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 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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