Una notte al cimitero

If you could try to act poorly in a movie, you couldn't pull of a better job than the actors from Graveyard Disturbance.

What a dumb and useless film.

The scene where the "undead" zombie tries to touch the breasts of the female "undead" zombie and she slaps him across the face literally made my day.

How on earth can you take this movie seriously? How can anyone take this movie seriously?

The individual performance of the "teens lost in the woods" actors is by far the worst I've ever seen in my life, if you would try to act this poorly you couldn't possibly do it.

It's as if they intentionally went on a mission to create the worst move in cinema history.

Given the macabre subject matter (accompanied by a heavy-metal soundtrack), I knew I would be less enthused about watching this Bava effort. Still, the opening is not too bad, with even an effective empty coach ride shot in slow-motion and set against a misty backdrop that actually evokes the director's father's BLACK Sunday (1960; which Lamberto would himself remake 30 years later!). However, the teen protagonists of the film under review do not exactly set the screen on fire: after robbing a grocery store just for kicks, they head for a weekend of mindless fun but lose their way and end up smack in the middle of a cemetery! After abandoning the van in a river, they have to continue on foot – occasionally, a shady figure that is clearly observing them makes itself felt.

Anyway, they find a spot where to spend the night but one of the kids decides he cannot sleep in such a morbid atmosphere and, wandering about, stumbles on an inn! He wakes his pals and they go in, where the one-eyed and incessantly cackling bartender proves to be the same man we had seen spying the group. After they unwisely attempt a wise-cracking approach a' la AN American WEREWOLF IN London (1981; which they even refer to!), the teenagers notice a pot full of money and, asking about it, are told that those are the as-yet-uncollected funds of a wager coming to anybody making it though the night spent in the maze of catacombs underneath the inn. More out of sheer greed than a sense of adventure, the group accept to undertake this proposition.

From here on in, the tone is necessarily claustrophobic, heavy-handed (involving some flat EVIL DEAD-style attempts at gallows humor) and repetitive (since the characters often find themselves in a room already 'visited'). In the end, when the time is almost up (and after having encountered a variety of ghouls), one girl suggests that they follow their instincts rather than logic. The latter makes for a nice surreal touch but it arrives too late to save the film – especially when it transpires to not even have the courage of its convictions (interestingly, albeit unoriginally, the plot seems to be leading to a revelation in which the whole journey proves to be an acceptance of their own death by the protagonists – since we are shown their van being unaccountably found overturned by the Police – but, when the group finally emerge from the inn with their pockets filled with the bounty they had just won, these are taken by the oblivious law enforcers as merely additional loot, to the initial and long-forgotten petty crime, they will need to account for! Ultimately, for a much more artistically valid look at "A Night At The Cemetery" (the film's original Italian title), I would recommend Jean Rollin's THE IRON ROSE (1973)...

Made for cable-TV, a cheesy synopsis and director Bava who had just delivered his very weak "Demons 2" sequel...There were more than enough omens to warn me that this "Graveyard Disturbance" would be a waste of time and not worth purchasing. Yet, I'm a fan of most of the man's work and even a mediocre Italian horror film is still better than an over-hyped American one, so I gave it a look anyway. Since this is a TV-production, you can't really compare it with Lamberto Bava's more serious horror films and that also explains the lack of gore and controversy (aspects that are normally well-present in Bava-films). The story is light-headed, simple and cliché, introducing five rebel-teenagers who strand at a ghostly cemetery after a fleeing from their daily shoplifting routines. They meet a spooky looking bartender who offers them a bet they can't refuse. They're promised a pricey reward when they manage to spend the night in the eerie catacombs underneath the cemetery. The script (partly written by Lamberto Bava himself) is really weak and the dialogues are pitiful. The film is only made endurable by a few ingenious sequences (like the freak-family's dinner party inside the crypt), some atmospheric set pieces and professional make-up effects. The zombies look good and the giant eyeball scene is the only slightly suspenseful moment in the entire film. Bava also obviously attempted to insert humor and parody in his screenplay but this was far from effective (I didn't laugh, at least). I'm not even going to waste words on the acting performances as they are truly amateurish. Most cast-members are nonetheless Bava regulars who acted remarkably better in "Foto di Goia" and "Demons". Overall, Graveyard Disturbance is worth a peek in case you've already seen every other Italian horror film or when you're really bored.

Lamberto Bava's "Graveyard Disturbance" is pretty lame.It starts off with five teens doing their daily shoplifting in a grocery store.Evading the police they drive off in their van to eventually come to the creepy inn.They are welcomed by a strange man with glowing red eye,and soon take on the bet which they simply can't refuse.The script by Lamberto Bava and Dardano Sacchetti is mediocre,the acting is pretty bad and the gore is non-existent.There are some atmospheric moments and the zombies look very creepy.The scene,where someone falls into a pit of rotting corpses is clearly borrowed from Dario Argento's "Phenomena".Give it a look,if you have enough time to waste-just don't expect anything special.

Graveyard Disturbance (1987)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A rather bizarre, made-for-TV Italian film has five teenage punks shoplifting from a small store and then running off from the police. They end up staying the night in the woods when they discover a small club with a lavish treasure. In order to get the treasure they must "enter the gates" into a strange world of zombie/vampire creatures. If you're expecting gore and violence like in Bava's DEMONS then you're going to be disappointed because there's really not too much of anything here. We really don't get to any horror elements until the 45-minute mark and even then the stuff is very small, really boring and in the end really doesn't go anywhere. There is a decent twist towards the end of the movie but at the same time the ending is so bad that you really just have to sit there a few minutes after it's over with and wonder why they even bothered. The screenplay is really all over the place as its never quite sure what it wants to do and the more supernatural elements never really work because there's really no backbone to what's going on. Even the twist comes way too late and it really goes against everything that came before it and then we get cheated even more because what happens after wards goes against the twist. The performances range from bad to poor but Bava's direction does add a few nice touches. The first appearance of the zombie and how it comes to "move" is quite effective and handled very well. There are a few scenes with some atmosphere but just not enough to warrant the 96-minute running time. The zombie/vampire make up effects are decent for such a low budget film but they can't save the movie and in the end there's no real reason to watch this unless you have to see every horror film released in Italy.