Directed by Gary Sherman
Fantastic resurrection flick – creepy, effective.
Dead & Buried, 1981 horror movie
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Tag Archives: corpses
Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, 1981 zombie horror
Zombie Movie, directed by Andrea Bianchi
Sunday, April 26, 2009
This would have given me a minimum fortnight’s worth of nightmares if I had seen this as a kid. Night of the Living Dead is one thing; this is another. The rising dead in Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror look more like actual rotting corpses might look than any other zombie movie to date, that I can think of. These corpses come complete with maggots, and sure as hell look like they smell bad, too. They are slow and relatively weak as zombies go – especially when compared to newer sub-genre offerings, especially of the virus zombie type – again, more realistic I would have to say.
In general, Burial Ground zombies have at least part of their skulls showing, with varying amounts of flesh still hanging on. Some of them still have eyes – lifeless, dead eyes – and others only dark, empty sockets.
On the downside, there’s some weak acting; some folks often don’t seem nearly as frightened of the walking dead as they sure as hell should be, and a few of our victims do not seem to defend themselves very staunchly when the corpses finally reach striking distance.
The grotesque appearance of these corpses is what really sets this movie apart.
Oh, and you’ll just love Michael! OMG.
Basic Plot of Burial Ground – The Nights of Terror
A film of unspeakable explicit horrors, Burial Ground delves deep into the mysteries of bizarre scientific experimentation, creating a tale so gruesomely realistic you have to see it to believe it! What began as a carefree weekend at a stately Scottish mansion turns to a bone-chilling terror when the dead rise, in all their decaying glory, to greet the living. A young mother and her son are invited to spend a weekend on the country estate of a Scottish aristocrat. The house is also occupied by a strange guest, known only as the professor. No one pays much attention to him, but he is the key to the impending horrors. The attacks begin during the night – gruesome and unspeakable acts of terror committed by living corpses. It appears that nothing can stop this madness, as the dead take their place as rulers of the living.
One Dark Night, 1982 supernatural horror movie
Verdict: 6.5/10… One of the better supernatural horror movies from the early 80s
As I write this, I have just popped in my freshly acquired DVD of One Dark Night
Soon after I started researching One Dark Night, I got some reassurance from FastRewind.com (see References section below) :
Never has a PG-rated, low-budget horror film successfully created a sense of impending doom and terror as One Dark Night did. . . Don’t let the PG rating fool you, either – this movie is scarier and more effective than the plentiful R-rated gore fests released around the same time.
- The Legend of Hell House, 1973
- Solstice, 2008
- Storm of the Century, 1999 IMDb (Rating: 72)
- The Sight
- When a Stranger Calls (2006 remake)
- White Noise 2
- Watcher in the Woods (1980)
- Salem’s Lot
- Something Wicked This Way Comes
One Dark Night
DVD cover
A short review on the DVD cover reads: “…spooky horror outing aimed at teen audiences…” This is another concern, albeit a minor one. Can this movie really be scary? Of course, being a very well-seasoned horror fan, there is not much that really scares me anymore; but relatively speaking, how scary can One Dark Night be? Back to the DVD cover:
World-famous psychic Raymar is found dead – along with several victims of his bizarre experiments. On the same day his body is interred in a mausoleum, high-schooler Julie Wells (Meg Tilly) agrees to spend the night there all alone–as part of a hazing to join the clique, The Sisters (Robin Evans, Elizabeth Daily, Leslie Speights). Later that night, the Sisters secretly return to torment Julie in an attempt to scare her out of her mind. But the girls are not alone. Raymar’s experiments continue even after death–on his own body and on the dozen resident corpses in various stages of decay. Soon they’re exhumed and looking for fresh bodies.
One Dark Night haunts audiences’ psyches with its claustrophobic setting, moody cinematography, foreboding score, and ultra-realistic makeup effects.
Brief plot summary: One Dark Night
A strange man named Karl Rhamarevich dies shortly after discovering a way to become even more powerful in death through telekinesis. On the night of his burial in a mausoleum crypt, Julie Wells (Meg Tilly) is to spend the night there as part of an initiation rite, supervised by two other girls. The mausolem becomes a scene of horror as Raymar returns to life and deploys his powerful and horrifying telekinetic abilities, forcing long-closed crypts to break open, sending coffins sliding out on Raymar’s command. The coffins splinter open, releasing decaying bodies – which soon begin to menace those girls trapped inside. Will they survive the horrific night in the mausoleum? (Source: IMDb)
Watching One Dark Night
The first minute of One Dark Night – while the opening credits are rolling – has all the makings of a wonderful creepfest! It’s a dark and stormy night, with lots of lightning and thunder, accompanied with eerie background music which consists mostly of a very low note on a synthesizer.
After the opening, we are at a major crime scene where we see a pile of dead women with their eyes still open, and dead psychic Raymar whose body apparently still contains some pent-up energy.
Soon we meet the main cast, the group of teens, which conforms closely to one of the standard horror movie recipes: a good girl, a funny one, the slut, and the jock boyfriend. We also have the persistent reporter.
Oh, what memories! Near the beginning of the movie, the teens are at a video arcade, and some of the video games I used to spend so much money on were shown close-up. Two notable games shown are, I believe, Defender and Tempest. Retro-gaming.
The second half of One Dark Night takes place in a mausoleum, which ranks in my book as one of the creepiest settings for a movie. There are not many horror movies featuring mausoleums, at least that I can think of right off the bat.
This brings the question to mind: Who in hell would want to decay above ground in a mausoleum? Maybe these are fundamentalists who believe their bodies will be resurrected when the trumpets sound; or perhaps there are uber-wealthy people who believe themselves too good to rot in the ground like everyone else. Why on earth someone would insist on taking up space above the ground after they die is beyond me. As for me, please use no chemicals and bury me au natural in a simple pine box – or better yet, just cremate me. In all honestly, I want my body to return to the earth and be a part of everything else ASAP. I digress.
The creepiness begins when the girls drop off our homely heroine at the mausoleum, basically forcing her to spend the night there as an initiation rite into their little club of cool. (I cannot help but wonder if it would be considered cheating, to take in a couple of strong sleeping pills? That would be me!) She enters the mausoleum, with all its large drawers, with some trepidation, clutching her red sleeping bag. At first, the building is well-lit. Curious, she explores a bit, reading some of the plaques.
Julie finds a place to settle down and sits on her sleeping bag, leaning against a wall with no corpse drawers; however, she gets bored quickly and goes exploring.
People, this girl is far braver than I. Would I spend the night in a mausoleum? The only scenario that might include my bunking in such close quarters with corpses would necessarily include the transfer of a large sum of money into my bank account. Plus, I would smuggle in and quickly consume two or more Ambien (or something stronger).
The Sisters of Cool are in the car arguing about the hazing situation when it is revealed that Sisters leader Carol (the blond bitchy one) gave Julie a pill earlier, which Carol says was Demerol. Good enough!
The movie flips between Julie at the mausoleum, the Sisters of Cool, jock Steve (who is genuinely concerned for Julie’s safety, and is not happy with the Sisters and their pranks), and Raymar’s own sister, who is staying up late doing some research into her brother’s experiments – listening to his tapes and such.
The Sisters of Cool head back to the mausoleum with the intention of scaring poor Julie to death; after all, they – especially the blond ice bitch – have no intention of actually letting Julie into their pathetic little club, no matter what. They have a sheet and a rubber mask with which to do some frightening, which they do; they sneak into the mausoleum, find Julie asleep (passed out, more like), and start terrorizing her. But the Sisters do not have the last laugh. . .
Steve finally finds out from the abandoned Sister that Julie is indeed at the mausoleum, so he goes to the rescue.
At this point some truly horrifying things happen to the girls in the mausoleum. For example, a casket slowly slides out of its mausoleum drawer all by itself and then the casket opens to reveal the moist, rotting body of an older man. The eyes of the corpse open, and the girls find it in them at this point to run to another part of the building, where the same thing happens with other caskets and bodies, in varying states of mortification and putrefaction. It is damn scary to see the corpses being dragged by an unseen force – a force supplied by dead Raymar – into the faces of the terrified girls.
Suddenly, I vaguely remembered seeing One Dark Night when I was around 20, and that this movie did a decent job of giving me the creeps back then. (It probably wouldn’t now; this would require something stronger, like Grave Encounters (2011), The Reeds (2009), The Grudge (2005), or perhaps some new supernatural horror from Asia.)
One Dark Night: Morsels of wisdom
Made in the fall of 1982 for a mere $1 million and taking less than a month to film, One Dark Night became a surprise international hit upon its theatrical release.
One Dark Night was nominated for Best Horror Film of 1983 by the Academy of Science Fiction.
IMHO, the most attractive girl in One Dark Night is the young Meg Tilly; however, those who tend to favor blondes will almost surely vote for Elizabeth Daily.
Thoughts about One Dark Night
This is a wonderfully creepy horror movie, and it manages to deliver real scares without excessive gore, sex, any skin at all, very little gutter language, etc. In fact, One Dark Night relies only upon effective storytelling, a creepy atmosphere, supernatural occurrences, and some good corpse special effects (especially for the early 80s) to deliver chills. In other words, there is no cheating or relying on phony props – and this is a huge plus. So many horror movies of today utterly fail to scare on their own merits and rely on nudity, gore, or taboo-breaking to gain some level of viewer approval, and that is truly unfortunate.
In fact, one of the primary missions of my new supernatural horror movie website is to cull the truly scary gems from all those movies that rely on any of the aforementioned crutches to deliver “scares.”
I highly recommend One Dark Night to all but the most jaded horror fans. This movie should be suitable for most audiences, given its age, its rating, and its being relatively free of potentially offensive language, imagery, and even teen behavior – all of which are benign by modern standards. The creep factor, however, is not benign; it’s fairly effective, especially for its time. Enjoy!
Resources: One Dark Night, 1982
- One Dark Night
- One Dark Night
- Rotten Tomatoes has no info about the movie One Dark Night
- Dread Central reviews One Dark Night (4/5 stars)
- Eccentric Cinema Reviews One Dark Night
- Fast Rewind – Review of One Dark Night (92/100)
- Blood Type Online Reviews One Dark Night (3/5 stars)
- DVD Verdict movie review – One Dark Night (78/100)
- Official Website for One Dark Night
- Fast Rewind – Resources for One Dark Night – Trivia and more
- Discussion – Best PG-Rated Horror Movies – Yahoo Answers
Orinigally written Saturday, March 21, 2009
Masters of Horror: Haeckel’s Tale, 2006 resurrection horror
Haeckel’s Tale (also known as Clive Barker’s Haeckel’s Tale) is the twelfth episode of the first season of the television series Masters of Horror. It originally aired in North America on January 27, 2006. George A. Romero was originally supposed to direct the episode but was replaced by John McNaughton because of a scheduling problem. The script was based on a Clive Barker short story first published in the “Dark Delicacies: Original Tales of Terror and the Macabre” anthology.
DVD Cover: Haeckel’s Tale (Masters of Horror, John McNaughton)
In a time when the laws of science battled the secrets of magic, medical student Ernst Haeckel (Derek Cecil) believes the power of life, death and resurrection lay in his arrogant hands. But on a journey to visit his gravely ill father, he finds shelter in the home of an older man and his seductive young wife (Leela Savasta) who cannot be fulfilled by mortal hungers. Somewhere in the darkness of a nearby necropolis, a defiant necromancer (Jon Polito of Barton Fink, Miller’s Crossing) will now summon them all to an orgy of the undead and unleash the ultimate depravity for those who do not heed the warning of Haeckel’s Tale. Directed by John McNaughton in association with horror legend George A. Romero, this startling mix of erotic desire and gut-ripping horror is adapted by series creator/executive producer Mick Garris from the short story by Clive Barker.
Rotten Tomatoes – Synopsis of Haeckel’s Tale
In this chapter of the Masters of Horror series, director John McNaughton presents Haeckel’s Tale, the story of a pompous young med student who thinks that all mysteries can be solved through science. This thinking changes, however, when a trip back home (involving corpses and orgies of the undead) stirs up all kinds of erotic and gruesome desires that cannot be explained by textbooks.
Watching Haeckel’s Tale
Haeckel’s Tale begins with a young man, Edward Ralston, visiting an old woman — Miz Carnation, a necromancer who may be able to revive his deceased wife.
The woman advises him that the process could be dangerous, since she can bring only the body back and not necessarily the accompanying spirit! She insists that Edward listen to the entire story of Haeckel’s experiences to aid in his decision. Thus begins her tale about medical student Ernst Haeckel, a story which takes up most of the show.
“I am a man without God,” Haeckel brags to the older man. The young man is apparently a free thinker.
Ernst Haeckel theatrically removes a white sheet to reveal a cadaver, the body of a young woman who died over a week ago of “consumption”. Haeckel claims to be able to resurrect the girl by directing the power of lightning just right, a la Frankenstein. “Watch this!” he shouts, and pulls the lever, delivering the electrical current to the body and setting it on fire. (What a great way to treat a corpse.) Haeckel extinguishes the flame with a sheet, but only after hideously disfiguring the corpse, burning the body beyond recognition.
”May God forgive you,” the old man said.
Just after the burning of the body, Chester shows up at Haeckel’s place with his beef for sale and recommends consulting with a necromancer – to which Haeckel replies, “I place no faith in the magic and the supernatural. I believe in science, not fairy stories.”
“Well, science and magic seem the same thing to me…we should be careful talking about necromancers.” An argument about science vs. supernatural ensues.
Next we see Haeckel attend a carnival-like show of a performer calling himself “The Great Montesquino – Necromancer”, and thus the show begins: “I am here to tell you that the dead can live again! I now hold the secret, learned from the shaman of Zanzibar, to bring back the dead – a skill I do not use lightly.”
A basket is dragged out from under a small tent. “Behold, death!” A dead dog is displayed; the condition of which – especially the neck and head – demonstrate that the dog is definitely dead. Haeckel is front and center, so he looks at the dog closely and agrees that the dog is dead.
Montesquino closes the basket, chants, pokes the basket with the stick, and the basket starts moving. The dog starts snarling and sounds angry, desperate to get out of the basket. When the top is lifted, we see an angry, zombie version of the retriever. The menace is quickly killed, first with a stick and then with a gunshot.
Haeckel believes the dog’s resurrection is a well-rehearsed trick using puppetry and voice-throwing tactics, and the old man berates him for being closed-minded to magic and the supernatural. He turns down an offer of a bottle of whiskey or wine in exchange for the trick’s secret.
Traveling down a forest road, Haeckel chooses to rest and grab a bite at the worst possible spot. After taking a bite of bread, he smells something and starts looking around. Something gross drops onto his bread still in his hands. He finally looks up to see a rotting body, dead for days, hanging from the tree by the neck, dripping a green substance that probably smells as bad as anything. Who was this dead man? “Pederast,” says a sign attached to the dead man’s body. To nasty effect, some green goo drops from the corpse right onto the lips of Haeckel.
Later, comfortably set up under a tent and a fire in the rain, he squishes a large spider in his hand and says “I shall one day make you live again.” He is then scared by rats and also by a sudden visitor, who apologizes for scaring him and warns him that it would not be wise to stay here tonight. Walter Wolfram then introduces himself and accepts the apology of Ernst, and invites Ernst along for a dry place to spend the night.
At his home, Wolfram introduces Haeckel to his female companion, an incredibly beautiful hot young brunette named Elise. He is obviously trying to set the two up, making comments such as “Isn’t Mr. Haeckel an attractive man, Elise?” The older man soon retires, leaving Haeckel alone with Elise. She soon retires without incident.
Later Wolfram tells Ernst to avoid impure thoughts of Elise because he could not even begin to satisfy her. But then he confides in Haeckel that neither could he, Wolfram, satisfy the woman.
Later Haeckel and someone hear a noise and find it to be the previously dead dog. It is again killed, but the corpse continued to be animated regardless of how hard it was hit, or how crushed and mangled the corpse became as a result of beatings, shootings, and being crushed with a large rock.
The continued animation of previously dead corpses is taken to the extreme in this movie. I read about this being a very shocking and extreme movie, but until the dog showed up a second time, I was not sure exactly in what manner the movie might be considered extreme.
It’s also one of the most explicit Masters of Horror episodes. Elise is engaging in noisy foreplay with a group of zombies. There are topless scenes aplenty, and best of all, the brunette is a knockout.
But for an episode of Masters of Horror that’s shocking, disturbing, and horrific, I believe Imprint may take the lead. To me, Imprint’s visuals were disturbing to the point I decided to get rid of it immediately because I could not imagine wanting to watch it again.
An infant child proves to be very dangerous, even deadly.
Later we are treated to more sex between Elise and the zombies.
Finally, the woman reaches the end of the story and we get back to the original storyline.
Things happen.
Review of the Book Haeckel’s Tale is Based Upon
The script was based on a Clive Barker short story first published in the “Dark Delicacies: Original Tales of Terror and the Macabre” anthology.
The Burbank, California, bookstore Dark Delicacies is world renowned for its singular dedication to horror. Using the bookstore’s reputation to attract both celebrated and lesser-known horror authors, owner Howison and veteran anthologist Gelb have assembled the first collection of original short horror fiction bearing the shop’s imprimatur. The opening tale, by the legendary Ray Bradbury, recounts the fate of a corpse irresistibly pulled from the grave by the call of the living. The final story, by horror master Clive Barker, reports a nineteenth–century scientist’s grisly encounter with zombies. In between those appropriately chilling bookends, such veterans as Ramsey Campbell and Whitley Strieber rub elbows with such relative newcomers as Steve Niles and Rick Pickman. Two standouts, Lisa Morton’s story of a solitary abalone forager stumbling across a mass murderer, and Playboy cartoonist Gahan Wilson’s about a macabre artist whose grim subjects may be all too real, sell the volume all on their own. Indispensable for both horror fans and, of course, Dark Delicacies’ patrons.
Movie Reviews
DVD Active – Review of Masters of Horror Vol. 4
Slant Magazine – Review of Haeckel’s Tale
DVDTalk.com – Review of Haeckel’s Tale
Masters Of Horror: Haeckel’s Tale comes really close to greatness a few times but the flaws in the script keep it from being as good as it could have (and should have) been. The movie looks great and it features some decent performances but without the story there to pull us in, it just doesn’t resonate.
Dread Central – Review of Haeckel’s Tale
The Trades – Review of Haeckel’s Tale
Absolute Horror: The Best in Bad Horror Movies – Review of Haeckel’s Tale
Evil Dread – Review of Haeckel’s Tale
Standard Movie Resources
Amazon.com – Haeckel’s Tale
Wikipedia – Haeckel’s Tale
IMDB – - Haeckel’s Tale (62/100)
Other Movie Resources
Killer Kittens – - Haeckel’s Tale
References, Resources – Other
Necromancer definition – WordNet® 3.0. Princeton University. 16 Mar. 2009