 Here’s something that can be filed
in the “love it or hate it” drawer. Cemetery
Man usually inspires reactions from “the last
great Italian zombie film” to “worthless pretension,”
rarely anything in between. I must admit that I hold a bias
towards the film: a friend sent me a dub of it on an old VHS
and I watched it on a weekly basis for about a month straight.
But that was about 10 years ago and my VCR died shortly thereafter,
a casualty of a particularly gummy porno tape.
Now, Cemetery Man (originally titled Dellamorte
Dellamore, literal translation Of Death, Of Love)
finally makes its ways onto DVD in a package that is, sadly,
a bit lacking on all fronts.
Rupert Everett stars as Francesco Dellamorte, a strapping
young lad who oversees the cemetery in a little town called
Buffalora. The only thing that Dellamorte does to pass the
time is read the phonebook, pal around with his mute, mentally
handicapped assistant Gnaghi, and blow the brains out of the
living dead. You see, the dead have started to rise from the
grave after a week of rotting in the ground – some more
sentient than others. And whether they’re trying to
gnaw the flesh off the living or escape their plots to go
back to their cushy political jobs, they’re all ungrateful
bastards that need to be put down.
Due to Francesco’s odd lifestyle, the whole town is
abuzz with gossip, mainly surrounding his apparent lack of
genitalia. This shows the cultural divide when it comes to
people who work with the dead: in America, morticians can’t
stop raping the corpses; in Italy, morticians are sexless
mutants with the inability to rape anyone living or dead;
and I hear in Soviet Russia, the corpse rapes you!
(You can’t imagine just how much I hate myself right
now for making that joke.)
 Of
course, the rumors of Dellamorte having a Ken-doll-area are
untrue. In fact, his pessimism is shattered when he comes
across a beautiful widow, mourning for the death of her elderly
husband. With the personification of female beauty (Anna Falchi,
simply credited as “She”) presented to him, Francesco
is instantly in love and manages to engage in a late night
rendezvous atop her husband’s grave with the woman.
Dead Uncle Grandpa, obviously not an understanding man, breaks
free and does away with the woman. “Nothing will separate
us,” She announces, “not even death.”
An ominous message that She will be back from the dead? Well,
yes and no. Not only does she come back in a zombie state
(and still managing to look damn sexy, but that’s my
own sick problem), as Dellamorte starts to lose his grip on
reality She manages to come back an additional two times,
once as a cold woman with a fear of the male member (Dellamorte
starts taking medicinal injections to lose his sexual prowess),
and also as a young prostitute who needs to pay off her college
tuition.
 Meanwhile (note: great word use to move over to plot-B), Gnaghi
becomes obsessed with the Mayor’s recently deceased
daughter and mills about the cemetery in waiting for her eventual
return. While Dellamorte’s own relationships turn sour
before they even start, Gnaghi’s romance with a severed
head flourishes.
Unsuccessful in loving the woman who keeps coming back to
him and back to wallowing in his own misanthropic despair,
Francesco starts to see visions of The Grim Reaper, who suggests
that if Dellamorte wants to ensure that the dead stay dead,
why not just shoot the living in the head to prevent them
coming back in the first place?
And that’s when things start to get a little weird.
The horror/comedy genre is a tightrope act, and usually results
in combining splatter with slapstick, but what always worked
for me with Cemetery Man was that, while
certainly not slouching in the gore department, the comedy
stems from the characters rather than just having someone
slip on a few body parts. You have Rupert Everett deadpanning
throughout the entire film no matter the situation, and French
rock  star
François Hadji-Lazaro turns in an entertaining performance
as Gnaghi, a character that basically can be summed up as
“fat, retarded mime” but who comes across as sincere
with Lazaro’s wide-eyed goofiness.
With its collection of weird characters, odd settings (despite
the fact that it was filmed in a real cemetery, it still looks
intentionally like set) and its eventual dive into surrealism,
the whole film plays out like a dreamy fairy tale. It’s
easier to accept what goes on in the film because the “anything
goes” tone has been established from frame one. Horny
Doppelgängers? Why not. Flying severed heads? Hell yeah!
Presentation
While not a bad transfer, Cemetery
Man is rather grainy. However, it is sharp
enough to the point where you can see the monofilament attached
to certain flying special effects, and the color seems to
be fairly accurate. But on the audio side, we get a messy
5.1 soundtrack that is basically stereo being pumped through
every speaker without separation – even the dialogue
is present in the surround channels. You’re better off
cranking up the duller but evenly mixed 2.0 surround track.
 Extras
Not much offered on the disc. There’s
an Italian Trailer advertising the film (was there
even an American trailer?), an in-depth Michele Soavi
biography text screens, and the documentary Death
is Beautiful, which is a fair summary of director Michele
Soavi’s work and the origins of the Dellamorte character.
There’s a lot lacking in this 20-minute collection of
interviews though. Mainly Rupert Everett is nowhere to be
seen, and there just isn’t much to be said about the
actual film itself, be it the process of making it, the finished
project or the reaction of the film.
Lastly,
there are a few trailers for Anchor Bay releases,
including Freaked,
the surprisingly decent Elm Street 3 knock-off Bad Dreams, Visiting Hours (Shatner!) and Warning Sign.
The
Bottom Line
The DVD isn’t the special edition
that I dreamed about, but it’s nice to have the disc
anyway. Gory, goofy and romantic, Cemetery Man is a film that constantly shifts tones, yet is ruled by dream
logic throughout. You’re either going to go along with
it, or be left scratching your head and yelling obscenities
at the television. Both reactions are understandable.
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