Le notti del terrore [Burial Ground] (1981)

(In French, On Cable TV, August 2020) I’m seeing far too many early-1980s Italian grindhouse horror movies in too little time and they’re all blending together in my mind. It doesn’t help that they’re remarkably similar to one another in theme, tone, budget and plot. Burial Ground doesn’t strike too far away from its contemporaries: a haunted mansion, decaying undead, over-the-top gore effects and a narrative structure regrettably focused on “the kills” is pretty much what you need to know about the film and whether you want to see it or not. The plot goes all over the place, not particularly concerned with choosing between being a haunted house story or a zombie film. Perhaps the film’s most distinctive aspect is also its most stomach-churning, what with a boy with incestuous feelings with his mother soon turning to cannibalism. What can I say – Burial Ground is that kind of movie. It’s not quite as bleakly sadistic as some entries in the genre, and the emphasis on the zombies means that it’s a bit easier to take than some of the other movies focused on cannibalism, but we’re really slicing thin in terms of distinctions and degrees here: it takes a jaded audience indeed to start arguing about which kind of cannibalism is most unpleasant, and I fear that with every horror movie I watch I stray further and further away from the light. Well, all right, then.