Review of Cemetery Man (1994) by Tony H — 29 Jul 2012

In 'Cemetery Man', better known in Europe as 'Dellamorte Dellamore', poor old Rupert Everett (before he was famous), has to deal with a pesky plague of corpses that return to life on the seventh night of their burial in the graveyard of a small "Italian" town of Buffalora. Although there isn't a single word of Italian spoken in the film, apart from the words "Dellamorte" & "Dellamore", the Italian setting is unmistakable. At first, the premise sounds great. It promised a return (or at least a nod) to the good old days of 70's Italian gore classics, like 'Zombie Flesh Eaters' or 'Zombie Creeping Flesh', but unfortunately, after the first 25 minutes or so, it descends into a mish-mash of the unintelligible and the aimless.

Honestly, I do understand why this movie would have a decent following, but the film really doesn't know which direction it's going in. It continually wanders off down blind alleys and gets itself lost. Even the basic premise that the film is hung on is never fully fleshed out...so to speak and is completely abandoned half way through the running time. Likewise, the side story of Everett's hopeless infatuations with several women (all of whom are Anna Falchi) never seems to know what to do with itself and therefore one is left with an unsatisfying taste in the mouth, when the end credits roll.

Unfortunately, the film's characters don't save the day either. Everett comes across as an annoying foppish Englishman (totally out of place in the Italian setting), with an inbuilt detachment from the whole project. Falchi is, of course very striking, but couldn't act her way out of a paper bag and every other character is there to make up the numbers it seems. Except for Everett's monosyllabic friend and work colleague Gnaghi, who's played greatly by Francois Hadji-Lazaro and is easily the best thing about the movie.

"Gna!".

But, while 'Cemetery Man' fails to deliver on its promises, it does hold a certain spell over the viewer. It's atmosphere is not without merit and in fact it's a far more interesting movie than a large percentage of the dross that gets the green light every year and in a way, its aimlessness is one of its charms, in that you truly never know where the film is going to go next. The problem is though, is that you get the feeling that the director Michele Soavi wasn't 100% sure either. I haven't read the book that the film was based on, but I'd wager that there are a number of departures from the novel's narrative. Either way the film veers from the superbly weird 'Mr. Vampire' like atmosphere one minute, to absurd, inane and extremely annoying idiocy the next.

It also difficult to know just who Soavi was thrusting his picture to. As a bizarre pudding of zombie horror, comedy, romance & eurotrash, the film promises everything on the one hand and delivers nothing with the other. Simply because none of the themes are expanded on and are discarded willy-nilly. The zombies are few and far between (and are completely forgotten about), the comedy is not funny, the romance has no chemistry and is aborted all the time and the eurotrash is just not trashy enough.

'Cemetery Man' is, in no way, a complete failure though due largely to the previously mentioned atmosphere and I'd recommend it for that (and Gnaghi) alone. But it is certainly not in the same stable as weird euro horror of the 1970's / 80's and is sure to disappoint many who will come at it from that angle.

Either way, it's probably a movie that I will revisit sometime in the future, but I'll almost surely come away from it feeling the same way. Confused, unsatisfied and a little short changed.