Cemetery Man (1995) Rating: 5.0 stars out of 5.0 stars
Cast: Rupert Everett, Francois Hadji-Lazaro, Anna Falchi Written by: Gianni Romoli Directed by: Michele Soavi Running Time: 99 minutes
Retitling of the Italian black comedy/horror Dellamorte Dellamore (meaning "of Death and Love") and based on the novel by Tiziano Sclavi, Cemetery Man features Rupert Everett as Francesco Dellamorte, operator of Buffalora Cemetery. Whenever someone new is buried in the cemetery, seven days later they return from the grave, hungry for flesh. Dellamorte and his mentally handicapped assistant, Gnaghi (Hadji-Lazaro), must shoot them in the head and rebury them in order to keep them from doing any harm. Between replantings, Dellamorte tries to make his best friend's seemingly perfect life miserable, most of the younger townspeople taunt him because they think he is impotent, and the mayor won't listen to his plight involving the graveyard.
When the most incredibly beautiful woman Dellamorte has ever seen (Anna Falchi) appears at his workplace to mourn the passing of her substantially older husband, he immediately falls in love. She rebukes him at first, but finally warms up to him, and they end up making love on her dead husband's grave ("I never kept any secrets from him" she explains when questioned as to why). Unfortunately for her, it's been seven days since her husband's passing, and he returns from the grave taking a large bite out of her arm before Dellamorte manages to ram a large metal cross through his head. Dellamorte incorrectly thinks she is dead, so when she seemingly comes back to life he shoots her, again incorrectly thinking it has killed her when all it did was graze her.
Dellamorte's life then turns upside down more than it already was. His assistant falls in love with still-living severed head of the mayor's daughter, a busload of dead boy scouts comes back to life (still trying to rub two sticks together!), and two women who look exactly like his previous love suddenly enter his life. Dellamorte snaps and kills the teenagers who taunted him and three prostitutes. All of the murders get blamed on his best friend, who confesses to those crimes and the murder of his own wife and children because he also snaps under the constant barrage of pessimism from Dellamorte. When Dellamorte tries to leave town to get away from all the madness, what he finds humbles but doesn't surprise him.
Cemetery Man is currently available only on videocassette and laserdisc, neither of which is letterboxed, effectively ruining many of the jokes and impressive visuals that were seen on the big screen. Director Michele Soavi uses the gothic statuary and shadows of the cemetery to great effect, and some of his wonderful visually striking imagery is lost in the transfer. A Japanese import was available letterboxed, but unfortunately, is no longer in print. It's a shame a decent letterboxed copy isn't available, because a movie this great deserves better. Unceremoniously dumped into theaters with a poor advertising campaign that inaccurately reflected the tone of the film, Cemetery Man was virtually ignored at the box office, then was unceremoniously dumped onto home video.
Cemetery Man was shot and dubbed in English (as many Italian films are) using the original actors, who just post synched every line, so those of you who don't prefer to read subtitles have nothing to worry about. I highly recommend this quirky little film to anyone looking for something a little different in his or her movie watching experience, especially if you are tired of the milieu of teen horror romps that Hollywood has churned out in the wake of Scream. It's nice to find a well written horror film that can combine gore, comedy, and human psychology as deftly as this film does. Originally presented in 1.85:1 (but good luck finding a copy of that anywhere).
Reviewed by Brian Matherly - bmath2000@hotmail.com AOL Instant Messenger: Widescreen25 The Jacksonville Film Journal - http://www.jaxfilmjournal.com/
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