CEMETERY MAN (1994) AKA DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE Severin Films Blu-ray Screenshots + Review
Read the full review here: https://mcbastardsmausoleum.blogspot....
CEMETERY MAN (1994)
2-Disc Collector's Edition
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
Label: Severin Films
Region-Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 103 Minutes 10 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Atmos, True HD 7.1, English DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo, Italian DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision HDR 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.66:1), 1080p HD WIdescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Michele Soavi
Cast: Rupert Everett, Anna Falchi, François Hadji-Lazaro
In what I would consider one of the last great Italian horrors we have the Michele Soavo (Stage Fright) directed Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) aka Cemetery Man as it was released here in the U.S., which is how I saw it at the theater, probably in 1995 at The Loft Cinema here in sun-baked Tucson, Arizona. It's based on Tiziano Sclavi's novel Dellamorte Dellamore, which was penned in 1983 but published in 1991, the main character Francesco Dellamorte also appeared in Scalvi's popular comic book Dylan Dog.
The story in the film takes place in the tiny Italian village of Buffalora where Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett, The Comfort of Strangers) stars as a outcast cemetery watchman who is tasked with dispatching the recently deceased when they rise from their graves. That's right, for reason never explained in the film the recently interred dead at this particular cemetery have a habit of rising from their graves as the flesh-craving undead, or Returners as Dellamorte refers to them, within seven days of being buried. This seems to be a secret as no one from the village seems aware of this peculiar local resurrection phenomena, and wanting to keep his job Dellamorte is quite effective at shooting the Returners in the face with his hand-cannon or destroying their brain with a well-placed shovel to the skull. He constant companion at the cemetery is the near-mute, dim-witted assistant Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro, City of the Lost Children), who lives in the basement of Dellamorte's dilapidated shack where they love on the cemetery grounds.
Things start to fall apart for Dellamorte after he encounters a gorgeous widow (Anna Falchi, Paparazzi) at the funeral for her recently deceased much older husband. She Dellamorte's awkward flirtations little attention until he mentions that the cemetery is home to a spectacular ossuary, which piques her morbid curiosity. It seems that She (she has no name in the film) is a bit of a necro-freak, and much the same way that Miss Lynn "Lassie" Honeywell from Porky's is turned on by the smell of teenage boys sweat, once she gets into a look at the decaying bones rotting away in the near-flooded ossuary she gets really turned on by the dread-filled atmosphere. Later her and Dellamorte have sex on top of a gravestone near her late husbands grace, but her dead hubby rises from the dead and take a bite out of her, seemingly killing her. When she rises from the dead he is forced to shoot her, later realizing when she returns from the dead (again) that she was not dead when he shot her, that he killed her, he falls into a deep depression, and starts to see a vision of the Grim Reaper.
Later while visiting town Gnaghi becomes smitten with the Mayor's daughter teen Valentina (Fabiana Formica), becoming so nervous when she talks to him that he throws up on her. Later that day the girl is killed in a horrific motorcycle accident when riding with her boyfriend Claudio (Alessandro Zamattio), who crashes into a bus full of nuns and boy scouts, which then drives off a cliff, killing them all! Needless to say the cemetery becomes quite active with undead motorcyclists, nuns and boy scouts all being buried there in short order. The effect here is two-fold, Gnachi ends up unearthing the severed head of Valentina, which for unexplained reasons can think and talk, unlike the other Returners. He takes her to his basement room and the pair start a very child-like romance that is sort of sweet and innocent. It also means that the cemetery is running amuck with the undead, which causes a lot of chaos for Dellamorte and Gnaghi as they try to keep up with the large number of Returners.