Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery Man) (Demons '95) (Of Death, of Love) poster & wallpaper
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Rupert Everett, Francois Hadji-Lazaro, Anna Falchi, Stefano Masciarelli, Mickey Knox ... see more see more... , Clive Riche , Fabiana Formica , Barbara Cupisti , Patrizia Punzo , Anton Alexander

Achingly romantic and creepy-funny, this funereal fantasy from the director of La Chiesa (1989) is unlike any Italian film in memory. Rupert Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte, a lonely cemetery caret... read more read more...aker who just wants to get out of his small town of Buffalora. His assistant and sole companion, Gnaghi (played by famed French musician Francois Hadji-Lazaro) is an overweight cretin who speaks only in grunts, and the dead people outside are rising from their graves as zombies and trying to have him for breakfast. This situation, coupled with all his other problems, gives Francesco a real complex. His troubles are compounded when he meets a series of mysterious women (all played by the beautiful Anna Falchi) whom he loves before they die tragically. Soavi's film is based on a graphic-novel, Dylan Dog by Tiziano Sclavi, but Soavi's more obvious influences range from Jean Rollin's La Rose de Fer (1973) to Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990). Barbara Cupisti (of Soavi's Deliria) has a small role, and the film also benefits from Manuel de Sica's memorable score and excellent pacing by editor Franco Fraticelli. This is a film to savor and it will go down as one of the most striking Italian genre efforts of the decade, despite some weak effects work by the normally reliable Sergio Stivaletti. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi

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77% liked it

8,826 ratings

Critics

63% liked it

27 critics

R, 1 hr. 40 min.

Directed by: Michele Soavi

Release Date: April 26, 1996

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DVD Release Date: June 13, 2006

Stats: 805 reviews

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Cemetery Man Cemetery Man Cemetery Man surveyor Ghigini Renato Donis as Augusto Martin Francesco Dellamorte zombie boy scout Rupert Everett and François Hadji-Lazaro Valentina cemetery man New Mayor Civardi Doctor Vercesi Claudio Fabiana Formica and François Hadji-Lazaro cemetery man François Hadji-Lazaro and Rupert Everett She Anna Falchi and Rupert Everett
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Flixster Reviews (805)

  • 366weirdmovies
    May 18, 2012
    366weirdmovies
    Groundskeeper Francesco Dellamorte works at an Italian cemetery where the major part of his duties is to shoot zombies in the head as they rise from the grave; the normalcy of his daily routine is wrecked when he falls in love with a beautiful widow, sees a vision of death, and h... read moreas to cope with his mute assistant's romance with an underage severed head. It's a lazy cliche to describe a surreal movie as "it's [insert name of familiar movie] on acid," but I'll do it anyway: DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE is DAWN OF THE DEAD on acid.
  • lewiskendell
    October 20, 2011
    lewiskendell
    "I'd give my life to be dead."

    Cemetery Man is definitely the weirdest "zombie movie" I've ever seen. Whether that's a good thing or not depends solely on the individual viewer.

    A cemetery caretaker and his big, mono-syllabic assistant watch over a graveyard where some of the ... read moredead have a habit of crawling out of their caskets seven days after they die and attempting to munch on the living. A beautiful widow (seriously, Anna Falchi is stunning in this and fortunately you get to see a lot of her) interrupts the duo's nightly routine of headshots and re-burial, and things quickly get even weirder.

    Cemetery Man is campy at times, there's lots of old school gore, black humor, murder sprees, a supernatural reoccurring love story, odd characters and shifts in tone (the first half is VERY different from the latter half). Imagine an Italian Army of Darkness meets David Lynch and penis injections (you'll have to see it to understand). Actually, "you'll have to see it to understand" is the best review I can give this movie.
  • RCCLBC
    May 12, 2011
    RCCLBC
    Interesting (if not fully unique) premise, wonderful sets and location shots and a very dashing young Rupert Everett as our "hero".

    This film knows exactly what it is (slightly creepy, often ammusing and totally cheesey) and just has fun being THAT. No delusions of grandure h... read moreere.
  • matertenebraum
    April 14, 2011
    matertenebraum
    There was a distinct lack of truly great horror in the nineties; but this film, Dellamorte Dellamore, tops the list of what little good ones there were. It's actually quite shocking that this came out during a huge depression for horror cinema, because it's easily one of the grea... read moretest horror movies I ever saw. Dellamorte Dellamore is a rather strange mix of horror, romance, twisted fairytale and comedy that isn't quite like anything else in cinema; horror or otherwise. The film knows that it's not the usual sort of film, and revels in this fact throughout. Dellamorte Dellamore buys itself a licence do whatever it wants through the fact that it so weird, and therefore no matter what the film throws at you; it's easy to just back and enjoy it. The film is directed by Dario Argento's talented understudy, Michele Soavi and finds an unlikely lead in Rupert Everett. The story follows Everett; the keeper of a cemetery in a small Italian town called Buffalora. He lives there with his assistant; the deformed Gnaghi, but this isn't quite the normal cemetery, however, as here the dead come back to life and it's up the cemetery man to put them back to sleep. When he meets the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his cemetery, however, it appears that his luck is starting to change.

    The atmosphere presented in this film is truly brilliant, and one of Dellamorte Dellamore's main assets. A cemetery is always going to present a macabre location for a film's characters to inhabit, but the Gothic design in this film ensures that Buffalora's cemetery is more than the horror film norm. The way that the smoke protrudes from the graves, along with several little special effects that director Michele Soavi has seen fit to implement all help to give the film that unique ambiance that it portrays so well. Soavi has given this film it's own style throughout, and even the zombies adhere to it. Soavi's zombies, like the rest of the film, don't stick to convention and rather than being covered with blood, falling to pieces of screaming "brains!", these zombies really look like they've been underground, and also manage to tie in with the downbeat tone of the rest of the movie. A lot of imagination has gone into Dellamorte Dellamore, and almost every sequence is soaked in it. It's things like the way that the cemetery man's assistant takes the mayor's daughter's head from her grave and puts it in the television that makes Dellamorte Dellamore what it is, and not just any other zombie movie.

    Horror movies aren't known for great acting, but Dellamorte Dellamore breaks convention once again on that front. Rupert Everett puts in a performance that goes over and above what audiences have come to expect from him given his earlier roles. Like the rest of the film, he just fits in; and if you'd never seen Everett in anything before, you would think that he made this kind of movie all the time. The fact that he isn't essentially a horror film actor only makes the performance even more impressive. Anna Falchi stars opposite him in three different female roles, and looks absolutely great in all of them. The rest of the cast is made up of lesser-known actors, with the very odd François Hadji-Lazaro standing out most among them. Director Michele Soavi started out working under the great Dario Argento, but the few films he has directed himself show that he is a bigger talent than his resume lets on. Here, for example, he has created a film that absolutely stands on it's own. Dellamorte Dellamore goes beyond the title 'horror film', and comes out in a sub-genre all of it's own. Films like this don't often come to the attention of the mainstream; and that's a shame because originality like this should be praised to high heaven. Dellamorte Dellamore is a film that is impossible to ignore and, providing you can find a copy, ignoring is definitely not the recommended action!
  • flixsterman
    August 15, 2010
    flixsterman
    Cult-ish zombie bizarreness that never takes itself too seriously. Dellamorte Dellamore runs the entire gamut, from 'absurd' to 'fantastic' and just about everything in between.
  • ceWEBrity
    November 17, 2009
    ceWEBrity
    Wow, I have no idea WHAT this movie was going for. I guess the easiest read is as a giallo throwback, but then what's with the bizarre existentialist twist toward the end? I guess it's a pretty good philosophical theme for a zombie movie to explore, but frankly, the movie is too ... read morefucking stupid to make any good of it. The date on the back may read 1996, but the continuity is straight out of 70s Italy, and some parts of Cemetery Man benefit more than others from this. The movie is a success when it gives way to Rupert Everett capping zombies with ridiculous poise, or sweet virginal young girls getting decapitated by buses, not so much during a "deep" and life-affirming ending lifted more or less from Citizen Kane (!!).

    I enjoyed this more or less, but it's attempting way too much as a tongue-in-cheek homage, or it's a general failure if it's actually attempting to be a legitimate horror comedy. It's no classic, but it may be fun to throw on every once in a while, if only to show your friends some of the bizarre carnage that ensues.
  • superclerk25
    January 8, 2008
    superclerk25
    This is a weird little movie that I thought was interesting enough to buy and give it another half star.
    The story is strange and all but it stays with you.
  • FilmFanatik
    January 1, 2008
    FilmFanatik
    I've never seen a horror film that was so sexy and had so much heart. A true work of art.
  • puffchunk
    October 23, 2007
    puffchunk
    This movie rules. Zombies, a hot chick, and it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. At all.
  • nuheart
    December 26, 2006
    nuheart
    The first (and only, as far as I know) existentialist Zombie movie.

View All Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery Man) (Demons '95) (Of Death, of Love) Reviews

Critic Reviews

Anton Bitel
March 5, 2012
Anton Bitel, Little White Lies

[it is] far closer to the hermetic enigmas of Last Year in Marienbad and the snowglobe microcosms of Citizen Kane than to more generic fare, and the result is an elegantly eccentric folly - playful, p... Full Review

Steve Biodrowski
October 21, 2008
Steve Biodrowski, ESplatter

This over-rated film has developed an undeserved cult reputation, based on a handful of good elements; ufortunately, there is no plot, so all you need to see is the trailer or, at most, the first fift... Full Review

Cole Smithey
September 13, 2007
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

"Cemetery Man" (1994) is a quirky blend of romance, lust, surrealism, horror, and black comedy which transcends the work of better-known Italian horror maestros like Dario Argento thanks to its grotes... Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson
July 13, 2006
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

The film leans into modern comedy, but it also passes through moments of genuine longing and even existential crisis. Full Review

David Nusair
June 24, 2006
David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews

...[peppered] with one incomprehensible sequence after another... Full Review

Dennis Schwartz
June 20, 2006
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Its appeal is mostly to an audience that can appreciate its gross-out camp humor and can overlook that it's a pointless exercise. Full Review

Steve Rhodes
May 27, 2006
Steve Rhodes, Internet Reviews

Monstrosity. Full Review

Michael W. Phillips, Jr.
May 27, 2006
Michael W. Phillips, Jr., Goatdog's Movies

Has a satirical undercurrent that's easy to miss; I think this is where the film is most intelligent. Full Review

Nick Davis
May 27, 2006
Nick Davis, Nick's Flick Picks

Like Shaun of the Dead as rewritten by Eugène Ionesco.... Has the surface qualities of a spoof, but none of its comfy core. Full Review

Christopher Null
May 23, 2006
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com

a blend of zombie gore, sex scenes, and tongue-in-cheek comedy Full Review

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