’Burial’ review: Dir. Ben Parker [FrightFest]

Ben Parker’s directorial debut feature, Chamber, wowed the Arrow Video FrightFest audience when it screened at the festival in 2016. Then in 2019, a film based off of one of his stories and directed by Travis Stevens, The Girl on the Third Floor, did the same. Parker now returns to FrightFest with his second feature as director, Burial. 

The story begins at Christmas 1991. An elderly woman (Harriet Walter) is sitting in front of the television, the BBC news blasting out. Her peaceful activity is interrupted by an intruder, but she easily manages to get the upper hand. It is quickly revealed that there is more to her than her appearance suggests. She has been purposefully targeted for something that happened in her past. With the intruder tied up, the old woman begins to recount her story to both the captive audience in front of her and those watching her on screen. This sequence is a nifty beginning and one that generates immediate interest in this character and her story. It’s not often audiences see an elderly woman overpower a man at least half her age. It poses the question – if she is capable of this, what else can she do?

This question is answered as the story travels back in time to Berlin 1945. Though the war is still in motion, Hitler has been killed. The news is yet to break and a small group of Russian soldiers are given the task of taking his remains to Stalin in Moscow. Amidst the group is Brana (Charlotte Vega), one of only three in the team that is aware of the nature of the cargo that they are transporting. The mission has some very strict rules: they must keep what they are doing top secret, and the body must be buried each night. The latter causes friction between the men and Brana. This friction intensifies after they make a stop-off near a small town. They find themselves under attack from a werwolf army and, with the help of the Polish Lukasz (Tom Felton), must protect their bounty as well as make it to morning. 

Whilst Burial features a group of people named werwolf;  these are not the type of werewolves that the FrightFest audience might be expecting. The name Werwolf was given to a commando force instructed to operate from behind enemy lines. This isn’t Dog Soldiers with Nazi’s. Any expectations of potential supernatural elements thrown up by their name never materialise. Burial instead draws its horror from the realities of war. Given the current situation within Europe, the messages that Parker conveys have extra resonance. There is never really a winner at war, just a side with fewer fatalities. Some, especially in the FrightFest audience, might feel a little cheated by the lack of traditional monsters. Parker’s decision though crafts a film that is more dramatic in nature and one that allows the harsh truth of war to percolate in the mind. 

Parker’s previous film, The Chamber, looked stunning. Set within the confines of a submarine, Parker did plenty to create interesting frames and angles. In Burial he has far more space to play with and so the camerawork is bolder and richer. Drone photography has been utilised to perfectly set up the geography. Much of Burial is told within and around woodland and Parker captures the eerie nature of trees at night. For chunks of the film, the visuals are full of dark forestry beneath an inky sky. It is within one of these moments that a stand-out silhouetted attack occurs. Later comes a scene overpowered by smoke that highlights Parker’s talents for creating dynamic and atmospheric shots. 

War films are often told as stories about men, and though there are far more male characters featured, Burial is Brana’s story. She has something of Ellen Ripley circa Alien to her character. From the start she is one of the only members of her team that takes the mission seriously. Obviously she’s one of only a handful that understands the vast importance of their task, but Brana comes across as being stern regardless. Surrounded by men who want to have celebratory drinks and encounters with women, Brana is constantly battling those who she should be considering allies. There are plenty of gender politics explored within Burial and Brana makes for a strong example of the resilience of the female mind. 

Whilst it is not at all the type of film that the FrightFest audience is likely expecting to see, Burial is a fantastic drama. Perfectly explaining one of the biggest and truest horrors of our world – war – Burial offers the viewers plenty of food for thought. 

Burial was reviewed at Arrow Video FrightFest 2022. Burial will be available on digital from 26^th September.