John’s Horror Corner: Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (1981; aka Le notti del terrore), a pretty great, very gory and rather raunchy Italian zombie movie.

MY CALL: This goretastic 80s zombie movie is just what the discerning zombie fan needs. A variety of zombies and zombie attacks frequent the running time from start to finish with loads of pleasingly gross visual effects. There’s also ample nudity (for better or worse) and chonky monster make-up. A fun watch MORE MOVIES LIKE Burial Ground: Easily the best choices include Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), Dead & Buried (1981), Fulci’s Zombie (1979), and then City of the Living Dead (1980), The House by the Cemetery (1981) and The Beyond (1981)—the last three being Fulci’s Gates of Hell trilogy.

Several wealthy couples return to their seasonal countryside mansion. Based on the scenes following their arrival, this is a romantic retreat rich with sex scenes and nudity. But I mean, it’s nice to see these middle-aged couples are still so amorous. They can’t keep their hands off each other. There’s even a very off-putting bit of incest between preteen Michael (the tiny 26-yr old actor Pietro Barzocchini) and his mother Janet (Karin Well) that’ll take you by surprise.

Unfortunately for this family, their archaeology professor houseguest/friend has recently awakened the living dead in the nearby catacombs. So as the affluent begin their vacation, the dead begin stirring. Some rise from their crypts and begin to pilgrimage toward the mansion, others rise from beneath only inches of soil and grass on the grounds, and some even rise from sarcophagi covered in plants in the garden! And like all Italian zombies we’ve scene, these undead want to eat the living and they can only be stopped with fire or severe head trauma. Where these zombies differ is their intelligence. While not particularly clever, these zombies know when to retreat, they arm themselves, they chop their way into the barricaded mansion with axes, and they climb up the walls to reach windows.

A fine quality in this classic is its pacing. From the opening scenes, we get a steady presentation of a variety of zombie scenes with a wide range of make-up styles. There are loads of zombies, clearly having died in different traumatic ways.

These zombies are pretty gnarly, both in terms of clunky lower(ish) budget effects and general chonky disposition. Many zombies are very lacerated, covered in gross skin flaps and lipless toothy maws. Some are as basic as crude papier-mâché whereas others exhibit carefully detailed latex work. The major value here is how many different zombies there are and how frequently we see them. A lot of zombies grace the screen and there is a lot of action in this movie.

The gore is likewise very satisfying. Zombie mobs tear open abdomens and pull out whole organs, there’s a cheeky scythe decapitation gag, a woman (Antonella Antinori; Maya) has her face pulled through broken glass, and a boy even bites off his mother’s nipple all on-screen! Yup, this is a must-see for 80s zombie fans and fans of wild Italian horror for sure. Director Andrea Bianchi (Maniac Killer) has served genre fans well! Such a shame he didn’t make more horror films.