callanvass This is when a slew of Zombie films were coming out, and a lot of them were low budget knockoffs of Dawn of The Dead. Dawn of The Dead itself wasn't that big of a budget, but that movie is the greatest Zombie film ever made, so it doesn't matter. You've really seen it all before when it comes to this one, except the Zombies have aging makeup with maggot infested bodies. This movie can be pretty controversial at times. Director Andrea Binachi gives us an incest subplot between a mother and daughter. Michael (Peter Bark) who plays the son was around 30 years old when this happened. So that makes it even weirder. Bark is a creepy looking kid; Michael has a sexual desire for his Mother, and let's just say; it's rather creepy. Look out for that scene near the end with the breast. I won't spoil it, but it's one of the more shocking things I've seen. The characters themselves are nothing special. They basically get ridden with atrocious dubbing and run and scream a lot. That's the problem with Italian Zombie films, is you really have nobody to root for in most of them. The gore flows like wine as to be expected, and the effects aren't too shabby. I didn't care too much for the Zombie makeup, but it wasn't bad. My main problem with this movie is the ending itself. It is extremely anticlimactic. It tries to be ambiguous, but it ended up pis****** me off more than anything else. I also have gripes with the pacing in the middle. There are too many scenes with zombies staggering around and the actors doing nothing of note. It became very redundant. Final Thoughts: Nothing original here, except for some rather shocking incest, but it does have moments of cheesy entertainment. I would recommend Zombie Holocaust over this one, but this one is good for a few laughs as well. 4/10

michaelasiclari What can you say about this little known gem? It has everything you would want in a horror movie, and then some! Directed by Andrea Bianchi, this gore-fest has a lot going for it. First off, this film features the most unlikeable cast of characters I've ever seen in a zombie flick. They make the zombies look like the protagonists of the film! But that is part of its charm. You find yourself rooting for the undead. You CAN'T wait for the hapless victims to die! On a more positive note, the film has some of the best zombie makeup I have ever seen. It also boasts an atmosphere of complete dread and hopelessness. This flick has some of the goriest and inventive murder scenes imaginable. It's as if the zombies watched episodes of "This Old House" and picked up some hand tool tips from Bob Vila. And how can you not mention Peter Bark, the man-child actor involved in the incest angle of the film EEEEEWWWW! All said and done, Burial Ground is one of the best Italian made zombie movies, right up there with the works of Lucio Fulci. I highly recommend you buy this film for your collection, it's a must have!

Red-Barracuda This is one of the many Italian zombie movies that were released on the back of the success of Dawn of the Dead. Andrea Bianchi's movie, however, is a much more straightforward feature than George Romero's template. In this one the set-up is covered in about five minutes – a professor revives the dead in some ancient catacombs, a group of upper class twits arrive at a remote villa and the zombies descend on this house and start killing everyone. It's practically plot less and, to be honest, the lack of any explanations is most welcome. This approach just allows us to get on down to it with a minimum of fuss. The pace is therefore very fast and this could hardly be described as a boring movie. The zombies have decent make up and they tear their victims apart with excessive violence. They also seem to be adept with tools and weaponry which isn't really playing by the rules of convention but who really cares? The point is that this is stupid fun from start to finish.Of course, it would be insane to not mention the film's defining feature, the one and only Peter Bark. This strange dwarf plays a ten year old boy irrespective of the fact that he appears to be about thirty. He might even be older than his 'mother'; but whatever the case he is a deeply creepy character with a medieval bowl-shaped haircut. His oedipal relationship with his mother is simply a further bizarre detail in an already very strange set-up. And as for when he returns to his mother as a zombie, well that sure is a scene to remember that much I can say. The characters, in general, are all incredibly stupid of course, at one point they decide to let the zombies in the villa on the basis that they are quite slow so therefore can easily be avoided! Well, that decision ends in tears as you can probably guess. All the characters act like complete cretins throughout. This is a typical feature of splatter movies though, it means we just want to see them picked off and ripped apart.Burial Ground is a very trashy horror movie, there's no doubt about it. But like many of its contemporaries from Italy at this time it has a relentless energy and no-holds-barred approach to the blood and guts. It should be avoided if characterisation is very important to you. However, if you like them fast, furious and deranged then this might fit the bill.

Ralphus2 If ever there were a "so bad it's good" film, then this is it! The plot is bare bones: An archaeologist discovers a crypt containing zombies which then eat him. Meanwhile, three couples visit a villa in the country for a vacation. The crypt in which the archaeologist was killed turns out to be in the grounds of the villa. The couples set into a regimen of heavy petting in the gardens. The zombies wander out and proceed to attack the lovebirds who quickly retreat into the house. The rest just plays itself out.What makes this film a gem is the character of Michael. Played by Peter Bark, an adult midget, we are supposed to accept him as the young child of one of the women. Seeing the dubbed English version only makes Michael seem even weirder. His voice sounds like a girl's and he's given some pretty odd lines; like this one, clutching a rag found on the floor: "Mama, this cloth smells like death." Someone else here pointed out that he looks like a miniature Dario Argento (a pretty weird-looking bloke himself), and he does! One scene in particular suggests why an adult was used rather than a real child. Why that one scene was deemed so essential that the whole movie should be rendered completely unbelievable, I don't know. But thank goodness they ran with it! This movie is just good old-fashioned crud like only the Italians could make in the 70s and 80s. The zombies themselves look pretty good, surprisingly. Except for a couple who look like guys with heavy eye shadow - put in presumably to make up the numbers. Why give them close-ups then? Who knows! Prior to seeing this, Ralphus from "Bloodsucking Freaks" was my favourite horror movie midget. As far as kids in Italian horrors were concerned, it was a toss up between Bob (Giovanni Frezza) from "House by the Cemetery" and Marco (David Colins Jr) from "Schock". But now Peter Bark as Michael wins both categories.