CEMETERY MAN
(DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE)
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1996 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): 1/2
CEMETERY MAN is an English language horror story by Italian director Michele Soavi. It tries to be erotic, funny, supernatural, and shocking. It succeeds with the later. This is a gross picture with few redeeming features. I can not think of them now, but I am sure there must have been some.
CEMETERY MAN tells the story of Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett from DUNSTON CHECKS IN) who is the watchman at the Buffalora Cemetery. He is assisted by an enormous and gross half-wit known as Gnaghi (Francois Hadji Lazaro). I hope never to see this terrible actor again. Watching him is painful.
Dellamorte has a problem. As soon as his guests arrive, they do not politely stay buried. Instead they rise from their coffins, and he must split their heads open to make them stay dead. The is done with brains exposed. Best to eat before you see the show.
Dellamorte is a philosopher and a playboy. He muses that, "at a certain point in your life you realize you know more dead people than living." An intellectual he is not although he is a college graduate. He says that, "I haven't read more than two books in my whole life. One I never finished, and the other is the phone book." This is one of the few lines in the script by Giovanni Romoli, and based on the book by Tiziano Sclavi, that is actually funny.
Most of the humor is macabre sight gags. If you find extreme grossness humorous, you may like it. To me when Gnaghi eats with food pouring out of his mouth onto his chin and clothes, I was not impressed. When he constantly drools, I do not find it cute. The low point of the humor is that when Gnaghi meets girls that turn him on, he throws up on them, literally.
Let me describe a typical scene so you get an idea as to what this uniquely bad film is like. One of three women known only as "she" and all played by Anna Falchi takes Dellamorte into an ossuary. There she kisses him but insists they kiss each other only through thick flowing veils. A skeleton pulls her blouse partially off, and then she takes Dellamorte to make love on top of her recently buried husband's grave. Supernatural small torches like large insects keep interrupting them.
The scene switches to a view from inside the husband's coffin. He pushes the top open and steps out of his grave to attack them. He has large vines growing through his body. He starts realistically chewing off large sections of skin from his wife's body. Dellamorte stops this by grabbing a cross and splitting the husband's head open with brains and blood flying. Sickening enough for you?
As Dellamorte puts it to Gnaghi toward the end, "pass this town is the rest of the world. What do you think the rest of the world looks like?" I take just the opposite view and wonder why the rest of the world had to look at this town through this movie. There are people who love these Italian blends of horror and comedy, but I now know that I am not one of them if this monstrosity is representative.
CEMETERY MAN runs 1:40. It is rated R for sex, nudity, some bad language, and lots of gore and violence. I would not want my teenager to see it. I suggest everyone avoid this show like the plague. I give it 1/2 of a * only because did not quite reach the threshold of pain I reserve for zero star films, but it did come close.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: May 5, 1996
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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