Night of Terror
Italy 1980. Director: Andrea Bianchi
Cast: Mariangela Giordano, Karin Well, Gian Luigi Chirizzi
Aka: Burial Ground, Zombie 3

The earth shall tremble, graves shall open. They shall come among the living as messengers of death and there shall be the night of terror...

God only knows. That is how this, easily the worst of the Italian zombie movies from the era, could ever be considered a classic by anyone. It just has to be seen to be believed I guess. But how bad it may be, for young gorehounds in the early days of video nasties, i.e the early '80s, Night of Terror (or Burial Ground where I grew up) was nontheless a steady classic alongside titles from Lucio Fulci et all. Although the discussions always tended to center around which film was the worst zombie film ever made, this or Hell of the Living Dead? Someone would argue that no one beats Oasis of the Zombies in being unwatchable. No such thing, this blows the biggest dogs. Anyhow, such phenomenon is extremely hard to imagine when watching the film today. But to its credit, there are things going on in it that you just can't get prepared enough for. Some things so scary you hair stands on end even trying to describe it. For instance, the young boy who looks like an old guy in make-up and who, at least in the English version, is dubbed by another old guy trying to sound like a boy. That's as scary as it gets. And then the boy (who is actually a sixteen year old boy) bites the nipple off his mother's breast in glorious detail. The story, something about zombies in potato-sacks awaken around an old country house full of young inhabitants, quickly becomes insignificant because of such over-the-top set-pieces, courtesy of fx-wizards Rosario Prestopino and Giannetto De Rossi, shot by director Bianchi as if it was a porn film. And the actors are hillariously killed in various manners. Once in time, that was all we needed. Now I'm not so sure.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.