Incest is funny to me. Out of all the taboo subjects I can think of, incest definitely makes me laugh the hardest. It's a nasty, fucked up thing that I don't quite understand. But it is reality. That we can all agree on. Brother and sister, father and daughter, maybe even grammy and grampy get involved from time to time, but to me, nothing seems quite as awkward and uncomfortable as mother on son love. Or in this one case, son on mother. Today, I want to talk about a movie that is very dear to my heart. A movie that shamelessly, and very randomly, adds a tasty little sub plot involving incest. One boy's dream of someday sticking it to the woman who shat him out into the world. Or at least copping as many feels as he can get away with. Maybe he's sick, but in his defense, little Michael's mom is still pretty hot. Just sayin'

But what's Michael's deal? Well, I don't know, exactly. But he's not at all normal. That's established before he even says anything. Michael is being dragged by mother and her new husband out to the country to stay in an old mansion with two other couples, who all enjoy flirting with each other very much. The only thing worse than being a third wheel is being a seventh wheel, says Michael. Or I'm sure that's what he was thinkng. He doesn't seem very happy about this vacation, and it's made obvious that he feels threatened by the new step father, as he tries to horn in every chance he gets, which is usually successful. But back to how not normal this "kid" is. Little Michael's lack of normalness and his flat out creepiness is partly due to the fact that he is being portrayed by an adult. A pale, little man named Peter Bark. And his voice is dubbed in English by another adult trying in vain to sound like a child. Also, Michael looks a bit like a mini-Dario Argento. Or maybe Argento looks like a jumbo Peter Bark. There's really no way of telling. Welcome to Burial Ground!

So, yeah. This is a zombie movie. "The professor", who lived in this mansion, decided to resurrect the dead for some reason and ended up paying for it with his life, presumably, the night before everyone showed up. And as we now wait for the giddy couples to get torn apart, we're treated to plenty of filler, involving these people frollicking about in the garden, and making out. Eventually, zombies emerge from the caves and invade the countryside, ruining an otherwise pleasant weekend for all. The zombies are here, and they're not going away. And some of them even look like The Toxic Avenger.



These are some extremely old corpses. And slow ones. They really shouldn't be a problem to avoid, but somehow, end up being a huge one for these people who all manage to do everything wrong when attemtping to flee these things. In fact, stupidity has rarely been so abundant in a Horror film as it is in Burial Ground. Looking back, nobody should have had to die in this film, but they certainly did, and things get really gory. Meanwhile, little Michael never seems to give up on this thing with his mom. No matter how bad things get, or how scared he gets, it's always in the back of his mind. I can tell.

Directed by Giallo master, Andrea Bianchi, Burial Ground is one of the first bad Horror films that I fell in love with, and to this day, still my all-time favorite Italian Horror film. And it may sound a bit excessive, but I'm proud to say that this is one of the few films I own on vhs, dvd and blu-ray. The blu-ray looks fantastic, but I seem to always find myself going back to my beloved Vestron copy whenever I feel the urge. Technically, this is a terrible way to watch the film, as it's dark, grainy and just plain awful looking. But somehow, this only adds to the nightmarish tone of it all. The gore mixed with the glorious stupidity, and of course the thick layer of sleaziness that you could cut with a knife, makes Burial Ground one of the all-time great bad/WTF movies. As a zombie film, it's not the best thing ever, but the dark atmosphere and constant sense of dread makes this not only hilarious, but a pretty decent Horror film on top of it. Best of both worlds.

But back to the one thing this film will be remembered for. Little Michael. This freak of nature is something to behold. A character that seemingly exists just to fuck with our heads for all time. A boy who knows what he wants and goes for it, a character with a built-in sub plot that will go down in B-movie history as one of the most random and creepy qualities ever put to film. With all the chaos involving the dead, Michael's hardon for his mother is simply just there. Never really the point, but always there. Clearly, the boy had a lot of issues. Some of which maybe not even mother-related. Issues we could have even seen explored had the dead not gotten involved. But, unfortunately, we'll never know what evil or insanity was behind those cold, dead eyes. Maybe we're better off not knowing. 8/10