DAY 33--BURIAL GROUND

BURIAL GROUND, Andrea Bianchi's 1981 zombiefest (which also went by THE NIGHTS OF TERROR and ZOMBIE 3, to capitalize on Fulci's film), knows what zombie fans want. Which is why the film's entire running time consists of people running from, destroying, or being eaten by zombies (ever the shrewd businessman, Bianchi even tosses in a little nudity in setting up the bare-bones premise of a group of vacationing jet-setters settling into a country estate for the weekend).

Sure, the script was probably written in an hour and the dubbed performances are entertaining more for their ineptitude than their effectiveness, but damn if this isn't a fun movie. The zombies are especially cool, rotting cadavers stumbling from one victim to the next, live maggots squirming within their make-up. Bianchi quite rightly assumes we want copious amounts of gore along with our zombies, so each death scene is particularly juicy (there's even a rip-off of ZOMBIE's splinter-in-the-eye sequences, recreated here almost exactly, though substituting broken glass for wood). And yes, this is the film that features the strange-looking little person playing a child, who gives new meaning to the phrase "breast feeding," a scene that would make BURIAL GROUND worthwhile all by itself.

Sure, it ain't John Ford's THE GRAPES OF WRATH, but what it lacks in . . . well, everything, it makes up for nonstop zombie mayhem. No conversations to pad out the plot, no sly social commentary, just zombies doing what zombies do. The perfect film for parties (there's got to be a cool drinking game here somewhere) or those times when you just want to relax and not be bothered by "good" cinema.

(Special thanks to Donna Williams for providing a copy of the film.)