Dellamorte dellamore

If you don't mind horrific, grotesque comedy that mixes the gore of George Romero and Dario Argento with the quixotic irreverence of Monty Python and Delicatessen, Cemetery Man provides the opportunity for a funny, strange time at the movies. Moreover this is a highly atmospheric film and Soavi's love for the horror genre shows in the composition of almost every scene. Soavi uses the time not spent on raucous action to cultivate a sense of atmosphere and craft surreal beauty in the limited setting of the graveyard and that in my opinion is as good as any to see this film.

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 greatest 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!

Rupert Everett plays a cemetery caretaker named Francesco Dellamorte.He and his mute sidekick Gnaghi spend most of their evenings shooting zombies in the head,or splitting their skulls in half with the shovel,having to dispatch them again when they tend to rise from the grave after seven days.Rupert falls for a mysterious beautiful young widow(the breathtaking beauty Anna Falchi).After the two of them have sex on her husband's grave,her husband wakes up and takes a bite out of her,sending her to the grave."Cemetery Man" is one of the best Italian horror movies ever made.It's so wonderfully stylish that it truly blew me away.There is plenty of gore to satisfy fans of Italian horror.Highly recommended.Michele Soavi is a genius!

In Buffalora, Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is the administrator of the local cemetery and he lives in a house by the cemetery with the intellectually disabled gravedigger Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) that is his only friend. The cemetery has a peculiarity since the dead reanimates on the seventh night after their death and Dellamorte and Gnaghi together hunt them down. When a gorgeous widow (Anna Falchi) attends the funeral of her old husband, Dellamorte falls in an unrequited love with her. One day, he shows the ossuary to her stimulating her sex drive, and they make love on the top of her husband's grave. However he awakes and bites her, and when she raises, Dellamorte shoots her. On the next days, Gnaghi falls in love with the mayor's daughter Valentina Scanarotti (Fabiana Formica) but she is beheaded in a motorcycle accident with her friend Claudio (Alessandro Zamattio). Along the next days, Dellamorte meets two women that looks alike his deceased love, but his romance ends tragically. He decides to leave Buffalora with Gnaghi, but their journey abruptly ends.

"Dellamorte Dellamore" is an unconventional, weird, funny and cult black comedy. The surrealistic plot has a great cinematography, direction and performances. Dellamorte is a detached character and Rupert Everett is excellent. Anna Falchi is very sexy and has an amazing body. Unfortunately the dubbing is terrible. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Pelo Amor e Pela Morte" ("For the Love and for the Death")

Okay, forget the really cheesy American title ("Cemetery Man") and just pick it up if you ever see it. Anyone with an open mind and any mind at all should be able to like this film, if not for the bizarre story for Michele Soavi's incredible visual style, the perfect performances by Everett and Lazaro, or just as a plain, good old time.

"Dellamorte Dellamore" begins like a fun B-horror movie telling us of the care-taker of th Buffalora cemetery, Francesco Dellamorte. In the cemetery some dead people come back to life 7 days after burial, but, Dellamorte isn't too bothered by this, he just takes it as part of his job to put the dead back in the ground, answering his door with a gun in hand, ready to dispense some Grim Reaper-type justice. But, within the first three minutes we know from the visual complexity of the film that this won't be just any B-horror movie, and within the first ten minutes we get a glimpse of what is to come - a fascinating meditation on the difference (if any) between life and death, a philosophical look at insanity and loneliness, a recurring love story that grows more bizarre with each telling, and eventually a big old representation about how life is just what we make of it. The dead returning and the whole zombie thing is just a doorway into Dellamorte's world. Fortunately, it never takes itself too seriously, if it had it would be a dull bore, but thankfully Romoli throws in lots of wit and dark humor ("I'd give my life to be dead"), and Soavi never lets us get bored with his always moving, floating camera and elaborate but never over-done sets.

Everett gives one of the best performances in film history because it is so subtle, he delivers his lines with just the right amount of sarcasm, cynicism, and un-emotionalism (is that a word?) to pull off what was probably an incredibly difficult performance - but he does it perfectly. Francois Hadji-Lazaro, playing Dellamorte's mute and retarded assistant manages to build more of a character with his simple one word vocab of "Nyah" and his facial expressions than most big over-done actors/actresses in movies now-a-days. Anna Falchi is mainly there to provide mysteriously beautiful looks, which she does, in all three of her roles and all of her many lives and unlives. Soavi was the protogé of Italian horror-stylist Dario Argento, but in "Dellamorte Dellamore" he comes fully into his own with his own bizarre and incredible style. This isn't just a case of the student copying the teacher, in this case the student might have even surpassed the master. Ah, if only you could see one movie this life time.