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.
As the story rolls along things gets even weirder, Dellamorte encounters two doppelgangers of She that he gets involved with, both end badly, and Valentina's grieving father discovers her talking severed head in the basement, and he's not into the idea of Gnaghi marrying his daughter's disembodied head! Also, the Grim Reaper reappears and tells Dellamorte that the dead are his domain, and to stop killing them, that if he wants to stop the Returners he should kill the living instead, which he does, shooting a group of guys who have propagated the rumor that he is impotent, before going to a hospital and murdering the staff there. Like
American Psycho there's some confusion about if he is actually committing the murders or not, because a city clerk named Franco (Anton Alexander,
The First Omen), who Dellamorte has been confiding in, admits to the committing the string of murders. There's also a WTF-is-happening-here ending that I think the yuletide horror
Krampus borrowed from pretty heavily.
I fucking love this movie, sure there's a lack of logic and some ambiguous threads that don't all add up when the end titles start roll, but it's such a richly atmospheric and deeply gorgeous looking film, not to mention very well-acted by Hadji-Lazaro and Rupert, that logic and tidy story threads aren't something I really cared about, I just enjoy it a bunch. The tone balances horror and comedy quite well, Rupert specifically nails the macabre but humorous tone down quite well, if he had delivered something other than what we got I could see this going tits-ups easily. Also, Anna Falchi aside from being a truly gorgeous woman holds her own in the mix, offering a heady mix of macabre sexuality and unknowable beauty, in three different roles!
Soavi was a protege of Dario Argento, and worked with Joe D'Amato as well as Terry Gilliam, his keen visual style owes a lot to stylistic perfection of Argento, but also to the surreal imagery of Gilliam, and both influences shine bright here. We also get some awesome special effects, while it's not a gorefest compared to a lot of Italian horrors from the 80's, we do gets some terrific Sergio Stivaletti (
Demons,
Demons 2) gore-gags and set-pieces, including a zombie motorcyclist exploding from his grace riding his bike like something out of
Psychomania, it's quite excellent. The undead designs are inventive and cool, and perhaps the best effect of all is just the natural beauty of a totally nude Anna Falchi looking like fucking goddess, both alive and dead. If they had remade Tobi Hooper's space-vampire flick
Lifeforce in 1990's I would have nominated the stunning Falcho to step into the Mathilda May role for sure.
Audio/Video: Cemetery Man (1994) aka Dellamorte Dellamore makes it's worldwide 4K Ultra HD debut from Severin Films in 2160p UHD framed in the original 1.66:1 widescreen aspect ratio, advertised as a director approved 4K scan of the original camera negative with Dolby Vision HDR10 color-grading. This is quite an impressive upgrade for the late-era Italian horror-comedy, the source looks immaculate, grain is nicely exposed, and there are some very pleasing fine detail and textures in the close-ups. I did not notice any issues with black crush or other compression during my viewing, it's a well-authored disc. The inventive undead makeups, macabre set designs, and clothing textures really shine, as does the increased depth and clarity, far advancing beyond my now ancient Anchor Bay DVD. The Dolby Vision HDR enhances primaries quite nicely, the skin tones of the oft seen nude Anna Falchi are warm, supple, and lifelike, and the blacks are deep and inky.
Onto the audio options, Severin have gone all-out for Soavi's macabre comedy, offering English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) as well as both English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo and 5.1 surround, plus Spanish DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo, with optional English subtitles. The tracks are clean and well-balanced, dialogue is delivered cleanly with precision, and gunfire and other loud sound design elements like screams, motorcycles, and crashes are sharp and precise, plus the score by Manuel De Sica (
The Crimes of the Black Cat) sounds terrific. This 2-set edition does not include the soundtrack, but I did purchase the 4-disc UHD/BD/CD set direct from Severin and I am glad I did, it's a gorgeous edition and the soundtrack alone was worth the premium. Another cool feature is that the accompanying Blu-ray also sports the upgraded Dolby Atmos remix!
Extras kick-off with an Audio Commentary By Director Michele Soavi And Screenwriter Gianni Romoli, in Italian with English subtitles, then onto the 35-min At The Graves – Interview With Michele Soavi, also in Italian with English subtitles, in which he talks about reading Dylan Dog and reaching out to the author by phone, telling him he wanted to adapt it for film, but being told it had already been promised to another filmmaker, but that they met in person and he was gifted two manuscripts from the other including the unpublished "Dellamorte Dellamore", and five years later getting the opportunity to direct it. He touches on casting Everett, who the comic character was based on, and how they never hit it off during filming. scouting locations, certain inspirations for the set design, notes about the main characters,
The 21-min Of Love And Death – Interview With Actor Rupert Everett, in English, he talks about how being in this sort of made up for not getting to work with Antonioni or Visconti, how he was aware of the novel and the comic, and his displeasure of how it was renamed Cemetery Man for it's US release. He also gets into how financiers wanted to to be more commercial, but through whatever means that thinking went away. His like of the dry-wry humor of the character and the comedy of it all he found appealing, remembering the late François Hadji-Lazaro who played Naghi, and the characters relationship. Talking about how terrifically Falchi was, perfectly castm, Soavi's painterly inspirations for the visuals, appreciation of the amazing practical special effects work, including the old school foo's fire, and getting into the different shooting locations, including a cemetery outside of Rome with a tale of an actual real-life exploding corpse that occurred there during filming.
In the 24-min She – Interview With Actress Anna Falchi, in Italian with English subtitles, the still quite gorgeous actress speaks about being cast in the film, playing three different characters, and she feels she was well-suited for the roles. Being familiar with Dylan Dog via her comic collector brother, remembering the special effects. And specific lighting, the locations, infusing a deconsecrated cemetery where they found real human bones and experienced otherworldly encounters, recalling her favorite line from the ossuary sequence, And kissing Rupert so much her lips became sore. She also comments how professional Rupert was, and how difficult the gravestone sex scene is to watch even today! The last of the disc extras is an Archival Making-Of featurette that runs 19-min and features some cool behind-the-scenes video, and interviews with Soavi, Rupert, Falchi, Lazaro, and others on the crew. The only extra on the UHD is the audio commentary, all other extras are housed on the Blu-ray disc.
This 2-disc set from Severin is also available from Severin as a 4-disc set, which not only includes the CD soundtrack, but another dedicated disc of extras that are absent on slimmed-down 2-disc release. What you're missing out on is the 11-min The Living Dead Mayor - Interview with Actor Stefano Masciarelli; the 21-min The Music From The Underground - Interview with Composer Riccardo Biseo; the 19-min Resurrection - Interview with Special FX Artist Sergio Stivaletti, 26-min Cemetery Gates - Interview with Set Designer Antonello Geleng, and the 9-min Grave Encounters - Interview with Alan Jones, Author Of Profondo Argento. Thankfully I bought the limited edition 4-disc set, I think it's totally worth it for the extra content, rigid slipbox and booklet.
The 2-disc Collector's Edition UHD/BD set arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring key art by Eric Lee with metallic lettering on the logo.
Special Features:
Disc 1: 4K UHD (Feature + Special Features)
- Audio Commentary By Director Michele Soavi And Screenwriter Gianni Romoli
- Trailers
Disc 2: Blu-ray (Feature + Special Features)
- Audio Commentary By Director Michele Soavi And Screenwriter Gianni Romoli
- At The Graves: Interview With Michele Soavi (35:49)
- Of Love And Death: Interview With Actor Rupert Everett (20:37)
- She: Interview With Actress Anna Falchi (24:15)
- Archival Making-Of (18:32)
Screenshots from Severin Films Blu-ray:
Buy It!
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