Terror Tuesday Report: Burial Ground

The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas is something of a Mecca for movie geeks. In addition to first-run theatrical fare, the Drafthouse regularly showcases cult, foreign, and classic films. For the last four years, Alamo programmer Zack Carlson has hosted a late-night horror movie celebration called Terror Tuesday and if you are a lover of horror, both esoterically brilliantly and obscurely awful, this night was invented just for you.

So I decided, since I am already a fixture at the Drafthouse, despite their best efforts to get rid of me, why not provide coverage for this weekly treat? The Terror Tuesday Report will dissect the movie shown as well as provide a barometer for the audience's reaction; as many of these films demand to be seen with an audience, this proves a vital component to the evening.

This week's film: Burial Ground. The Film

I love the Italians, In the early 80's they demonstrated a commitment to cinema that transcended trivial superficialities like copyright laws or cohesive screenplays. They would take popular American films like Escape from New York or The Warriors and construct glorious bastardizations that capture just enough of the original to make the plagiarism more apparent. This unscrupulous behavior was, more or less, confined to the action films coming out of Italy at the time, but horror films had their own problems. There existed, of course, our beloved triumvirate of Fulci, Argento, and Bava. But, as the action knockoffs taught us, where a real filmmaker succeeds, a slew of imitators will fail to recreate the formula. Such is the case with today's zombie disaster: Burial Ground.

Burial Ground has a story...guess. It's about a guy digging a hole under a mansion. No wait, it's about a trio of amorous couples and one creepy kid showing up at the mansion for a party. No wait, the couples are there for the dig as well. No, I think it's a reunion. You know what? Zombies show up and people die, that's about the long and the short of anything resembling plot in this film. Beyond that, we get flashes narrative changes and people refer to events we haven't seen as if they are foregone conclusions, but nothing that really smacks of competent storytelling. But this is not a film you watch for the story; more likely you watch because you count yourself a fan of the walking dead.

As to the zombies themselves, I wouldn't recommend them. They are clearly modeled after those in the Fulci masterpiece; to the point that the most similar of the zombie rises from the grave in a suspiciously familiar "homage." At first glance, the makeup job on the undead seems respectable enough, but as the film progresses, and you see them more closely, the gigantic corners that were cut become readily visible. While the forearm of the actor would be caked to look like grayed, rotting flesh, the underside would have no makeup at all. While most of the zombies look as if they have been dead for centuries, there are a couple of extras who look like they were buried yesterday which is odd considering they keep making reference to the ancient tombs below the house.

Also, and maybe this is just a personal taste issue, but plastic googly eyes do not a frightening flesh-eater make. I was unaware there were Hobby Lobby locations in Italy, but there we are. And if you are among the detractors who thought it was easy to provide good Foley work for a horror film, Burial Ground will smash that misconception to pieces. Every time a zombie's head would be called in by fist or blunt object, it sounded as if a landslide had began and hundreds of boulders were careening down the screen. I'm not a doctor, but I'm fairly certain bone is not the same as rock. The one thing I did really like about them is that they were organized and even used tools! While the zombie purists will probably cry foul, I thought it was a unique attribute to bring to an old standard.

I cannot possibly talk about this film without talking about Peter Bark; the actor playing the young child, Michael. When I say actor, I don't mean child actor. No, Mr. Bark was 26 years old when he took on this role. He was apparently a midget who, despite nailing the height attribute, does not really resemble a child at all. He looks like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, if Mr. Burns were an Italian jockey wearing a bad toupee. The craziest part of this were all the scenes of him acting childish when it was clear from his face that he was still reeling from the drunken argument he had had with his wife just before arriving on set. i also liked all the random zooms that brought us right into his wide-eyed, weathered face for no reason at all. There is a moment in the film that will burn a hole in your brain with his weirdness involving Michael showing an inappropriate amount of affection for his mother. This scene sets up what will be the greatest kill in the whole film, but at the time it is made all the more unsettling by the fact that a grown man is pretending to be a child...feeling up his own mom. Heebies and jeebies abound.

The horror in the film comes from methodical pacing. And by methodical pacing, I mean this film will test not only your intelligence but your patience as well. There were a plethora of scenes involving zombies crawling toward unsuspecting dupes. They would crawl with the blazing velocity of a three-toed sloth and even when the potential victims would get wind of this, they would stand their gawking and screaming instead of running away. Hell, they wouldn't have even needed to run away because a casual stroll in the opposite direction would have more than facilitated their escape. My favorite part of this is that the rabble still screamed, "hurry, run" or "quickly, in here" even though the zombies were shown to be a half mile behind them; yup, better run guys. There was also a scene where, while hoards of the undead are bashing at the walls, the butler lights every last candle in the room before the scene is allowed to continue. Wow!



The Reaction

Burial Ground represents the ideal litmus test for Terror Tuesday virgins as to whether this event is for them. It is a goopy, silly, blood-and-guts abortion of a film that demands to be viewed with a large, horrophile crowd; preferably over several buckets of beer. I know for a fact that there were more than a few first timers in the audience so I watched them carefully. Clearly, these newbies found comfortable membership in this theater because, like the rest of us, they were erupting in laughter at the many, many missteps. Interestingly there is a point in the film that seems to deliver a punctuated, effective ending...and then the film continues for 10 more minutes. There was a clear drop-off in audience reaction after the ending proved not to be the ending, and it seemed no one could comprehend why the credits were not rolling. However, when we reached that aforementioned child zombie kill the life was thrust back into the room and the waiting once again seemed worthwhile.