As the horrors of World War II continue to resonate throughout our collective memory, writer/director Ben Parker mines that time period for his historical action/horror film “Burial,” and finds an original concept within that well-known milieu.
Using a framing device set in London in 1991 that reminds us of the ways in which Nazism still permeates throughout the culture, Parker tells the story of Anna Marshall (Harriet Walter), an older woman who captures a skinhead intruder in her home. He’s heard a rumor about what she was doing at the end of the war, when she was a Russian intelligence officer known as Brana Vasilyeva (Charlotte Vega). With the intruder sufficiently immobilized, Anna decides to share her story.
Despite the weighty themes and political questions, “Burial” is a straightforward narrative about a group of Russian soldiers with one job to do: transport a highly sensitive package from Berlin to Russia for Josef Stalin. Every night, they have to bury this crate in the ground as they camp, unaware of its contents, just knowing that Stalin needs to lay his eyes on what’s inside. It’s not long before they’re waylaid in rural Poland after an attack by a mysterious sniper, and the situation spirals out of control when a few members of their group splinter off to slake their thirst for booze and celebration.
