you fool, Now the zombies are going to associate
Speaker 2: humans with food.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So after the scene, the zombies they've already
Speaker 3: used tools in this one instance, but I think think
Speaker 3: they I don't know, they must be getting positive reinforcement
Speaker 3: about it. So the zombies all arm themselves with axes
Speaker 3: and hose and garden gardening tools, sharp implements, and they
Speaker 3: start hacking at the doors. There's another scene on a
Speaker 3: balcony that's like a shotgun blasting scene where James comes
Speaker 3: out with a shotgun and he's like the only thing
Speaker 3: that the only thing that can kill them is blowing
Speaker 3: their heads off, and he starts shooting them with a shotgun,
Speaker 3: but he doesn't have enough shells to blast them all.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of zombies at this point. There's
Speaker 3: also a scene where Leslie is doing medical treatment on Janet.
Speaker 3: She says, let's look at that ankle. No wonder it's
Speaker 3: killing you. It's very badly bruised.
Speaker 2: He was in a bear trap.
Speaker 3: And then there's a scene where Leslie I think she's
Speaker 3: going to get bandages for Janet, and she's walking through
Speaker 3: a hallway downstairs and she gets her hair grabbed through
Speaker 3: a window like window shatters. The zombie hand reaches in
Speaker 3: grabs her hair and then ooh like she gets her
Speaker 3: face pulled into the jagged glass of the window and
Speaker 3: dies that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a rare, less than fully convincing moment of eyeball
Speaker 2: violence in European cinema. Usually it's a little more standout
Speaker 2: than this. But we've been spoiled. We've been spoiled.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So here, generally, the zombies are kind of breaking
Speaker 3: through the defenses and attacking the house. They're getting in,
Speaker 3: they're attacking all the people. We get to see Janet
Speaker 3: wielding an antique pole arm that was like decorative on
Speaker 3: the walls of the mansion. In fact, throughout this part
Speaker 3: they're just a lot of character is using swords and
Speaker 3: other decorative militaria to hold off the zombies. At one point,
Speaker 3: that's pretty cool. Evelyn chops some zombie heads off to
Speaker 3: protect baby Michael, and I can't even tell what tool
Speaker 3: she's using. It looks like is it a sword cane?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, there's like she picks up something
Speaker 2: looks like a machete off of the table and she's like,
Speaker 2: there's a zombie crawling up and she like chops its
Speaker 2: hands off on the window seal. So yeah, she's she's
Speaker 2: a real bad ass. Evelyn is is pretty pretty awesome.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, right after this is the scene where Michael starts
Speaker 3: making bizarre sexual advances on his mom. WTF. It's like
Speaker 3: she gets weirded out and she slaps him and then
Speaker 3: he says, what's wrong, I'm your son, and then he
Speaker 3: runs away. He finds zombified Leslie and she bites him.
Speaker 2: Uh oh yeah. The next time we see him, he's
Speaker 2: gonna have his arm off, laying dead while Leslie choose
Speaker 2: on the arm and various cuts of meat from dead Michael.
Speaker 3: Yeah there are oh oh oh. One of the next
Speaker 3: scenes is what oh favorite the scene where zombies are
Speaker 3: approaching the house again, Like, wait, didn't they already get inside?
Speaker 3: They were just in the room attacking everybody, and they
Speaker 3: were fighting them. But now it's almost as if zombies
Speaker 3: we've reset and zombies are not inside anymore.
Speaker 2: Or I guess we've killed all the ones that got inside.
Speaker 2: Maybe we've put a lot of work into keeping zombies
Speaker 2: out of the mansion at this point.
Speaker 3: Right, and then Mark has an amazing idea. He gathers
Speaker 3: everybody says, I've got an idea, let's let them inside.
Speaker 3: But they explain the logic. Mark's like, maybe it's something
Speaker 3: in the house they want, and it's like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: think that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, legit laugh out loud moment here, because yes, zombies
Speaker 2: are famously architecturally inclined, right, that's what they're drawn to.
Speaker 2: So if we just let you, They're like, we'll just
Speaker 2: let them in the house and will hide in like
Speaker 2: the side chambers or something. And then what's part two
Speaker 2: of that plan? They're gonna rush out once all the
Speaker 2: zombies are inside. I'm not fully formed the zombie. The
Speaker 2: problem is the zombies wanted to get into the house
Speaker 2: to use the telephone, and they didn't know about George's
Speaker 2: rule no telephones in his house. They just want to
Speaker 2: order some pizzas. That's what they want.
Speaker 3: Also here we get the scene where Evelyn discovers zombie
Speaker 3: Leslie munching on Michael and she just starts screaming, screaming, Leslie,
Speaker 3: you killed my son. Damn you you killed him. And
Speaker 3: she screams that like a hundred times. And meanwhile Leslie
Speaker 3: is just munching in the background.
Speaker 2: Yeah what she she does? Kill those re kills the
Speaker 2: zombie Leslie just like bashing her head against the the
Speaker 2: tub there.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, and we get she like bashes her
Speaker 3: head into the tub until we see just fluid leaking
Speaker 3: down into the tub from behind, and it looks like
Speaker 3: gray paint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, gray paint. This Yeah, nasty zombie brain juice.
Speaker 3: So now the zombies are really inside. I guess they
Speaker 3: you know, they got lead inside. So they're just wandering
Speaker 3: all through the hallways. At one point, the butler comes
Speaker 3: across Professor Airs from earlier. I remember him.
Speaker 2: The Professor's here to save the day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the butler says, oh, Professor, we were getting
Speaker 3: very worried about you, sir. We've got to get you.
Speaker 3: We've got to get out of here. But you know,
Speaker 3: he doesn't quite say this, but it's almost like my
Speaker 3: what red eyes you have? H So the Professor is,
Speaker 3: you know, he pounces on Nicholas the butler and starts
Speaker 3: biting him, and then we have Mark, Mark and James
Speaker 3: come upon the scene of the Professor eating Nicholas's guts
Speaker 3: and Mark says, but that's professor ayers, and James says,
Speaker 3: he's a zombie too.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, they put that together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, clever, not getting anything past James. So the sun
Speaker 3: comes up the next day and who's left alive at
Speaker 3: this point It is Mark, James, Evelyn, and Janet that
Speaker 3: are still alive, and they're sleeping somewhere. They're in a
Speaker 3: room with a tile floor and these pastel blue walls.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how they got where they are or
Speaker 3: where it.
Speaker 2: Is where they are in relation to the main house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they decide it's time to move out, so
Speaker 3: they like move out, and they're going to go ahead
Speaker 3: for civilization. Janet begs to be left to die rather
Speaker 3: than moving, but Mark makes her go, and so they
Speaker 3: wander through the woods and eventually they come to a
Speaker 3: building at the other edge of the woods and Mark
Speaker 3: sees a figure in a brown robe with a hood
Speaker 3: going around the corner and he says, look over there
Speaker 3: a monk. This must be a monastery exactly. So they
Speaker 3: head head into the monastery. But uh oh, it's the
Speaker 3: wrong kind of monastery. This is a zombie monastery. All
Speaker 3: the brothers here are zombies, and as soon as they
Speaker 3: lay eyes on James, they're like dinner is served. They
Speaker 3: grab him, pull him onto the dinner table, and just
Speaker 3: start getting the guts.
Speaker 2: If they had watched more European horror films, they would
Speaker 2: know that religious orders get zombified almost immediately, like it's
Speaker 2: it's a real epidemic.
Speaker 3: Does tend to happen? So now, so he gets eaten.
Speaker 3: Our last three survivors are Janet, Mark and Evelyn, and
Speaker 3: they get crowded into this weird room with like a
Speaker 3: staircase and an upper walkway. It's kind of a stone
Speaker 3: basement room. And this is sort of where our climax
Speaker 3: takes place, and it leads into the infamous boob bite.
Speaker 2: That's right, We get this moment where you know, Eveline's
Speaker 2: pretty delirious at this point, and to be clear, they've
Speaker 2: all been cornered in this basement environment and they're they're
Speaker 2: going to die here. There's not going to be an escape.
Speaker 2: Suddenly who walks in. It's Michael fully zombie fie, like
Speaker 2: we can tell he's a zombie now he's walking zombie like.
Speaker 3: He's like purple and bloody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and she's like Michael my son, and she,
Speaker 2: you know, she reaches out and she embraces this stumbling zombie. Now,
Speaker 2: remember Michael is short. It only comes up breast high
Speaker 2: on Evelyn. Michael starts prodding at her shirt and she's
Speaker 2: again delirious, and she says, yes, let me breastfeed you
Speaker 2: like I did when you were little. And we all
Speaker 2: know what happens next, death by zombie boot bite.
Speaker 3: And the legitimate laugh out loud at the cutaway to
Speaker 3: Mark and Janet here looking on with increasing skepticism and
Speaker 3: then horror as Evelyn is like talking herself into.
Speaker 2: This, yeah, because we all know it's gonna happen.
Speaker 3: And then oh no, so that's gross, and then the
Speaker 3: zombies just flood in that they come in from all
Speaker 3: the doors and there's no escape. At this point, Mark
Speaker 3: gets grabbed by the zombies and they take him over
Speaker 3: to a work table where there is a circular saw.
Speaker 3: It's a circular table saw, and they're like feeding his
Speaker 3: face toward it.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, another upgrade in their technological advancement.
Speaker 3: Though exactly they're using power tools.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, they're gonna be gene splicing by the end
Speaker 2: of the week.
Speaker 3: There you go. And then Janet also is just screaming
Speaker 3: as the zombie monks crowd around, and so we're about
Speaker 3: to see. Oh no, Mark, he's gonna get his head
Speaker 3: sawed in half. What's that gonna look like? If Fulci
Speaker 3: would let us get a look at that? But not
Speaker 3: so lucky here, No look at that. Instead, it's freeze frame.
Speaker 3: And then text appears on the screen, and this is
Speaker 3: what it says. The earth shall tremble, graves shall open,
Speaker 3: they shall come among the living as messengers of death,
Speaker 3: and there shall be the nights of terror. And then
Speaker 3: its sites a text called Prophecy of the Black Spider.
Speaker 3: I should have remembered to look that up and see
Speaker 3: if that's a real thing. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: I do not know that this is an accurate quote
Speaker 2: from anything attributed to them, But I believe the Black
Speaker 2: Spiders at least partially related to some sort of Nostradamus
Speaker 2: style uh you know, Forecaster of the Future, diviner or
Speaker 2: what have you, soothsayer. The important thing to note here
Speaker 2: is that there are what there's at least one misspelling
Speaker 2: eish text that has played out over the screen here.
Speaker 2: Ye prophecy p r O F E c Y. It happens.
Speaker 2: It happens. You just got it. You got to proof
Speaker 2: that stuff. Yeah, but it provides the viewers with one
Speaker 2: last laugh as we close out.
Speaker 3: They didn't have Clippi back then. Yeah, I couldn't fix
Speaker 3: it for you.
Speaker 2: I see you're trying to write a closing epilogue though. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then but then the it plays again and we
Speaker 2: get that beautiful music, and you know, then all all
Speaker 2: flaws are forgiven. I guess so, so if it was
Speaker 2: not already overtly obvious, This again is a grubby, gut
Speaker 2: munching zombie trash film and not a serious psychological study
Speaker 2: of anything, but it does seem like in its own
Speaker 2: shallow way, the film is playing around with some of
Speaker 2: the psychosexual concepts proposed by Sigmund Freud, especially concerning the
Speaker 2: the oral stage of development, as well as the ideas
Speaker 2: of freud associate Carl Abraham. The oral sadistic phase was
Speaker 2: one of his concepts and Melanie Klein's a good slash
Speaker 2: bad breast interpretation. This is, this is the idea that,
Speaker 2: like an infant splits their mother in two, there's the
Speaker 2: good breast that feeds in the bad breast, which withholds
Speaker 2: because at this point they can't comprehend that the that
Speaker 2: the same person would be capable of both things. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I hesitate to go to go too deep on any
Speaker 2: of these concepts because burial Ground gives all of it
Speaker 2: the exploitation treat me, you know, throw it all into
Speaker 2: a blinder and then you know, pour it out and
Speaker 2: paint your picture. So it's ridiculous as it's presented here.
Speaker 2: But I would argue that it that it does kind
Speaker 2: of hit in part because it is connecting to some
Speaker 2: far more complex dualities in the human experience.
Speaker 3: Interesting, I mean, I want to go with you there.
Speaker 3: But I would also I would say that like the
Speaker 3: Oedipal stuff and all that, it doesn't there's nothing else
Speaker 3: in the plot other than those scenes that it connects to.
Speaker 3: So it doesn't, you know, there's no dialogue about anything
Speaker 3: that would raise these themes in any other way, you know,
Speaker 3: So it feels very out of nowhere, and for no
Speaker 3: reason we.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, Yeah, I'm not making an argument that it
Speaker 2: is at all well crafted. Yeah, it is too horned
Speaker 2: in there, and it is only shallowly explored and only
Speaker 2: you know, really only executed to get a rise out
Speaker 2: of the audience. But it does get that rise.
Speaker 3: I mean though, I would genuinely in this case be
Speaker 3: fascinated to hear the writer and director explain in their
Speaker 3: own words what they thought was going on with this stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the flip side is, I don't know that I
Speaker 2: would want to see the well executed version of this
Speaker 2: vision anyway, So I'd far prefer like the sloppy, hilarious
Speaker 2: version of it on film. This is not a film
Speaker 2: where I'm like, they had great ideas here if only
Speaker 2: they could have perfected it. No, Burial Ground is perfect
Speaker 2: as it is.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, as you mentioned earlier, I mean, I
Speaker 3: think the real theme of this movie for some reason
Speaker 3: is is earth. It's soil. It's something about the relationship
Speaker 3: between death and birth and the soil of the ground
Speaker 3: that that's got to be And it's not something that
Speaker 3: the characters talk about at all, But clearly I think
Speaker 3: that's a visual theme.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, Okay, maybe I'm getting there. Maybe the soil
Speaker 3: is like the mother of all nature somehow, and.
Speaker 2: You want to kiss your mother. Maybe yes, And maybe
Speaker 2: there's a good bread, good, good breast, bad breast thing
Speaker 2: with mother nature. It's like, how can mother nature nourish
Speaker 2: me and also punish me? You know, clearly it is
Speaker 2: not capable of both. It must be two mother natures? No,
Speaker 2: but it is one. Yeah, I don't know we're really
Speaker 2: reaching here.
Speaker 3: I think what this really needs is the input of
Speaker 3: an Etruscan magic scholar. And then I believe so, yeah,
Speaker 3: all right, does that do it for Burial Ground?
Speaker 2: I believe it does. Burial Ground pretty fun if you're
Speaker 2: into this sort of film, and if you are and
Speaker 2: you've seen Burial Ground right in, we would love to
Speaker 2: hear from you, get your take on any of these concepts.
Speaker 2: Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow your Mind is
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most
Speaker 2: serious concerns just talk about a weird film on weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema. If you are on letterbox dot com, you
Speaker 2: can look us up there. Our username is Weird House
Speaker 2: and we have a nice list of all the films
Speaker 2: we've covered over the years, and sometimes there's a peek
Speaker 2: ahead at what comes next. We do not have the
Speaker 2: entire year plotted out for Weird House Cinema, so as
Speaker 2: always right in with your recommendations for films that we
Speaker 2: should consider.
Speaker 3: Absolutely huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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