Sam Panico Throughout the 1990's, Michele Soavi kept the traditions of Italian horror alive. Starting as an actor in films like Aliens 2: On Earth, City of the Living Dead, Demons and New York Ripper, Soavi would also become an assistant director to greats such as Dario Argento (Tenebrae, Phenomena), Lamberto Bava (Blastfighter and the previously mentioned Demons) and Terry Gilliam (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Brothers Grimm). Finally, he'd graduate to creating his own films, including Stage Fright, The Sect and The Church.Cemetery Man is based on Tiziano Sclavi's novel Dellamorte Dellamore (the best translation is "About Death, About Love"). Sclavi also created the comic book Dylan Dog, whose protagonist looks exactly like this film's star Rupert Everett (and which was also made into a 2011 film).Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett, My Best Friend's Wedding) takes care of the Buffalora cemetery. He lives in a shack, with death and his mentally challenged assistant Gnaghi his only friends. Quite frankly, his life sucks. Young punks in town tell everyone he's impotent. And his only hobbies are putting together a skull shaped puzzle and crossing out dead people's names in the telephone book.That said, he has a hell of a job to do. The gates of the cemetery read "For those who will rise again," and after a week, the dead rises from their graves, ready to kill the living. Francesco must kill them when they rise, even if no one wants to hear what a problem he's facing. Again, the townspeople think he's a moron, the mayor doesn't care and, according to Franco, the town's book keeper, he'd have to do a ton of paperwork if he really wanted the help.While watching a funeral, Dellamorte falls in love with a widow. He waits for her to visit the graveside of her dead husband, then takes her on a tour of the grounds. As they have sex on the graves, her dead spouse rises and fatally bites her. Or maybe it's a heart attack. Or maybe she isn't even dead. That said, seven days later, she also rises from the dead and Dellamorte must put her down as well.Meanwhile, Gnaghi falls in love with the mayor's daughter, Valentina. Even when she's decapitated, he won't fall out of love, instead digging up her head and starting up a romance. And the widow rises again, leading Dellamorte to believe that he was the one who killed her, not her husband. This causes him to either go insane or to begin seeing the truth, as the Angel of Death appears to him, begging him to stop killing the dead and only kill the living.Read more at bandsaboutmovies.com/2017/09/27/cemetery-man-1994/

Zbigniew_Krycsiwiki Michele Saovi's wonderfully weird and wacky, art house horror flick is also kind of a throwback to the Fantastique genre of the 1970s. Lush, beautiful cinematography, Surreal, Gothic piece about Francesco Dellamorte, engineer- oh, sorry, that's right, he doesn't like to be called that, he's a *caretaker*, at a small Cemetery, and he and his Joe Besser-lookalike helper have their hands full with The Returners, recently deceased who come back to life to devour the living, who can only be killed permanently by a bullet to the head. Dellamorte keeps experiencing visions of a mysterious, nameless girl with whom he falls in love, but then has to kill after she is attacked by a Returner. But she appears to come back yet again.....Atmospheric horror have some great effects, and some really weird touches of comedy, like Dellamorte reading the telephone books for fun and recreation, even going so far as to call them "classics"! (I thought I was odd because I read dictionaries for recreation) Things like that gives the film humour, as well as giving the characters nuances and depth, as does Dellamorte's inner monologue.

TheMarwood I've watched Cemetery Man three times since the mid 90's and years after my first viewing on VHS, I watched it on DVD with a hazy recollection of hating the film on VHS, but perhaps time and a new transfer would change that. It did not. Years and years later, with a hazy recollection of hating the film, I watched it on Blu-Ray to reevaluate this cult film and hopefully chalk up my dislike of it to a bad mood during previous viewings and of course, a new transfer couldn't hurt. I'll wait for whatever technology will replace blu-ray for a fourth viewing, most likely going into that viewing with the hazy recollection of hating the film on three viewings. With the exception of some breasts on display, there's nothing of value in this stinker. It's visually theatrical in an amateurish way and the humor is misguided and inept. The charismatic Rupert Everett is stripped of all charisma here and he's reduced to playing a one note boring character. Cemetery Man is an uneven mess, that's occasionally campy, fumbles metaphorical nonsense and some sort of ill conceived satire and most of all is deadly boring.

Layton September Given that in certain quarters of the hardcore horror fan community 'Dellamorte Dellamore' is considered somewhat of a misunderstood classic I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. After hearing so much about the movie and reading reviews raving about its merits I went in fully expecting a piece akin to horror classics like The Evil Dead and The Thing. My expectations were obviously too high, and had I watched it free of all the hype and cult murmurings I believe I would have enjoyed it a lot more.What I got was a fairly good little horror movie, though one that falls way short of those that grace the upper echelons of the genre.