The Ghoul (T. Hayes Hunter, 1933)

This British horror-comedy's story, on paper, looks a lot like another Boris Karloff horror film of the same period, The Mummy. Both films are about British Egyptologists who acquire items stolen from an Egyptian tomb, which causes a character played by Karloff to rise from the dead, seeking revenge. That's where the similarities end, however. The Mummy was a Universal horror film with a studio budget, set in Egypt and shot on Hollywood sets, presented in an elegant, serious style. The Ghoul is a lower-budget British production with a more rough-and-tumble visual presentation, way more comedy, and a story that goes in a much different direction than its Mummy-inspired beginnings.

Noted Egyptologist and professor Henry Morlant (Karloff) is dying. He has possession of a jewel stolen from the tomb of Anubis, which he believes will give him the gift of immortality after his initial physical death. Meanwhile, an Egyptian man named Aga Ben Dragore (Harold Huth) has been tracking the stolen jewel and discovers that Morlant has it, leading him to the Morlant home. Morlant instructs his faithful servant Laing (Ernest Thesiger) to bandage the jewel to his hand, so it will be buried in the tomb with him. Laing's not so faithful after all and steals the jewel after Morlant's death, hiding it in a jar of coffee grounds. Morlant's lawyer Broughton (Cedric Hardwicke) suspects Laing of stealing it and has him tailed, though Broughton may have ulterior motives of his own.

To further complicate matters, Morlant's surviving heirs, a niece and nephew, Betty Harlon (Dorothy Hyson) and Ralph Morlant (Anthony Bushell), from two separate, feuding sides of the family (the feud started when Ralph wrote an insulting Christmas letter) show up to claim their probably nonexistent inheritance. Also, a vicar who gets on everyone's nerves, Nigel Hartley (Ralph Richardson), mysteriously insists on hanging around even though his offer to give Morlant his last rites was refused, and a friend of Betty's, Kaney (Kathleen Harrison), tags along as well, immediately falling in love with Dragore.

Things then take a turn for the horrific when Prof. Morlant returns from the dead, seeking revenge for the theft of his jewel even though he stole it, too. (To be fair, in his initial convoluted immortality plot, he gives the jewel back to Anubis after his death so she can bring him back to life. Somehow, he's able to come back to life anyway for reasons I don't entirely understand, though it's in hideous ghoul form.)

All this hullabaloo leads to several moments of dry British comedy, most of which is still funny. Karloff's ghoulish makeup looks great, and a scene where he carves up his own chest is pretty gruesome for 1933, but the comedic moments generally work better than most of the horror elements. The cast is skillful, funny, and talented, and it's great fun seeing Karloff and Thesiger sharing the screen again. They worked together on James Whale's The Old Dark House and would work together again on Whale's Bride of Frankenstein a few years later. The Ghoul is not in the same league as those two classics, but it's a pretty good time.

The British production was fortunate to have Karloff, and the film was marketed as the Hollywood star's glorious return to his native country. It was to be a brief return. Karloff was involved in a contract dispute with Universal Studios and filmed The Ghoul while a new contract was being negotiated. After a satisfactory resolution, Karloff returned to Universal, ending his one-film run as a free agent.

Director T. Hayes Hunter was an American from Philadelphia and a former stage manager who started directing in the silent era, moving to England in 1927. He made only a handful of sound films, retiring in 1934. His specialties were melodramas and thrillers, but The Ghoul was his only horror film. 

Burial Ground aka The Nights of Terror (Andrea Bianchi, 1981)

One of three movies released in some European markets as Zombie 3, Burial Ground (also called The Nights of Terror, Zombi Horror, The Zombie Dead, and Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror) was my second exposure to the films of Italian weirdo Andrea Bianchi. Angel of Death, the other Bianchi film I've seen and reviewed for this site, was a mostly terrible Nazisploitation action/horror film, though it boasted the great actor Fernando Rey (making some quick bucks for a half-day of shooting) and a leotard-adorned karate man with a perm who beat up Nazis with his karate skills and who was so pumped about being asked to join an elite Nazi-fighting unit that he karate-kicked all his students in celebration. There was also a weird subplot about Nazis creating half-man/half-animal hybrids in a secret lab. Anyway, that movie was shit with some entertaining moments. This movie is not particularly great, either, but it has better cinematography and pacing and is a lot more entertaining, though, sadly, there are no karate men in leotards in this one.

Burial Ground is a cautionary tale about getting so hopped up on learning about the ancient Etruscans that you unwittingly cause a zombie infestation. Professor Ayres (Raymondo Barbieri) is staying in a room in a swanky Italian villa, studying the Etruscans and their belief that they could bring the dead back to life (I don't think this was an actual Etruscan belief). He decides to break into a crypt, as all legitimate scholars would have done, and accidentally unleashes a horde of zombies who eat his guts.

Some wealthy socialites arrive at the villa the next morning for a weekend getaway. The group is made up of three couples, Janet and Mark (Karin Well and Gianluigi Chirizzi), Leslie and James (Antonella Antinori and Simone Mattioli), and Evelyn and George (Mariangela Giordano and Roberto Caporali). Evelyn and George also bring their weird-ass son Michael (Pietro Barzocchini), a real seventh wheel and a major freakazoid. Michael is supposed to be a small child, but he's played by a diminutive 25-year-old man. (Also, the American guy dubbing his voice for the English-language print is hilarious.) Bianchi cast an adult man because the character of Michael is insanely horny for his own mother, especially her breasts, and because the film is mostly nonstop blood and guts. Bianchi thought he'd catch a lot of flak from the authorities for putting an actual child in the mix. Barzocchini is a strange boy/man-looking dude, and his presence gives the film a surreal, oddball touch. I'd probably have called the police if a small child played the part, but I don't know how my local authorities would have handled it. "Hello? I'd like to report an aesthetic crime that happened in Italy in 1981."

The socialites enjoy a fine meal and some Italian-dubbed-into-English something-clearly-was-lost-in-translation conversation, and then retire to their respective boudoirs to have some hot sex. The couples are massively horny in the film's first third. They all seem to be having a sexy good time, but weird adult child Michael interrupts his parents' lovemaking by slamming open the door, staring at them silently for several minutes, and then calling for his mother, his eyes fixated on her breasts as she puts on clothes. I don't really know what the filmmakers were going for with this incest angle, or why they were going for it. Weird stuff.

Unfortunately for our horny socialites, sexy times end when zombie times begin. For the rest of the film, they have to fight off an encroaching horde of the living dead, assisted by the villa's maid and butler, Kathryn (Anna Valente) and Nicholas (Claudio Zucchet). The zombies follow most of the standard zombie conventions, though they are covered in a lot more worms than your average zom, with one major exception. These undead freaks know how to use tools, and they work together using these tools to get into places other zombies couldn't. This is bad news for horny socialites and the people paid to serve them.

That's pretty much it. The rest of the movie is a zombie-battling festival of violence. No real subtext or subplots or character development. Just people killing zombies and zombies killing people. It's fun, it's dumb, it eventually ends. Nice work, everyone. What's up with the incest stuff?