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HORROR COMEDY BY MICHELLE SOAVI
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RUPERT EVERETT IN " Dellamorte
Dellamore "(1994) AKA " CEMETERY MAN" DIRECTED BY MICHELLE SOAVI
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DEATH APPEARS TO FRANCESCO
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CEMETERY MAN 1994 Italian in English105 minutes rated R for violence blood sex
Original title "DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE"
Tagline: Zombies, guns, and sex, OH MY!!!
“ I haven’t got time for the living ! " Francesco
Cast: Rupert Everett || Anna Falchi || Francois Hadji-Lazaro || Mickey Knox || Fabiana Formica || Clive Riche
|| Katja Anton || Barbara Cupisti || Anton Alexander || Pietro Genuardi || Patrizia Punzo || Stefano Masciarelli
|| Vito Passeri || Alessandro Zamattio || Marijn Koopman
Warning !!! there are scenes of violence & rotting Zombies & a brutal accident of a bus load of Boy Scouts which crashes
into a motorcycle & there's a mass shooting & a couple of girls burned alive & some disturbing sex scenes on a
freshly dug grave & in an ossiary . Definitely not for everyone. There is lots here to offend many ; it even shows the
main character smoking cigarettes Heaven Forbid !
“ Cemetery Man “ is one of those hard to define films which cannot be easily categorized which helps explain why
it didn’t get a wide release in Canada or the US but did much better in Europe. The film could be described as being
a synthesis of Franz Kafka & Samuel Beckett & Luis Bunuel meet George A Romero & Dario Argento or is it Ingmar
Bergman of The Seventh Seal meets Peter Jackson as in his film “ Dead Alive”. It is an entertaining film on
several levels from comical to chilling & disturbing. It is one of those films which can get under your skin or can be
watched as just a fun romp. It is one of my favorite films .
“ Cemetery Man “ is a surreal horror comedy steeped in an existential world view which depicts the individual
as always alone & trying to make sense out of an incomprehensible world . It is filled with dream-like imagery of horror
& sensuality .
Francesco Dellamorte is the caretaker of a cemetery. He has a an assistant named Gnaghi, who doesn't talk much & has a
passion for raking up dead leaves & on meeting a girl he is attracted to; he throws up on her.
For some unknown reason the dead buried in the cemetery come back as Zombies after seven days.
Francesco refers to the Zombies as “returners “ who have to be destroyed by shooting them in the head or splitting
their heads open with a sharpened shovel or whatever is handy.
Francesco wonders if this is just happening at his cemetery or is it happening everywhere .
He makes various feeble attempts to report to the town’s bureaucracy what’s going on but gets nowhere .
He says “ the” living dead “ & the “dying living” are all the same cut from the same cloth
“.
The film as a commentary on human existence seems to suggest its meaninglessness , its absurdity & its randomness. As
Francesco says “ In the end they all end up here.” And he tells a young girl who asks whether the dead really
come back “ Go away, I haven’t got time for the living .“
Francesco’s favourite reading material is the phone book & he gets upset when Gnaghi burns some old phone books
& he scolds Gnaghi saying the old phone books are “ Classics”.
Francesco seems trapped in a Kafaesque nightmare . His reactions for the most part seems to be unemotional & deadpan until
he meets a beautiful woman at a funeral & falls in love with her.
FRANCESCO WATCHES AS HIS RECENTLY
DECEASED LOVER RISES FROM THE DEAD
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She of course dies but she reappears as different women played by the same actress. He never really gets to know these women
yet claims to have fallen in love each time but it is only skin deep because in his world that’s all there is. But being
in love Francesco for a few moments is able to feel & believe that maybe existence has a purpose or point but this emotional
experience is also at the least fleeting.
The humor is rather dark & becomes all the more bizarre for instance when during the mass funeral of a couple of dozen
Boy Scouts we are treated to a boys choir singing the song “ I shouldn’t have gone on the Boy Scouts Picnic“.
Like other surreal or absurdist films or plays several times the film seems to be over but then continues on but avoids
being purely repetitive and so ventures into stranger territories of a mass murdering sociopath & a bit of Sadism .
And the assistant Gnaghi finds love & companionship with a singing decapitated head of the Mayor’s recently deceased
daughter who was buried in a glass coffin ala Snow White .
This is indeed an endlessly fascinating film .
Anyway this is a highly unusual & unique film & I recommend to those who prefer their films to be a little bit unpredictable
.
Other similar films I would recommend :
Kairo (Pulse ) ( 2001) Japanese, Dir.Kiyoshi Kurosawa drama horror to be reviewed soon before the US version comes out - it
is a wonderfully chilling film that creeps up on the viewer -
DEAD ALIVE aka “Brain Dead “ New Zeland ( 1993) Dir. Peter Jackson comedy horror
Meet The Feebles ( 1995 )New Zeland Dir. Peter Jackson - coming to a Blog near you
Return of The Living Dead ( 1985 ) US, dir Dan O’Bannon comedy horror
Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993 ) US, Dir. Brian Yuzna drama horror
Dead & Breakfast ( 2004 ) US, Dir. Mathew Leutwyler comedy horror
Shaun of the Dead ( 2004 ) UK ,Dir. Edgar Wright comedy horror
Dawn of the Dead (1978) Dir. George A. Romero
MAY ( 2002 ) US,Dir. Lucky McKee
Graveyard Alive : A Zombie Nurse in Love 2003 Canada dir. Elza Kephart
SLITHER
CANNIBALS: THE MUSICAL
Anyway that's all for now,
Take Care,
GORD.
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