Burial Ground: The Next Generation

It's been long delayed, but 88 Films' restoration of Burial Ground has finally landed in the USA! If you contributed to their indiegogo campaign at the end of 2014 (it was DVDExotica's very first tweet!), you should be getting your copies now. And if you didn't, it's in stock and shipping. So it's available for all. Now, I suppose, the only question is... was it worth it?

Update 3/11/16 - 10/27/16: And now it's time for another blu-ray edition of Burial Ground, this time from Severin Films. This isn't the first time they've followed closely on 88 Film's heels with a US release of one of their Italian restorations (for that, see Zombie Holocaust, which was in the same Indiegogo campaign). That time, Severin won a lot of fan favor for their improved color timing, alternate cut of the film and impressive set of special features (though disappointingly, they lost the Italian subtitles, forcing Western audiences to stick to the English dub). But can they snatch the crown a second time?

Update 3/30/24: Eight years later, and Burial Ground has advanced to a new age, an Ultra High Def age.  Once again, 88 and Severin have put out competing editions.  Especially with UHDs, region locking isn't a thing (well, except in a very few infamous cases), so we're really free to choose which edition we want.  I've rolled the dice on Severin.  Let's see how I did.

Admittedly, Burial Ground is a B-movie. I mean, even within the realm of horror movies and 80s zombie films, it's a B. No one's ever going to refer to this film's taste or class. But it's such a fun flick. It's an Italian film that doesn't shy away from the blood and guts, provided by Fulci effects regular Gino de Rossi, and it's shot in a castle! So it's got that European Gothic flavor, including a creepy little incestuous subplot, sprinkled over essentially another Zombi knock off sequel. In fact, it was released in Japan as Zombie 3. Burial Ground's a little on the cheaper side - some of the zombies look a little more mask-y than Fulci's undead - but this film certainly delivers the mayhem, giving it a replay value many of its peers lack, even if they're maybe technically, objectively better films.

So, Andrea Bianchi's Burial Ground's been around the home video block. There are lower quality DVDs from your usual suspect labels like Vipco and Laser Paradise, as well as a non-anamorphic Italian Shock DVD. At least pretty much every release has been uncut. But probably the first really respectable release was Shriek Show's 2002 DVD, which was an anamorphic widescreen special edition, which I've got here for comparison. Shriek Show bumped it up to blu-ray with a new but mildly received transfer in 2011, and about two minutes worth of controversially missing frames. Essentially, damaged frames were removed whenever the picture cut, similar to the issue we saw on Blue Underground's blu-ray of Hell Of the Living Dead. And as in that case, the loss of visual frames is less the issue itself than what it does to the synced audio. So I held off on upgrading to that disc.

One of the many frames missing from Shriek Show's blu, restored on 88's.

Now, the running time for 88's 2016 restoration is 85:11, as opposed to Shriek Show's 83:24, and there's no 88 Films logo or anything at the beginning padding it out; so that's a very promising sign. Unfortunately, the review that detailed all of the missing shots between the DVD and blu-ray is gone. The whole site, wtf-film.com has closed.  :(  But the post on Kentai's blog lists a few of them, and shows some of the missing frames, so I'm checking the new blu against the time codes there. And... oh thank goodness! The missing frames are there at 14:25. You do hear the chandelier exploding at 16:09, and see the shot of the zombie starting to emerge from the planter at 25:51. 88 Films came through!

So with that problem resolved, we can relax.  The missing frames thing is behind us.  Anf, funf act: 88's first blu-ray features two transfers: a new 2k scan from a 35mm print done in the USA, described as their "alternative grindhouse version," and a new HD master taken from the original 16mm negative in Italy.  Then came Severin's blu-ray, using that same, latter master.  In 2023, 88 released a flusher special edition UHD, and now in 2024, Severin have done the same.  In fact, it's a BD/ UHD combo-pack, so we'll be adding two new sets of shots to the comparison.

1) Shriek Show 2002 DVD; 2) 88 Films 2016 grindhouse BD;
3) 88 Films 2016 restored BD; 4) Severin 2016 BD;
5) Severin 2024 BD; 6) Severin 2024 UHD.

hehe  Look how some form of scratch removal
removed Mariangle's flowing white scarf in this frame.

Happily, the scarf returns to us in 2024!

Well, I even prefer 88's "grindhouse" version to Shriek Show's DVD, even though the contrast is through the roof. The grindhouse version has lots of dirt flecks, especially in the beginning; but at least it preserves the film's 1.66:1 ratio. The DVD is slightly letterboxed to 1.85:1, mostly cropping the top of the image. It's also faded, soft and washed. Plus, the DVD is interlaced:

Shriek Show 2002 DVD.

Meanwhile, the newer 1.66 version from the negative is clearly the best this film had ever looked. Of course, the deck was stacked against the other versions - I almost suspect the whole reason 88 included the print version may've just been to make the other look better by comparison - but no matter what context you put it in, it's surprising the 16mm footage could look this good. It's crisper than I was expecting, and the grain looks natural and un-tampered with. And between the two 2016 negative transfers?  Severin did some more re-timing, going for some slightly more vivid colors and higher contrast, but possibly crushing the slightest bits of info out of some shadows and highlights.  So which is preferable is a bit of a personal judgement call.

But we can pretty much forget about that now in 2024, anyway.  We can see this isn't just the same master blown up to 2160p because that scarf is back.  Besides that, okay, it's not like there's loads of new details to unveil.  But thanks to the new Dolby Vision/ HDR presentation, subtle colors like the shine on Bark's forehead get to be more subtle and authentic, and small edges like the food on his plate are smooth and natural, as opposed to blocky like on the BDs.  Look at his hand facing the camera, and even on the Severin negative transfer, you can see areas where film grain is jagged and pixelated, but not on the UHD.  Burial Ground has upgraded to a new generation of image quality, though you'll need a pretty good set to notice the difference.

More good news: since 88 Films' 2016 BD, every release has provided both the English and Italian audio tracks in lossless 1.0 (LPCM in the case of 88's 2016 blu, DTS-HD for all that followed), with optional English subtitles. So we now have both language options.  Past releases, including Shriek Show's DVD and subsequent blu, only featured the English audio and no subs at all.

Now let's talk extras. This is where I said hang onto your Shriek Shows, because they had a couple exclusive interviews not on 88's release. There are roughly 10 minute talks with producer Gabriele Crisanti, and actress Mariangela Giordano. Besides those Shriek Show also has a photo gallery, the trailer, some bonus trailers and an insert with liner notes by AV Maniacs' Charles Avinger and European Trash Cinema's Craig Ledbetter. Plus, on their 2011 blu-ray - but not their original 2002 DVD - they have 9+ minutes of outtakes without sound.

88's blu does not have those interviews, but they did make their own new extras, just with experts rather than any of the filmmakers. There's an audio commentary by UK critic and author John Martin, who's surprisingly negative about the film and spends most of the track ignoring it to talk about his own personal history. And there's a nearly half hour on camera interview with Mikel Coven (who wrote a book on Bianchi's films), which has a lot of interesting information. Coven really gets into Bianchi's other films, and I'm glad to have these extras - though you can really skip the commentary - but you can't top the people who were actually there.

Now so far, Severin has been running neck and neck with 88 Films, but here's where they started to pull ahead. They have a bunch of new special features, and they've actually got people who worked on the film.  Most excitingly for most fans is an interview, recorded before an audience at a 2013 screening, with the one and only Peter Bark!  They show clips from some of his other work, and it's definitely a fun, if a little brief (7.5 minutes) piece fans will want to see.  There's also a nice interview with actor Simone Mattioli, and a pretty in-depth featurette about the film's dramatic villa, filmed on location.  It turns out there's a ton of film history there.  All these new extras are great, and you should definitely check them out.

And Severin has also imported the Shriek Show extras... mostly, kinda sorta.  Where Shriek Show's on-camera interviews with Crisanti and Giordano were nine and a half, and eleven minutes long, respectively, Severin has made an odd choice. They edited them together into one nine minute and twenty second featurette that cuts back and forth between them.  And it's not even like they cut out all the clips from the film; those are still in there, plus about 30 seconds worth of newly added credits.  So, on the one hand, it is a more tightly edited piece, which some viewers will prefer.  A lot of what was cut was the interviewer asking his questions.  But on the other hand, we lost about 12 minutes, which is more than half of the interviews, including a lot of the subjects' thoughts; and that's a little bit disappointing.  Now it's like, uh, do I still hang onto my Shriek Show disc?  But if you've got the Severin disc, I'd say really don't go back and double-dip for the complete interviews unless you're a super fan with a poster of Mariangela up on your wall.

from the outtakes on 88's 2016 blu.

Happily, all the blu-rays also include the outtakes, albeit without sound. They've each got the theatrical trailer, too, and 88 includes a bonus trailer for their other indiegogo restoration, Zombie Holocaust. Severin also includes the alternate Italian opening credits, which 88 has on their "grindhouse" version. 88's disc includes a postcard with alternate artwork, a 16-page booklet with liner notes by Calum Waddell (who also moderated the audio commentary), reversible cover art and an exclusive slipcover if you're one of the people who donated to the campaign.  Meanwhile, the first 3000 copies of Severin's blu came in a slipcover, and all copies have reversible cover art with the traditional giant skull face or lumbering zombie images.

And yes, things have gotten even better for UHDs.  88 Films commissioned several exciting new extras for their 2023, and Severin has carried the most exciting of them over to their 2024 disc, too.  There's a new expert commentary by Nathaniel Thompson, Troy Howarth, and Eugenio Ercolani that's definitely better than the Martin one (which is still here, too), if a little overly casual and prone to long tangents.  Then, what's sure to be the real crowd pleaser, there's a new interview with Peter Bark (the old Q&A's still here, too), conducted at the old villa.  Now, 88 did also conduct two new on-camera interviews with additional experts that Severin didn't carry over (they haven't ported the Koven interview either)... but even 88's latest set is still missing the cast interviews with Mattioli, Cristiani and Giordano, which are all on Severin's UHD.  And for me, no knocks against anybody, but three interviews with the actual cast versus three interviews with additional experts is no contest.

Severin's UHD is light on booklets and stuff, but it does come in a nice, embossed slipcover.  And if you really need some swag, you can get their special bundle exclusive from their website, which includes a T-shirt and a Peter Bark pillowcase!

I was quite happy with 88's initial restoration. I was confident this would give us the best version of Burial Ground to date back when I donated, but I wasn't at all sure how much better. I was prepared for just slightly less noise. Thankfully though, all of the issues were fixed, the picture was a nice upgrade, plus we get some fresh extras and the Italian track, all in an attractive package. I'm still glad I donated.  Since that time, we've gotten even more improvements and special features, making incrementally better releases each time.  It may not have been worth the trouble and expensive of collecting each step along the way, but we've wound up in a pretty incredible place for this crazy little film. Whichever edition winds up on your shelf, it's all delightful.